From my stash… I’ve been hoarding half a bag of Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boot Stretch # 717 for quite a few years. I didn’t want to knit it because I didn’t want to part with it.

(I’ve never watched that reality tv show – the Hoarders. I wonder if they’ve done one on knitter stashes???)

This is one of my all time favourties - royal purples, royal blues, turquoises. I mean, what else is there!

The plies in the yarn are independently coloured. That makes is difficult to look for, or find, a beginning of a pattern. But I think there may be no repeat – just an ongoing variation.

The pair shown is size Medium, knit with the 72 cylinder.The yarn is 70% superwash, 23% nylon, and 7% elité (elastic).  400m/100g; gentle wash and no dryer recommended.

I find it a wee bit finicky to handle – it is not tightly twisted – relying on the nylon rather than the twist for strength. It’s easy to split to plies when hanging a stitch. Or easy enough to snag if you’re cranking at Warp Speed 3.

I have (or at some point had) the entire series of colours. The others are all much plainer to my eye. This one – so much livlier!

Here’s a few more colourways from my Lana Grossa ‘little ‘o this, little ‘o that’ stash.

Meilenweit Meeting #7760 - Medium

Meilenweit Inca # 1528 - Medium

I love both of these colourways. Each from a different LG Meilenweit series; both 80%wool 20% nylon; ~ 420m/100g

These are reasonably fine gauge yarns, as the yardage would indicate, but both needed almost 1/4 turn looser tension, I presume because the dyes are so intense.

And this is weird, but both of these yarns ‘smoked’ while I was knitting. I swear. Smoke. I’ve spoken metaphorically about my csm’s smokin’, but in this case there was actual smoke consistently emanating from the cylindders while I cranked a few balls of each of these. And when I finished and started knitting something else, the smoke stopped.

I don’t think it was dust – I would have had an asthma attack.

I’ve got a few more of these, so I’ll have to see if those ones smoke too!

If I had to pick a favourite of these two yarns, I’d pick the Inca. Except I think I’d rename it Austria instead of Inca. The bright colours remind me of Austrian folk art with the fine patterned mixing of bold, bright colours.

Here are three Lana Grossa sock yarns from general stash I’ve knit up for my farmers market table:

Mega Boot Stretch #508 - Large

Mielenweit Colortweed #1001 - Medium

Mielenweit Scala #6534 - Medium

The Mega Boot Stretch is 70% wool, 23% Nylon and 7% elastic. The other two are 80% wool 20% nylon (that’s the same % split as Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock – don’t see that elsewhere too often).

Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots,  Stretch Soft Color # 504.

This is a ragg yarn – two strands of yarn that are independently space dyed, then plied together.  In this case, the same colours are used in both strands, but at different times, so you get a very interesting sequence of blends coming and going. I’ve never seen both strands change colour at the same time so there is an interesting cohesion effect that comes from one colour carrying on while another changes.

The yarn is 70% wool 23% nylon and 7% elite (as in elastic), and runs ~ 430 y/100g.

I easily knit the pair of XL socks with one ball.

Knit with the 72 needle cylinder on my Verdun 47.

Because of the elastic content, I loosened my tension 1/4 turn.