Whining About Color

A few months ago I grabbed up this Trekking XXL yarn (Color # 311) at my LYS thinking it was gorgeous. It did look pretty in the skein. Knit up it looks not so gorgeous. I realized this after just a few inches on the first cuff but kept knitting just to keep it out of my stash.

The stitch pattern is a knit/purl V over seven stitches. The Vs are separated by a purl column.


The colors are not bright and clear. There are blotches of other colors in the bands, making for a muddy look in what I imagined would be bright colors. Why didn't I notice this in the store?

The original plan was to knit these as birthday socks for Daughter Heather, but these aren't nice enough for birthday socks. Good thing there's still almost two months before her birthday.


Little Sister Carrie has a birthday in April. She is Vegan and doesn't wear wool, so we're going to try some Panda Cotton, 55% bamboo, 24% cotton, 21% elastic nylon blend.

Her request was "I would LOVE some primarily beige/tan socks or (second choice) some primarily navy socks." Doesn't that sound easy?

After checking several online yarn stores, I ordered Sahara, the color in the picture. (This picture was swiped from the yarn store.) On my monitor it looks like beiges and tans. Perfect.


When it arrived, it was bright yellow with several shades of gold. Very pretty, but no one in my sock recipient universe wears yellow.

Online I went to try again. I tried several online yarn stores with large Panda Cotton color selections and couldn't find a beige/tan mix without some other color(s) mixed in.

Hummmm. Even in my picture, it doesn't look yellow. Sahara is the top color. Trust me, it's yellow.

I gave up on finding beige/tan and ordered a navy mix. The newly arrived color on the bottom is Mood Indigo.

The yellow is going to be a test pair of socks for me. Since I've never used this yarn before, it will give me a chance to get an accurate gauge and get a feel for knitting with the bamboo and elastic. Most important, I'll get to wash them and see what happens. Maybe they'll fade to beige?