This…
It was just an awful color.
So without wasting any time, I got down my trusty crock-pot and, with the help of 6 tablets of red Easter Egg dye, changed the color to this:
I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday morning (everything’s fine). I hate the tension and dread that accompanies these things, but my sane half knows they’re important...sigh...so off I went :) However, I also felt that in exchange for being a good girl, I should be able to reward myself a little too :) So I stopped at the mill shop on the way home.
In addition to the mustard wool, there was a gorgeous hank of deep red…
To round things out, there was also this:
But something puzzled me. The band indicated that there were 73 yards to the 50 gram ball. Good enough, that probably means it’s a bulky yarn. But looking for information on what needle size was suggested, this is what I saw…
Chatters is on for tomorrow evening. Come by and say hello!
Have a great weekend, all :)
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you said one of your finds was a ‘pale grey-beige’ and i immediately thought about how that so fits what is (unfortunately) my comfort zone- oh well, at least i didn’t look at the ‘harvest gold’ and fall into swoons! you do come across the most interesting finds at your mill store and then you turn them into such spectacular colors- my attempts at dying always have that interesting tie-dyed look (this look has on occasion extended to my efforts with the lady clairol as well- too bad that self-striping look never got trendy in the world of hair color!!)
i’m no help at all with the numbers shown on that ball band- since it is a bulkier yarn, i really can’t imagine using size 6 or 7 needles and making anything that is remotely pliable- it would be positively stiff i think, and i know that at least a 9 would work up a much softer fabric- i may be a lemming when it comes to actually creating anything, but i’ve always knitted by the seat of my pants when it comes to needle sizes and usually don’t pay much attention to recommendations on the band- surely that was stitch gauge though-
stay happy-
I would be in SUCH trouble with a mill shop near me. It’s bad enough to have a groovy little LYS within three minutes walking distance--but the prices keep me in check.
Barb - And you know? When I saw that yarn I thought, “Now that’s a Barb color :) But then I remembered you probably wouldn’t care for its thickness.
Well, I can’t tell you how pleased I was to know that I could turn $2 of crappily colored but otherwise nice yarn into something a little more acceptable with the application of about 35 cents worth of dye and a couple hours in the crock pot :)
Laura - And I’m jealous as all get out that you have a nice shop within walking distance! You might do better with a mill shop than you think. Yesterday’s entire haul came to the princely sum of $12.
Actually, I’m terribly grasteful for it because I wouldn’t be able to knit - not with nice stuff anyway - very often without it!
I was a contract knitter for a French company for a couple of years, and those symbols and numbers on the ball band are indeed standard European Union symbols for suggested metric needle and hook sizes… If it were stitches per inch/centimetre there’d be a grid symbol and it would be ‘m.’ for stitches and ‘rgs’ for rows.
One can only conclude that they got it horribly wrong this time… 
Liz - You’re wonderful! I think that’s solved my puzzlement because there is a grid further over on the band. At the top is 10 x 10 - centimeters, I assume. At the bottom is 19M - stitches, and up the side is 24R - rows. I would interpret that as roughly 19 stitches/4 inches or 4.75 sts per inch. I guess that would be about right for a worsted weight yarn, but I’m still going to work it on larger needles (9 US, 5.25 mm) so it can breathe :) It sure is lovely stuff!
Glad that helped - and thanks for the blog comment (yes, it’s a problem, but only for about 2 weeks in spring!).
73 m to 50 g still seems much more like a European chunky-weight than an Aran, which is what you’d expect with 19 sts/24 rows but would give you 85-90 m or so to the ball… Do you know if it’s a current yarn? If not, I do remember having to knit batwing jackets which would probably be waterproof (and, if wet, fireproof) out of pure wool chunky in the mid-to-late-80s… I’m surprised people could move in them…
I was about to say what Liz said - metric indeed it is!
Liz - I don’t really know anything about it but I suspect it’s older because I can’t find much information when I Google it. What does come up are the odd E-bay sales for Chanteleine yarns of other types so I’m guessing these aren’t around any more.
Too bad...if Goliath here (and doesn’t that name just scream big, bulky, chunky yarn?) is representative, they must have been very nice yarns indeed!
Nat - Normally I’d say I’m conversant in metric (if not exactly fluent!) but this one threw me. Getting old, I guess :)
Oh I absolutely adore that red. When I went shopping yesterday it was absolutely everywhere. I guess it’s the new “in” colour. How cool is it that we’re trendy? *plbbt*
Opal - Heheh...Fashionable? Oh heavens, we can’t be having that - people will talk! Now I have to figure out how to dye it mustard :(
