Color Confusion

There may be a few knitters out there holding their breath to see what I found so terribly difficult about the left-hand Mermaid Glove, (design originated by Steph at Craftoholic). I truly promise that I will spill the details soon. I don't want to scare anyone, but I will tell you that I started to write it down and realized that I couldn't describe what I did! I actually need to make a couple of sketches. So hang in there, I really am working on it!

In the meantime color confusion has shuffled my knitting queue again. Well in this case it's resolution of confusion. Wollmeise in the color Gewitterhimmel has been officially approved for my sister's pair of Mermaid gloves, so those have jumped to the top of the list. I thought I would be ready to start them weeks ago using Cherry Tree Hill in Moody Blues, but when the wool arrived it was nothing like the picture. My sister vetoed and I went back to searching for just the right color.
These past few weeks have seen more than their share of inaccurate color communication. The picture above shows the two yarns I just mentioned all the way over to the right. If these guys looked like their website pictures, they'd be indistinguishable from each other! The other three had also kept their true colors hidden.

Named from the left, the three additional Wollmeise skeins are Veilchen, Poison Nr 5, and Krauterbeet. Su from WormSoup did the actual ordering to get these wonderful skeins all the way from Germany. When she posted their picture before shipping mine over to me, my heart sank. Lots of blues and greens, but none of the purples that have been calling to me lately. (See her picture on WormSoup.) Fortunately this was just another technical tease. When I opened the box here at home the purples had gotten back into the Krauterbeet and Veilchen. I still don't think they look much like the website pictures, but they look so much better in person! The Poison Nr 5 was also a very nice surprise, but not so well disguised.

Now I have to ask a question… Do you see the purple in Veilchen and Krauterbeet in my picture?! It's gone again, isn't it?! But the purple shows up in the sleeve of Comings and Goings in the background. What is this amazing dye that's been discovered by Wollmeise? If I painted myself in this particular shade of purple would I disappear from pictures? I can just imagine all the movie stars that will be walking around painted purple!

But getting back to knitting, the only conclusion I can draw from this experience is that buying yarn online is an adventure best taken on by the flexible and open minded!

A few more words on the Wollmeise, although please note that I haven't tried it out yet. If you're considering going through the extra effort to get your hands on this popular sock yarn, I'd say go for it, especially if you like knitting socks with very fine yarn. It's definitely a smaller gage than the Blue Moon Fibers fine sock yarn, probably closest to Lorna's Lace. And of course be prepared to be happily shocked by the brilliant hues.

It's interesting that both Lorna's Lace and Wollmeise offer exceptional color combinations, but they definitely represent the outlook of two completely different artists. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to meet the Wollmeise in person to understand. Certainly if you favor purple!

I'll probably be digging in on that Gewitterhimmel soon. I'm thinking that I'll knit the left glove first to make sure the instructions I've promised are accurate and truly represent the best ways to solve the various left glove design issues. (The first little monster was such a pain that I still can't believe I can't find some easier solutions!) But for the moment this next pair of Mermaids will have to wait while my fingers enjoy a bulky yarn break working on Comings and Goings.