January 2011 - Lucy Neatby's Celestial Merino

They're done. It took a bit of doing since I was very focused on getting some SKA socks done so my review yarn took a while.



This is a great yarn to knit - top class. It's firm with a good twist and both soft and springy. Good stitch definition and no problems with splitting or frayed spots. I couldn't ask for better.

I was also very keen on the way the yarn was dyed. There are no stripes and no pooling - just flashes of colour. In the photos it looks as if there is barber poling, but in person, you don't really see it.

A little of this, a little of that

January has been my back to work, nose to the grindstone, git-er-done month. Except when it comes to knitting. I have four sets of socks on the needles and all of them are progressing .... well, shall we say, slowly. Now, the quilt I'm making for my daughter is undoubtedly part of that, but .. I digress.

Here's where we are:

Monthly sock yarn review: Celestial Merino



We're up over the gusset on the first sock. Now, I should be much further along: these are the easiest socks in the world to make and I enjoy every stitch. Don't have to think about them, don't have to worry if I'm following the pattern. I sit, I knit, I am. That's why I love my Toffee Socks. Nevertheless, you see where I am.

And this is why (or at least one of the reasons why).



My Come Together Socks. The Sockknitters Anonymous challenge for January is mosaic knitting, where slipping the stitches does all the work. It's addicting. I worked through my Harmony Guides for a stitch I thought would work, and this is the result. I call them Come Together, because two yarns coming together makes for a much nicer sock than when they are apart. The yarns are Phildar Preface (the black) and Sliver Moon Farm's superwash in Rio.

Do you ever wonder why sock knitting is so addicting? I remember thinking I would never get them right - now I don't think twice. I know that five years from now this will have passed as one of the crazes of the 21st century, when young women made and wore hand-knit socks, and there won't be the yarns we have now, but when it happens, I'll be set for life!!

Sock Yarn Review - progress

We are making progress. This is a very good yarn with an excellent hand. It has good stitch definition, and I am entranced by the way the colours have a faint barberpole.



The barberpoling shows up far more in the photograph than it does in real life. I need to take a photo of this outside in natural light, because I suspect the flash picks up some colours (blue, I think), more than others.

I've knit Lucy's yarns before (well, one of them) and I enjoyed it then - and I'm enjoying this one now.

January Sock Yarn

January's sock yarn is Lucy Neatby's Celestial Merino in Fiery Fuschia.



Lucy's site - Tradewinds Knitwear - states that her yarns are hand-dyed by a dyer in Nova Scotia with the colourways designed by Lucy. The Celestial Merino is 100% merino, 320 yards per 100g.

I've used this yarn before - it's soft, and I am expecting good stitch definition.

If you go to her site, www.lucyneatby.com, what she depicts as Fuchia is bluer than my skein.

Catch-up on December

December was a good month for knitting, but not a great month for writing about knitting.

December always comes with its own blessings and it's own challenges. Christmas is the great blessing. Every year I look forward to Christmas and our celebration of the birth of Christ. This year I was at the Cathedral for the service on Christmas Eve. As it has every year since I was a child, there is magic in Christmas Eve that has nothing to do with Santa Claus or presents. It was a cold, crisp evening, typical of the prairies, the cold of my childhood, and again this year, as I left the building, I enjoyed a deep sense of calm and hope. This is the dark part of the year, into which the light comes suddenly, and there is nothing that cannot be made better.

But ... and the but is always a big one..... getting there is always a great challenge in the eat what you kill world. I worked like a dog to get to Christmas. (As an aside, my dog appears to sleep most of the time. What it is this "work like a dog" thing? Dogs appear not to work at all.)

And so, I knit some before Christmas, but didn't write about it, because I came home every night to think more about getting to sleep than I did about sitting down at the computer.

After Christmas - now that was better. Off to Ottawa for visiting, needles in hand.

So yes, the December Sock Yarn Review is complete.



I like this yarn a lot - and I like it more in the knit fabric than in the skein. There is flashing and a minor bit of barber-poling - which I like. The colours stand out clearly.

There was the little issue of the cut in the skein, but there was only one, and the rest of the skein was well-plied and very even. I think it was an anomaly.

I'm looking forward to wearing these socks.