Rainbows, No Lollipops

If you thought of Lesley Gore when you read that title, then you are in my age group. Or someone who digs 60's pop music. 

Today is officially my first day of a social media ban, which is no big deal, but I needed it. I have still been aiding and abetting the bad habit of checking Facebook and Instagram (one and the same troubled company) to the detriment of so many wonderful things that could be in my life...like this blog!

So here's a post, finally.

In April I received an early Mother's Day present from my oldest daughter. She lives in Athens, GA, with her family, where there is the best yarn shop, Revival Yarns. 

 The gift package was full of goodness--a cute knitting pin, a beautiful rainbowy bag, and a Prismatic set from Sweet Georgia Yarns! I think my sweet daughter really meant to combine Mother's Day, my birthday, and Christmas all into one gift, because this was spectacular. I puzzled my brain for a couple of weeks about what to do with the yarn. So many fun options! At first I envisioned a rainbow beanie, but then realized that I did not want to knit a beanie out of sock weight yarn just then. Maybe later. 

Then I remembered that I had a whole skein of Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock, the yarn in the Prismatic set, but in Willow. It would make a good neutral to pair with the set!

Unpacking the set, I saw that there were 12 colors that began with red and worked through the ROYGBIV and back around to a red-purple. I hated to unwind the perfect skeins and ball them up, but we must, right? 

The colors are breath-taking!

I decided to use them, along with the Willow, for one of my favorite projects. striped, toe-up socks. I had enough to make one pair for me and one pair for Fred.

For these socks, I alternated six rounds of each color with the Willow as background. They are the nicest socks I think I've ever made.

But even after that, I had more yarn remaining, so...

I made some mitts! I thought I would have enough to make mittens, but the green ran out, so mitts. They were made with 2-round stripes. And just look how much of the minis I still have left! Now I have to figure out what to do with those. I am also working on some socks with a ROYGBIV speckle colorway from Lynai Yarns, so I might combine the remaining minis with the leftovers from those. We'll see.

All this rainbowness also helped me to realize that I almost had a rainbow of Malabrigo Worsted I've been collecting, so I added to it a bit and made some hats.

When I lined up the minis next to the Malabrigo Worsted skeins, I realized I could leave out the Tiger Lily (cheeto color!). The Malabrigo colors are Ravelry Red, Sunset, Pollen, Lettuce, Water Green, Indigo, and Purple Magic. I purchased some online from WEBS and some from Revival Yarns. None of my local yarn shops carry this yarn, unfortunately.

The Tough Love Sock Colors are Cherry, Cayenne, Pumpkin, Dutch, Saffron, Pistachio, Basil, Beach House, Sapphire, Empress, Grape Jelly, and Raspberry. 

The mitten blockers above are from Burning Impressions. The pom-poms on the hats above are from Barrett Wool Co. Lynai Yarns is on hiatus currently--Vanessa is raising two littles!

I hope all these rainbows inspire you today.