This…

...came home with me yesterday (among other things - more about that later).  The picture doesn’t quite do justice (if that’s the right word) to the true, antique gold mustard which was the actual shade.  Think of the gold kitchen appliances of the 70s and you’ll be in the right ballpark :) There are two hanks there, 7.2 oz (a little over 200 grams) and it’s nice wool.

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:

It’s not quite as bright as the picture seems to report and is closer to a copper than a true orange.  This is good :) And, for what it’s worth, I think the addition of just a tiny bit of green would have intensified the coppery appearance.  Anyway, I now have useable yarn!  I know the mustard was perfectly useable, but it wouldn’t matter how nice the wool was, I would never have knitted that color up :)

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…

...another 100 gram skein of nice wool.  It’s the same type as the mustard/copper but none of the hanks had labels or any information.  I know they’re wool because I burn-tested them when I got home.  Well, and the mustard wouldn’t have dyed so well if it hadn’t been wool!

To round things out, there was also this:

This is Chanteleine Goliath washable wool.  The color in the photo is pretty accurate, a very pale grey-beige - and if you’re thinking it likely won’t stay that color, you’re probably right.  There were 9 balls of this and as it was pure virgin wool (does that term make anyone else but me snicker?), washable and a good candidate for the dye pot, it was definitely coming home with me :) The yarn is springy and has a lovely, soft hand so whatever this gets made into is going to be really nice :)

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…

4 to 4.5 needles?  Since this is French yarn, at first I though 4.5 was some weird European needle size but pretty quickly I decided that it must mean 4 to 4.5 mm needles - that would make it a size 6 or 7 in US terms.  So I tried working this yarn with size 7 needles.  It’s doable, but not acceptable :) A size 9 needle would be way more appropriate.  All I can figure, is that the numbers on the ball band refer to stitches per inch.  It seems to me that’s the only way it makes sense.  Have any of you seen this sort of thing?

Chatters is on for tomorrow evening.  Come by and say hello!

Have a great weekend, all :)