In my 'let's finish some of those 20 or so half started projects mood', I ripped and recast it on. If you're used to doing fancy textures, you'll know that it takes time to finish a pair of socks. Doing socks in stocking stitch or a simple rib are much quicker. These were really quick, less than a week, about 12 hours for the pair. The cuff was a 2x2 rib and the leg was a 6x2 rib.

I made these identical twins, which involved a moment of sheer panic when I started on the toe decrease of the second sock and realised that there was only enough yarn to get to the blue stripe.

Fortunately, I still had the bit of the repeat that I snipped off prior to starting sock 2, and fortunately, there was a full blue strip and some of the fairisling grey/white bit there, so a little careful joining in, preserved the identicalness.

How do I feel about magic Stripe? Well, I think that it's a good affordable version of the Self-Fair-isling patterned yarns. It's not as good as the Regia though. The Regia is a higher quality yarn. Regia used a better quality wool. The plying was also better, You can't see the separation of the wool from the polyamid. Magic Stripes is not as soft. In a 100g ball, there was a join, with a wrong colour sequence, that I had to cut out and re-splice. Not the end of the world but annoying.

The socks that I made were to fit a US 7/UK5 with a 6inch leg. There was about 4 meters of yarn left, so if I tried making them for a larger foot, I would had run out. I think that I was extremely lucky that I was able to make them identical.

In terms of colour, you might think it identical to Regia's Provence. On initial viewing they are identical. The Regia Jacquard is on the right. They were knitted for my by a German knitter on one of the list exchange that I did 2 years ago (and there might have been some slight fading, because I wear these all the time)

But if you look closely, they're not. Regia has 6 colours in the striping sequence. Magic stripe has only 4. The 2 more subtle shades, the soft lilac and light blue were omitted from Magic Stripe, so overall the colours are brighter and less tonal.

Lion Brand Magic Stripe on the left, Regia Jacquard on the right

Yes, I would buy the Magic Stripes again (esp when I get an idea of how they hold up after a year's wear. I'm giving them to my mom who's very hard on her socks). There are some subtle differences with the Regia and the knitting expereince with Regia is going to be better. However although, I prefer the Regia, the difference isn't so great so that I could definitively state that I would choose the Regia over the Magic Stripes. So, well done to Lion Brand for introducing this yarn... and what luck for having stumbled onto this find.