Ugly, Speckled Sock Yarn

I'm calling you to the mat, Lana Grossa, whoever you are.  What UP with your ugly, speckled sock yarn?  I mean, really.

I'm outing my secret May Socktopia socks because I'm moments away from frogging them anyway.  I bought some crazy stuff from Astrid back in March, including a skein of Lana Grossa Meilenweit Multiringel in the 5110 colorway.  The colors were, uhm, much brighter than I expected.  In truth, I didn't really like what I got. 

BUT, when Gigi at Socktopia revealed the May themes, one being "Fiesta," I was all, "Oh dude, I totally have the perfect yarn for that."  Knit in a basket weave pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, I dubbed these future socks, "Mexican Blanket."  You can see why.

However, the yarn is filled - FILLED - with these ugly blue speckles, making my socks look like they got busy in my purse with an exploded ballpoint pen.  This can't be normal.  The picture of the knitted fabric on the yarn tag does not have blue speckles.   The tag shows beautiful, solid stripes - what I wanted.

I found this photo of a knee-high in progress in the exact same yarn and colorway.  Can't tell if they are as "dirty" as mine. 

So, at first I'm thinking that maybe this is a fluke, and I should send the yarn back.  However, looking closely as B's flapjacks, they also have flecks, only less so.   Is this a "feature" of Lana Grossa sock yarn?

The flapjacks are Lana Grossa Meilenweit Fantasy in the 4730 colorway.  In this colorway, the speckles almost give it a less machine-fab look.  Also, the photo on the tag shows a bit more, uhm, texture to this yarn.  Not quite speckles, but something.

So Long Serape

I was really keen to trot out my clever Mexican Blanket socks.  The colors and the pattern were just so perfect.  But, you know, I'm not going to knit a pair of socks I'm not digging just for a knit-a-long.  Besides, I have a whole skein of yarn in a colorway called, hello, "fiesta."  Perfect. 

I was thinking that Monkey would be festive.  I've been eyeballing that pattern since the dawn of my sock awakening.  The other day Cara posted a link to fiberjinx who came up with pattern modifications that eliminate the holes.  I'm not a big fan of holes in socks, so these mods sealed the deal for me. 

Here's where I need some help, though.  The Monkey pattern is sized for a women's medium, or 8" around the ball of the foot.  That's a full half inch bigger than my feet.  Is it possible to make these narrower?   Do I just cut out a whole pattern repeat and hope they're not too tight?  Will that mess up the instep?  Do we think that 100g/320yards of yarn will get me a nice length on the cuff? 

Help me sock knitter pros.  You're my only hope.

Comments

[Cara]

It's a pretty tight sock to begin with. Maybe go down a needle size when you get to the instep? Don't forget that socks are written with negative ease. I guess you could cut out a repeat and fill in with stockinette on the instep. It will completely change the look of the sock.

My sock yarn had 360yds and I had a 1/4oz left over after I finished both socks as the pattern specified. If you're cutting out stitches, that might help.

[Add Knitter]

I have to say that that speckling is a feature of self patterning faux fair isle, it happens a lot it seems:(

[Jen]

Cara: Thanks for the tips. I'm swatching with 2.5mm needles (the smallest I have at the moment), and the Celestial Merino I'm using seems thin enough. If that doesn't work, I'm looking at how to make the pattern 14 sts wide instead of 16. I have ugly practice yarn to experiment with now. ;) I'm also going to knit the perls per fiberjinx mods AND go toe-up. So, these are barely going to be monkey socks. Perhaps these are Monkeys after Mojitos.

Add: Bugger that's disappointing. Maybe they forgot to turn off the speckle machine when they ran the stripe yarn job. Get Knitted says that multiringel has been discontinued. No doubt.

[becky]

Maybe they had the speckle-filter on the camera when they took the picture!