Just When I Thought It Was Safe...

There are days I think it might help if they made superhero undies for grown ups.  I could have used a little Wonder Woman power today.  And I really needed the cool invisible plane.

So I opened the box from Mountain Colors and saw my beautiful un-skeined Crazyfoot yarn for the Gift Knits Snuggly Socks, and was thrilled.  It still smelled a bit of mordant (the stuff used to set dye, in this case largely vinegar), so I didn't ball it right away.  I let it breathe until this morning.  Then, out came the yarn swift and ball winder.

Well, I put the giant 1lb dye hank on the swift, and the swift promptly broke.  Ooops!  Ok, a little swift surgery later, I was back in business.  Then, I cut the ties on the hank.  Then, I started winding.  Strangely, as the ball reached the size of a racquetball, there was a yarn end, and the swift kept spinning, no longer attached to the ball.  I cursed, weighed the ball, and cursed again.  Only 27g.  It takes at least 45 of this yarn to make a man's sock.  Nobody wants to knit a sock with multiple ends.  I started winding again, thinking that was a fluke.

Not a fluke.  It happened again.  3 more times!  This is amazingly rare in the land of yarn.  (Like maybe one in 500 dye hanks.)  So I have 4 little mini balls of sock yarn, and then the rest of the balls for the club went very smoothly.  95g came out perfectly again and again. 

Because Murphy's Luck follows me like an Eeyore cloud, I had only ordered exactly enough yarn to fulfill the kit orders, so I was one kit short.  And they're supposed to go in the mail today.  That's not the toughest part.  No one in my area carries this particular yarn.  They carry the brand, but not the exact yarn.  Now what?  Have a club member wait until the company can ship some from Montana?  No.  (This is where I would have used the cool Wonder Woman Jet.)  Provide a different brand of yarn in a similar put-up?  No.  There is a reason these socks had to be Mountain Colors.  The pattern was literally designed for their style of colorshifts in the wool.

And then I remembered.  I made the first two swatches for these socks in Mountain Colors' sister sock yarn, Bearfoot.  The pattern works equally well in both.  So I trotted out to my LYS and purchased one skein of Bearfoot so that all the club kits could get into the mail on time.  As happens to me every time I'm in a yarn shop, I wanted every skein in the place, but I managed to stick to my plan and just buy the one skein.  I don't know if I'll be able to get to the Post Office in time today, but I made a valiant effort. 

Tomorrow, I buy Wonder Woman undies.

Snuggly Sock Preview

I know!  Gorgeous work knit by the magical and intrepid Colleen, Wonder Assistant.  She always makes my patterns look good.  (That's Colleen's foot in the photo.  Unless you're looking at this on your phone, it's probably close to actual size.  Her feet are tiny!)

This is the Gift Knit Kit Club pattern for February, Snuggly Socks.  Sized for both men and women, it is made from the incomparable Mountain Colors Yarn, Crazyfoot.  It's a very cozy sock in colors that can only come from Mountain Colors.  I love the way they blend!  It's an easy knit, but due to the yarn and the pattern, looks harder than it is.  It will definitely elicit comments of, "I can't believe you made these!"  If you choose to give them away, be sure to make another pair for yourself.

More beautiful Mountain Colors yarn in
in my Elk Mittens pattern.

I'd like to shout out once again to the lovely ladies at Mountain Colors, led by founders Leslie Taylor and Diane McKay.  It is a nearly all female workforce, and every part of the process at Mountain Colors is done by hand.  (I know.  I've been there and seen it myself.)  The yarns are terrific quality, and the colors take my breath away.  Thanks for all you do.

Like last month's gloves, the yarn alone for the socks costs more than the club members are paying for the yarn and the pattern,  (In my LYS, $26 plus tax for the yarn vs. $26 no tax for the club) and it gets delivered right to your door.  How cool is that?

Wishing you could get the pattern for yourself?  All club patterns will be released for sale 90 days after the club members recieve their kits.  Just wishing you could have the yarn? (I'm only slightly offended.)  Call your LYS and see if they carry it, as the colorways are truly magical in person.  They are available on line (at somewhat discounted prices) through Paradise Fibers.  Seriously, though, check the LYS first.  No computer monitor can show you these colors like they really look.  And we need to support our local knitting communities.

Ruffles for Lisa

I cast on a scarf for my BFF Lisa last night.  I'm using Crazyfoot from Mountain Colors Yarn, which is a nice sock yarn that comes in all the beautiful Mountain Colors colorways. 

I decided to work the scarf the long way, and to make it ruffle a bit from right to left.  I'm also working in some open stitches, to give it a bit of lace without becoming frothy.  These wonderful colorways lend themselves to simpler stitch work, as the really complicated stuff sometimes can get swallowed up in the highlights and shadows of the colors.  (The color sample above isn't Crazyfoot, it's Moguls. FYI.)

At first I was going to make this yarn into the Romantic Ruffle Scarf from yesterday's post, but alas, I didn't like the yarn and pattern together.  I wanted more of a vertical emphasis.  So that scarf will still be made, in a solid fern green with a thin chocolate edge.  This one will be something else entirely.

The only tricky part so far is laying hands on a really long size 6 circular needle.  The longest I have is a 29", and after a few phone calls to shops and friends, I finally found a 40".  A 48-54" scarf on a shorter needle is fine, but with subtle ruffles, one edge is going to be very long (like 1200 stitches or more.  I started with 250, and it's already a little busy!)  I hope they all fit!

I'm doing simple stitches, a slight ruffled effect, with a little openwork. Keeping it simple, I hope to avoid the colorway and the pattern competing for attention.  In a perfect world, it will make one unified, attractive piece.  I'll share pics as there is something to see, and the pattern when I'm finished tinkering with it.  Anyone else using Mountain Colors right now?