So I got this beautiful handpainted sock yarn from Joe for my birthday. It was an especially good choice, because I chose it and Joe bought it. (I say this now, in the beginning, so that all may know that it is not Joe’s fault for what happened next.) We were at Lettuce Knit, I saw that Laura had dyed some pretty yarn and I chose two skeins out of the bowl of prettiness and I handed them to Joe. He bought them and I was so taken with it that the yarn jumped the sock queue and was started instantly. I knit the first skein into a monkey sock.
Then I put that one away and I knit the second skein into a monkey sock.
Excellent. Two skeins, one pattern, a pair of socks…yes?
No. At first I thought that the two skeins had just knit up a little differently. (This happens with handpainted yarn. It’s one of the beautiful things about things made by hand. They have interesting variations.) A little differently?
Perhaps that picture is too subtle. How about this?
Or this?
Dudes, I picked up two different skeins of yarn and didn’t notice. Similar, but not the same. They are in the same colour family for sure, but they are not matching skeins. Worst of all, Laura dyes them in pairs so I have not just made a mismatched pair for myself, but have left two skeins of mismatched yarn at the shop, just to make sure that nobody else can make a pair either. (The irony that Laura herself has just knit a perfectly matching pair of socks while acknowledging that matching hardly ever happens is not lost on me.)
I suppose the fact that I didn’t notice until I had a pair has to mean that they are at least passable…but still. Idiot.
Do I have to buy the other two skeins out of guilt?