Amazing Great Northern Yarns...My New Favorites

After finishing the Porom Beret using the glorious 100% Cashmere DK from Great Northern (pics on my Rav project page), I started yesterday on the first of two Monkey Bread Berets for friends.  I made the last one for myself from the deep green 70% Mink/30% Cashmere DK weight from Great Northern and it turned out so beautifully that I knew I wanted to make more of this pattern for a couple of friends.  Both friends chose the Blueberry colorway, and it really is a gorgeous color.

You may remember I mentioned I washed the 100% Cashmere in the skein to gain loft before I started knitting.  The Blueberry Mink/Cashmere looks pretty non-bloomy in the skein (as did the dark green when I got it) but I decided to just knit it up and then see where I was...I knew it would bloom in the soak when finished.

Yesterday I started the first Monkey Bread and to my amazement the yarn, which has only tiny trace amounts of the light oil used in spinning the yarn, begins to bloom immediately as you start working with it.  Your fingers must absorb the small amount of oil (and your fingers don't feel at all sticky or greasy, just light and moisturized!) leaving the yarn free to fluff up and expand as you work.  Want proof?  Here's a pic showing the beret where it is this morning (I got most of the hat knitted up yesterday!) with the wound skein beside it.  Can you see the difference in texture between the two?

You can see the bloom much better in the close-up, which I lightened so you can see it even more:

I gotta tell you, this stuff is just wonderful to work with!  And you only need one skein to make Anne's great pattern.  I'm making only one modification:  Toward the top there is one cable that she specifies as 7 over 1...from my last hat I feel that poor lonely stitch with 7 others stretched over it looks too tortured, so I'm changing that cable to 5 over 3 left.  To my eyes, it looks more relaxed.  Other than that, I'm knitting it as she wrote the pattern, and it is just a really special knitting experience!