Sunday, April 19, 2009

Only Merino....

Several weeks back, my husband finally blew through the pair of Dream In Color socks I'd made for him in Cocoa Kiss. The skein was bought before their production went into massive quantities, so the colors were really spectacular and subtle. Don't get me wrong, I really like the DIC colors still, but they're a bit more beat-you-over-the-head now, in my humble opinion. Of course I adore Smooshy for its softness and the yardage is unbeatable, but I'm beginning to wonder about making plain vanilla socks with it. I have a few strategies I'm going to try - afterthought heel, two-color stranded socks to double thickness, maybe even the dreaded reinforcement thread - and we'll see how long that makes a pair last. The point of my going on and on about DIC Smooshy is that I've finally clued in to wool-only sock yarns - they either burn through too fast or they felt (on my feet). So, I pledged to myself that I was off 100% sock yarns in fingering weight for both my shop and my stash.



And then this happened.



And this.

The problem is that Merino, especially the Louet base (which these either are, or they're near enough as to be pointlessly alike), takes dye in such a spectacular way that, well, coveting things is already in my nature, and I suck at self-control. We've talked about the omnipresence of Louet, right? Well, I'm starting to not care. It's almost worth not having an original base yarn (boy, I'm stuck up today) to be able to play with color on that gorgeous Merino medium.

By the way, the Madelinetosh isn't for me. I swear.

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