In love with Diakeito
Last week I discovered a yarn I'd never even heard of (yes, I lead a sheltered life): Diakeito. It's a Japanese brand and I bought two skeins of Diamusee Fine, a fingering weight, to knit a pair of socks. Diamousee Fine is not marketed as sock yarn, but it's perfect. The only downside is that being 100% wool, these socks will require hand washing — something I usually shy away from — but I love the look and feel of this yarn so much that I gave in.
Something I particularly like is the way the variegation works; the stripes blend into each other and you don't get those much thinner stripes on the instep compared to the rest of the sock.
On a different subject, I decided to frog the German Stocking again. This is a pair of socks that was not meant to be. For one thing, I am not really crazy about Louet Gems. Maybe it's the very flat solid color after so many self-striping or semisolid yarns. I very much like solids for lace, but socks — especially the basic socks I've been knitting so far — fare better with some umpf. So the German Stockings will be retired for now.
Comments
I'd not heard of Diakeito until now. It looks very, very tempting... Hope the frogging hasn't been too painful.
Posted by: rosie | July 13, 2007 3:03 PM
Wow.... I really like the stripy sock yarn. I fear I also live a sheltered life and haven't seen the yarn before either.
They are really pretty.
Posted by: kitty kitty | July 13, 2007 3:27 PM
I've never heard of Diakeito either! The colors are really pretty, it looks handspun almost, in a good way. That's such a bummer about the German Stocking, at least when you do knit it, you will use a yarn you really love for it! It's too much work to not love the yarn :)
Posted by: Bea | July 13, 2007 3:42 PM
non l'avevo mai sentita nominare anch'io. Sembra un po' la trekking, solo che รจ pura lana. Molto bella!
ciao B
Posted by: Betta | July 15, 2007 1:53 AM
Dia is one of the most popular brands of yarn in Japan...some of their lines are really nice. The funny thing is, it's a huge company that also owns tons of residential real estate (ugly towers of condos). All over Sapporo there are apartment buildings with names like "DiaPalace #23".
Other popular yarn brands here are also companies that have many different products, like Kanebo (cosmetics) and Olympus (cameras). I'm such a schmuck, when I was deciding between an Olympus E-500 and a Canon EOS Rebel (here called the Kiss) I went with the Olympus--partially because I didn't want to carry around a camera that has "Kiss" scrawled on it, but also because Olympus makes yarn too. Yes, I'm a nerd!
Posted by: Rachele | July 15, 2007 5:49 AM
That Diakeito colorway is beautiful! Okay, now you have to tell me where you found it, because I want some!
Posted by: domesticshorthair | July 16, 2007 7:24 AM