Hybrid Finnish/Scottish Kilt Hose – Finished at last!
Wool socks in June?
Back in May I blogged about how I was determined to finish these socks over the weekend. I missed my deadline by a day but then realized that, since these were part of my husband’s birthday gift, perhaps I was better off keeping them on the bottom of my knitting basket and off my blog until the big day. So here they are, making their debut after months in the knitting (due to giving other projects precedence as they weren’t hard or time consuming to make). And yes, it is June and these are made of really densely knitted, durable wool…where is he going to wear them? Hiking up Monte Rosa of course! There’s still plenty of snow up on the glacier and this way at least I know his feet will be warm. Although I was initially worried by the weird look of the reinforced ‘Dutch’ heel and the stiffness of the fabric when these were fresh off the needles, they washed and blocked out beautifully.
The Wool Box’s Morron Bouton : the superhero of Italian wool
Workman’s fingerless gloves in Morron Bouton from The Wool Box – after 6 months of hard wear.
Detail of repairs made to the palm of the workman’s glove – while working on an interior restoration in Venice, a screw went awry and left a few holes that I repaired with some hand-spun.
This yarn, which comes in two weights (a light and a chunky), is an excellent choice for anything that needs to last. At Christmas I gave my husband a pair of fancy, fingerless gloves knit up in Berroco Alpaca Ultra Fine on U.S. #1’s. He was so pleased with them that he didn’t want to take them off; but, my husband is an artist and a custom furniture designer in addition to doing restoration work on historic interiors here in Italy. He needed a pair of gloves he could wear every day that would stand up to steel and wood, loading and unloading materials in rain and snow while still keeping his hands warm and the tips of his fingers free for texting and making phone calls (something he’s always doing). Morron Bouton proved itself to be the superhero of Italian wool, these workman’s gloves that I knitted up in January have survived hard use up through the end of May and they’re ready to go back to work in October. And, despite being such a tough wool, it never once irritated the tender skin on the inside of his wrists.
Do you see the luster in this yarn…6 months of abrasion, 8 hand washings in soap and warm water and not a single ‘pill’ and no sign of felting! At less than 9 euro per 200 yard skein (I ordered two and made one sock and one glove with each skein) I’d say that’s an incredible bargain. Do you have a ‘superhero’ wool?
wool in italy 