When Pam and I visited Little Knits in Seattle, Fulay put a ball of this yarn into my hands. I simply could not put it down. It was so soft and the colours were so lovely. It’s called Kauri Merino-Possum-Silk and this is the fingering weight. We rummaged in the box – with authorization – and I chose two colours, 02 Kea and 14 (I think) Red Waina. You may remember the two little mystery balls in my stash photos from that trip.
This yarn is a blend of merino, possum and silk. It’s extremely soft, and feels a great deal like alpaca. A bit of research revealed that it has other similarities to alpaca – possum is another hollow fibre, thus both light and warm. Evidently it also takes dye well, like alpaca, and that bit of silk gives it a lovely smooth gloss. More about the fibre itself right HERE and about conservation efforts HERE. I have mixed feelings about this stuff – it is a “kill fibre” – but let’s not get into that today. (If I had known the whole story, I probably would have just bought alpaca.)
I decided to knit a pair of mitts from MAGNIFICENT MITTENS, a book that is out of print but provides oodles of lovely eye candy. It’s taken me many versions over the past year or two to get to liking my cast-on – these mitten patterns are knit from the fingertip down. And here they are:
The red is leftover Hand Maiden Somoku. The red in the cuff and on the mitt itself is done in duplicate stitch, btw. I still have to knit the linings, but the mitts are lovely and soft and warm already. What do you think?
Pam T.
October 27th, 2009
Now those are beautiful! You aren’t really going to wear them, are you?
I didn’t think those two colors looked that good together when you bought the yarn, but you made them work well, and the red really pops nicely.
Yum!
Claire
October 28th, 2009
Thanks! I like them a lot, and who knows – if I ever finish the linings, I might just wear them! The cuffs seem huge, but they’re only half the length of the others in the book.
Maybe they’ll be really really warm…
d