A sock yarn like none other

On Friday, I placed and order with Wollmeise. I've been seeing Claudia's sock yarn pop up in different spots all over blogland lately, and finally decided that I had to see it in person. (Just so you know, if you want to order any, you need to email her directly -- hoell-wellmann AT t-online DOT de. For us Americans this might not seem to make sense, but she likes to have personal contact with each of her customers, and her customer service is very good.)

On Monday morning, the delivery guy brought me a big brown box. Upon opening, I found this:
I'm a sucker for beautiful packaging, and this gorgeously gift wrapped parcel made my day. I was even more excited when I unwrapped it and found...

Click for info on colorways

That each of the colors were just as I had hoped (they're well represented on the Wollmeise site). It's impossible to truly capture this in the photo, but the colors glow and almost vibrate with saturation. The yarn itself is a firmly spun, glossy superwash wool, and it is unlike any sock yarn that I've felt thus far. I would love to know her base yarn and dying technique, because this totally blows everything else out of the water.

I'll review it further when I finally break into one of them to cast on. For now, they're strictly decoration only until I can get over my current infatuation with their looks.

The tiny sample skein on top of the package was of her single ply worsted. The color takes on that yarn a little differently. Not quite as vibrant, but still very beautiful. It's soft, and yet the staple length is long, so it should be pretty hard wearing. I'll definitely be purchasing a sweater's worth of that in the fall.

This is the current state of my mom's socks:
They look so funny off the foot, since they're totally ribbed, but I didn't feel like putting them on for the pic. (Pattern is Priscilla's Dream Socks from Favorite Socks, and also available for free download on the Interweave site, last I checked.)

And then here is progress on my Green Gables sock. I love how it's coming out. The color shifts are working exactly as I had planned. Handspun is always a bit of a surprise, so it's nice when that happens. (Pattern is Diagonal Rib, also from Favorite Socks.)

I've got spinning to show you too from the Sunday Spin-Along, but I'll save that for the next post. Have a great day everyone!