Oh boy! Koigu was one of the first, if not the first, yarn I ordered when we opened back in the summer of 2005. And I placed the order in the spring- in late March, way before we opened. And NOW it has arrived and is available at SSYC! Squee!
I know, I'm a dork for sock yarn. But I really feel like I have been waiting forever for this yarn. And it's totally worth it. It's hand painted by a small group of artisans in Ontario, Canada, and the waiting list is loooong. The first shipment arrived a few days ago, and yesterday the second shipment arrived, so there are 32 of the KPPPM (Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino) multicolors available. The KPPPM is fingering weight. I ordered other multicolors, and lots of the nearly solid colors too, and I will post about new shipments as they arrive. Those should trickle in over the next couple months. I also have some patterns coming.
While I totally feel like showing a pic of each color here on the blog, I won't since they are all just one click away. But here are a few of my favorites. What are yours?
Koigu gives the yarn a letter/number designation instead of a name, and while I'm not exactly sure why, I'm betting it's much better than giving names to a line of yarn that has about 300 colors- many of them one-of-a-kind. The yarn also comes in 21-22 skeins in a dyelot, so there is definitely enough yarn for larger projects like sweaters and shawls. Though if you are interested in many skeins, it's always a good idea to e-mail service@simplysockyarn.com first, just to make sure we have enough in one dyelot.
I've only knit one pair of socks in Koigu KPPPM yarn; knit with US 1 needles, doing a simple stockinette stitch throughout. It knit, wore, and washed very well. The tag calls for hand wash. I machine washed mine several times, and while they didn't felt or fall apart, they did get a bit fuzzy. If I had to do it over again, I would likely only hand wash them so that the stitch definition showed better. But at least I know that if I gifted them they could stand up to the accidental machine wash. I don't know about the dry though- I've only dried them flat, never in a dryer. Anyone else have an opinion?