A Skein of the Blahs!

My friend and I have a light-hearted back and forth about colour choices. She attributes my love of quiet neutrals to my inner "boring Brit", where I see her love of loud primaries as a reflection of her gaudy Brazilian tastes. Xenophobia aside, we have been reasonably good influences on one another and I have, over time, begun to buy yarn in colours other than " light dusty pink".

I was an especial glutton of the visible spectrum when I decided to buy Noro Kureyon sock yarn while in San Francisco. Noro is known not for the softness or durability of its yarns, but solely for the use of colour. I picked a skein that had bright pink on greens and yellows with light and dark versions of each contrasting against one another. I have found this colour-way on colour cards and also seen how it knitted up in projects by other Ravelry users. In both cases, it is always vibrant and diverse in the appearance of colours.

I picked a pattern that wouldn't compete with a bright, multi-coloured yarn and started knitting my sock. The cuff came out dark green and then became more of a pastel green before turning into a slate colour. But that was okay; the most interesting yarns have some dull colours off which the brighter ones can play. Halfway down the leg a very dull salmon colour and greenish-yellow appeared before reverting to a mucous green at the heel. I am now well into the instep, and the yarn is still predominantly green; no sign of the bright pink that initially convinced me to buy the not-so-cheap yarn. I would never have dreamed such a visually boring sock could come out of such a brightly coloured skein. I couldn't have picked a more boring set of colours on purpose, English blood notwithstanding!

Adding to my woes, I made a major, and deeply stupid, mistake on the heel and so gave myself the chance to knit the sinusitis-fabulous green section twice. This was made more delightful by the fact that the yarn itself has all the tactile qualities of an emery board.

I shouldn't whinge too much. I am promised that once I knit up the yarn and hand wash the sock, it will magically convert from feeling like a fitted loofah into something I would want near my skin. And as for the colours, the socks may come in handy if I ever need to visit an otologist - "My snot was this colour, but now it's more like this one."