Two strands are better than one

Last Thursday, Lynne, Martha and I were eyeballing sock yarn at the shop. My friend Dixie, who owns Yellow Dog Knitting, made a fabulous skirt from three strands of sock yarn plus a bit of super kid mohair. I've been coveting that skirt for quite a while. Then when it was time for the twenty four seven, I tried out a couple of variegated yarns held together. I never got to that one because someone liked my swatch so much they bought my second variegated yarn. Note to self: It's a yarn store, not my giant personal stash. Anyway, Ginni and I and then Amy and I spent a couple of hours swatching the most radical color combinations we could find.

There was some sparkly aqua, purple, and teal left over from my Fusion jacket that we swatched with teal, fuchsia, and blue Noro Silk Garden Sock. This was a great combination.

Then we tried it with a lime, purple and navy Berroco Sox yarn. Good.

The gray and teal Silk Garden Sock gave a nice effect overall - very subtle and understated.

That same grey Silk Garden Sock with the purple, lime and navy Berroco Sox was a big surprise to all of us. We thought it would be horrible, but it was really lovely.

The brown and mauve Sox was fabulous with a really vibrant Silk Garden Sock. It was an amazing marriage. I don't love the Noro sock yarns by themselves - too earthy to want to wear on my feet, but but in combination with other fibers, they lend an amazingly rustic quality to the super-smooth Sox.

After we swatched these weird combos, we pulled lots of obvious combinations. Having the experience of the weird ones, we could intuitively see what was going to be fabulous. For example, we understood how browns, blacks, and creams in this Noro would mute these super bright pink and purples.

The sheen and subtle hand-dyed colors of this Ellyn Cooper will give life to the fairly drab browns in the Sox yarn.

The photos really don't capture the beauty of these combinations - you'll have to come by the shop and see for yourself.