Wollmeise

I've wanted to talk about Wollmeise for a long time now.

Wollmeise is sort of a mythological beast in the knitting world--rumor gets out and then people start wondering, "why does everyone talk about that yarn? I've never seen it." The more rumors you hear, the more you become entranced by it, and decide you must have some. This is definitely a yarn worth experiencing in real life.

The most luscious thing about wollmeise is the color. This yarn makes me want to knit things that I'd never dreamed I'd like--teal and yellow. Blue and orange. Brown and orange and a strange shade in between. Combinations of pink and blue, brighter than I would ever normally consider. The secret is the saturation of the colors--so deep and rich--paired with someone who is really really good at naming things evocatively. These skeins are positively drenched in color. The camera does not do them justice.

Some of them are stripier yarns, wildly variegated and undoubtedly gorgeous; but some of them are full of lovely and subtle tones, nearly solid, just enough to give shadow and depth to the cloth.

Wollmeise is in general fairly sturdy--it has a unique base, made of, oh, at least 6 plies. Your standard sock yarn is a 2 or 3 ply. The numerous plies undoubtedly help with the color saturation. They do make the yarn a bit splitty--or rather, it takes a few rows to get used to knitting with it and to not stick the needle through a strand every other stitch. It gives the yarn a different hand, too--it feels very solid to knit with, without much yield like you would normally expect from wool. Some people don't like this, claim it's like cotton--but it does keep your FO from stretching too much once washed, and once knitted up and given a soak the fabric softens and blooms (but doesn't fuzz nearly as badly as most merinos would--that's the multi-ply doing its work again).

These are my favorite socks--warm, well fitted, soft, and in colors that just bring me joy every time I see them. (they look slouchy here because they're being borrowed by a friend who was cold. I took advantage of her to take pictures of them in situ). Personally I was amazed at how they softened after I gave them a bath.

The challenge with acquire Wollmeise is that it is only sold in Germany, from the Wollmeise's website (and there's steep competition during shop updates, let me tell you), or from the Loopy Ewe's website (again, steep competition). My (fairly hefty) stash comes direct from the brick-and-mortar store that I visited in December, my last trip while I was working in Europe. A day trip, from Munich (beautiful city, great open air markets in winter, delicious food, fantastic gluhwein) with a few ravelers I managed to round up, who split the ticket with me (very kind of them!) though they did not want their pictures taken.

The store itself is magical:

So I wound my yarn up

and took it with me

started a sock :)