Madness

Sometime in my fuzzy haze of sickness and stress, I signed up for Sock Madness. The dork in me is unreasonably excited about this (I have an unhealthy love for brackets - it's one of my favorite things about the NCAA playoffs), while the knitter in me is too well acquainted with my KAL failure rate to have very high hopes of success. I do think I can make it through the first round, as the pattern will be released on the first day of Spring Break (only 6 more teaching days!), and I have a very long car ride to Colorado to look forward to (with no driving! Woot!) and knit my little fingers off.
However, I am frustrated by the yarn requirements.

One of the socks requires sport weight yarn - preferably variegated.

Two pairs of socks require one skein each of solid and variegated fingering weight. One of them will be greatly enhanced if the yarns you choose have a high degree of contrast.

Two pairs of socks require variegated fingering weight yarn. Find something that makes you happy.

The remaining 2 pairs of socks use fingering yarn and they’ll probably look best if you use a solid.

I've got the varigated and solid fingerings well within the stash. It's the sport weight and the one skein of solid and one of varigated that has me frustrated (and that I have to have 2 sets of these - but I can't just pull yarns from the stash, 'cause then I'll have two pairs of matching socks). The yarns I posted about for the Fiesta socks? Those took me weeks to decide on. I don't have weeks. I have days. 10 of 'em. I've pulled every color combo from my LYS, so it looks like it's ordering time. But what to order? And how can I tell if they really match from crappy computer pictures? And not many places sell the 50g skeins these days - all the lovely indie dyers sell 100g skeins (except Sweet Georgia, but she's no longer dyeing). I don't really want a half a skein of leftovers (I'm trying to use up the stash here folks!)

Also, I have no sport weight, as I don't usually need super warm/thick socks. I've already discussed my desire not to use Claudia's sport weight as it is a bit cost-prohibitive. As is Toasty Toes, which pretty much leaves me with Lorna's Shepherd Sport.

So, I need your advice. What colors would you put together? What yarn suggestions do you have? Sport weight yarn? What is your favorite online sock source? Help!!!!

Oh, and for the curious - here are the socks currently on the needles - and three socks are missing from this photo. Must get a pair of size 2 needles free for the madness!

ETA: Blogger isn't letting folks leave comments - feel free to email me at knitnlitATgmailDOTcom. Thanks!