Spinning intentionally: part one

I mentioned yesterday that I've just bought a copy of The Intentional Spinner, and that I'd like to start improving my spinning repertoire. With that end in mind, I had a look at my big drawer of random oddments of handspun, and came across this..... some three-ply I spun a few weeks ago, intending it for socks. The reason that this isn't socks is that, although I spun a three-ply to make it stronger than my last attempt, this wasn't a strong yarn. It's a bit underplied, and I don't think it would stand up to the kind of abrasion a sock gets every day. A perfect candidate for my first spinning experiment: a cabled yarn. I decided to simply cable the existing yarn with itself, turning a three-ply into a six-strand cable. This is thicker than I'd usually use for socks, but I wanted to experiment with some existing oddments , for speed as well as economy. I was feeling impatient, and not up to spinning miles of singles first. The first step: run the three-ply back through the wheel and add more twist, overplying it in preparation for cabling it back in the other direction.
Overplied three-ply on the bobbin...

Checking that I've got the right amount of twist to make a nice cable...

...and the finished ball of six-strand cabled yarn. It'll mess up the nice long colour runs I originally spun in this yarn, but it may make something useful out of it, which would be nice.

So far, it's a toe. It's a very firm, quite thick and stiff fabric, but beautifully smooth on both sides and I'm sure it'll be hardwearing. The trouble is now, that I'm not at all sure I've got enough yardage now that I've cabled it - I have a total of 124g, and this toe so far has taken 22g. Does that look like a third of a sock to you? I think I'll just have to be brave and keep knitting, and see how far I get. These may be the first six-strand cabled footsocks / short socks the world has ever seen...

Willow's not terribly impressed. She says any yarn's good for chasing.