It's mine, it's mine, it's... Wollmeise!

It's that yarn that everyone talks about and that turns up on eBay for obscene amounts of cash.

It's Wollmeise!

I'm told by my DH, who speaks a little German, that the proper pronunciation is vol-meez-uh. Which means I've been anglicizing the name totally wrong all this time. ETA: DH told me wrong! It's vol-MY-zuh. And now I can't get the "I'm Mr. Heat Miser" out of my head.

BUT the point is that I didn't spend obscene amounts of money to get it. Our Stephania, our knitting group's indie dyer and yarn pusher ("What'cha got this time, Stephania? Ooh, shiny! WANT!") has a secret, which seems to involve a Firefox plug-in, one of the Wollmeise vendors, and a new baby keeping her up at all hours of the night, including the hours that Wollmeise is listed and gets snatched up almost instantly. By procuring odd lots and grab bags, she's able to bring skeins of the stuff to meet-ups, where it's snarfed up by the rest of us for a rational price instead of an eBay price.

Out of the last lot, I picked this skein, in a rich purply-burgundy:

Now, is Wollmeise really so special that some folks are willing to part with hundreds for a single skein? Ummm... it's very nice sock yarn, but so are Malabrigo and Cherry Tree Hill. It's the super-saturated colors that people are after, and of course other brands offer those, too.

And -- well -- it's getting the Wollmeise bragging rights. To say, yes, it's in my stash. Yes, I actually touched a real skein of the real thing. Yes, I'm in the club! Ooh. Shiny.

Now, what does one do with a skein of THAT wool that everyone wants? After petting and admiring it, I think this one is going to be a lace shawl rather than socks.