On Saturday, about halfway through the afternoon, we already had about 6" of snow accumulation and the clouds above Chicago showed no sign of slowing down.  Going out to do anything in weather like this didn't have a lot of appeal, so we had a long, grey day to spend at home.  A good day to get caught up on house chores, like laundry, which resulted in the discovery of this:

Sad, sad socks my friends.  The sock on the right is the mate of the sock I repaired for John not too long ago (good thing I still have some Mudslide yarn left).  The sock on the left is one of the socks made out of my handspun "Hang on Sloopy".  Both earned a big sigh.  The second Mudslide sock I expected to have to repair sooner rather than later (the trip through the washer and dryer just must have been too much agitation for those weak fibers) but the handspun sock had had no obvious signs of such imminent hole-age.  I was contemplating which to take on first when John reminded me that part of the reason his socks get so much "love" is that he just doesn't have enough thick hand knit socks -- and that weather predictions for Thursday suggest that the temperatures might not break 0 F.

This left me to think about knitting priorities.  And whether I could give myself a little challenge to heat up what is likely to be a week of cold snowy weather.  I am always looking for man-friendly yarn to stash.  The good people at Blue Moon Fiber Arts have a nice line of colorways called the Raven Clan, which are essentially black yarns "enhanced" with colors as part of a color study.  What's really nice about these yarns is that they have beautiful color undertones to appeal to the knitter, but these undertones are subtle enough to appeal to the color-conservative male in my house.  This full-skein picture of the yarn gives you a good idea of how the color reads when you see it from a distance.

While this macro shot shows off the nice purple and olive undertones that show up when you look close or get the yarn into brighter light.  As man-friendly yarn goes, I think it's really stunning.  And the fact that it is Heavyweight STR meant that it would meet John's need to have another pair of warm thick socks for winter commuting.  The name of the colorway, by the way, is "Grawk"... so, naturally, I came up with a name for the project before I even really knew what they were going to be: "Socks that Grawk".