Idyllic Chick

I was off reading LimeNViolet’s message board this morning (While working diligently, I assure you!) and came across a conversation on sock yarn between LNV and Nadine, a woman who lives in Germany. Nadine brought up a nifty sounding new sock yarn from Opal (A German fiber company) inspired by the Viennese artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It appears that this stuff is all the rage in Germany right now. Being all about nifty sounding all the rage sock yarn, I Googled this ‘Hundertwasser yarn’. After registering on the Opal site (Go ahead and do it! Just put blahblah in the blanks, because if you don’t know German, you don’t know what you are being asked for!) I was able to access a bunch of info on the yarn and the story behind it. All in German, of course. But there is no language boundary for pretty yarn, so I was able to read the photo at the bottom of this page very clearly: It’s the yarn that I won on our yarn crawl to Tampa! How cool is that?! I wasn’t ever able to find out anything about the yarn when I won it because of the language barrier, and I’m thrilled to now know its story.

Hundertwasser felt that 'Man is shielded from nature by three levels of insulation: cities, houses and clothes.' Lonely Planet says, ‘Hundertwasser tried to limit the effect of the first two through his architecture.’ He tried to limit the effect of the third by removing his clothes completely, or by just not paying much attention to them. Case in point: socks. He did not wear matching socks. When asked why his socks did not match, he would reply, ‘Why are yours the same?’ Following this philosophy, Opal’s Hundertwasser sock yarn, while self-patterning, has very long, unusual pattern repeats. Opal also encourages you to knit your socks up and down, or sideways. Pattern included! If you can knit from German instructions. And want a seam down the bottom of your foot. Hrmph.

With colorway names like Road to Socialism and Rainy Day on Love’s Waves (Or something like that. German, you know.), how could you not love this yarn?! It’s bright and happy and different and inspired. And completely fits in with my obsession with fraternal socks. So I’ll have to find something beautiful and special to make with my free Opal all the rage sock yarn! Yay!