This is colourway Mesa #308 from Nova’s Sock Print series. 75% Superwash 25% Nylon. 410m/100g. Distributed by Diamond Yarns.

I’ve only knit one pair so far – size Large, knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47. The colours patterned fairly consistently for the first sock and a half, but you can see some pooling going on in the foot of the second (right side) sock.

The yarn knits easily enough but I had a $#@$#%*$ of a time rewinding this b*gger on the cone winder. Somehow I got quite a wad when I tried to pull the centre lead from the ball. I don’t know if it was already tangled, or if I tangled it when I pulled it out, but it was one of those wads that got worse and worse the more I tried to untangle it. In the end I cut off the wad rather than spend more time on it.

I still easily had enough yarn to complete the Large pair, so at least I know that an entire ball would knit an Extra Large pair.

This is Foot Loose by Diamond Yarns in colour #16 (some call it Midnight).

And my picture actually looks like the yarn, on my screen anyway.

Foot Loose is 90% Merino 10% Nylon; 175 m/50g

I just cracked this bag, so this is the only pair I’ve knit so far – size Medium, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legare 400.

I’m pleased with how the colours act on this size, and we’ll have to wait and see if they also behave on the 72 cylinder.

This is Foot Loose Colour #10 from Diamond Yarns Luxury Collection.

It is 90% Fine Merino Superwash 10% Nylon.  This hand paint is spun for Diamond in Peru. 175m/50 grams.

This pair is size Medium, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legare 400. A tension setting comparable to my ‘normal sock yarn’ was appropriate for this yarn.

And this pair is size Medium+, knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47 at a tension 1/4 turn tighter than my normal setting. I’ll often use this wee-bit tighter setting for Medium+ if the yarn will allow it. My ‘normal’ setting’ is what I use for size Large and I like to snug up the Medium + a little more.

And this pair is size XL, also knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47, but this time at a tension 1/4 turn looser than my normal setting.

You can see the yarn behaves quite differently according to cylinder size and tension. But it is reasonably predictable if a little care is taken to start the yarn at the same point in the colour pattern with both socks.

I made the mistake of not doing that in the first pair I knit – which are now in my closet. Often with hand paints that have really short colour lengths I find it makes no difference where I start to knit. But in this yarn, it does make a difference. The colour repeat is quite short so there is no waste.

I easily got the size Medium and Medium+ out of two skeins. On my size Large I could only get to half way through the increases in the toe….~10 yards short!  Of course it would be easy to get a Size Large by reducing my 42 row double hem top a bit, or by using a contrasting colour for heels and toes. In my case, I’m knitting a bag at a time, so the left over bits from the smaller sizes easily come to the rescue.

This is Foot Loose, from the Luxury Collection by Diamond Yarns is colour #11

It is 90% Fine Merino, superwash, and 10% Nylon. 175m/50g, 30 stitches and 42 rows/10 cm on 2.75 mm needles. Recommended to machine wash on gentle and dry flat.

Diamond Yarns is a major Canadian distributor of fine yarns from around the world – check the yarn ads in Vogue Knitting and find that about half of them have the same Canadian phone number – that would be Diamond. But they also produce some of their own lines, and Foot Loose is one of them.

What caught my attention with the Foot Loose series is the use of exciting colours, but in more of a matte finish – giving a colorful yet quiet effect.

On the sock machine I found the yarn to knit well at my ‘usual 4 ply tension’. This was a bit of a surprise to me, as with colours this deep I usually have to slack off a quarter turn.

This pair is size Medium, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legare 400:

The colour behaves quite regularly.

This second pair is size Large, knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47:

You can see that the colours pool in this setup. Also, I didn’t have quite enough yarn in two 50g balls for the Large pair … but had well enough left over from the Medium pair.

I like the pooling of the sock on the left. The sock on the right can’t make up its mind if it wants to pool or not. (What’s the opposite of  pool?)

This is a nice yarn to work with. It is less lustrous than many merinos, but the matte finish isn’t less soft, that I can tell. I knit a bag of it and don’t recall hitting any knots.

I have, um, a few more bags, and I think what I’ll do with the sizes knit on the 72 cylinder is knit a bunch of the same size, then pair them as looks best – this is often a good route with painted yarns that want to pool.