Some of you must not have made it to the big sale at the Bigger! Better! New and Improved! Double Ewe last week, because when I got there, this yarn was still left. Amazing it was, too, because the waters had been chummed and quite a feeding frenzy was in process. So of course I dove in and bobbed for a few skeins, too. Bwaaa haa ha!
(Yes, I may have developed a small Ty Dy addiction. So what? I need more market bags, so I can carry more yarn.)
I wasn’t quite sure, when I unwrapped this cone of yarn from Colourmart, if it was what I wanted. I’ve been on a crazed search for the perfect shade of camel, and let me tell you, it’s a hard color to find. This looked a bit cool, not enough gold and red in it, I thought. (It looks downright brown in these photographs, and I can’t do a thing about it.)
Then I started skeining it, preparing it for its bath, thinking that if the yarn looked horrible on me I could either overdye it, or gift it to someone with a complexion more suitable to the color. Twelve hundred yards is a lot of skeining. Plenty of time to look at the yarn in morning light, afternoon light, evening light....and I discovered something interesting.
This is a very complex color. It changes. I don’t mean it changes in different light -- any color does that. I mean it changes while you’re looking at it, even as the light remains constant. It shifts from cool to warm. The reds and golds in it are hidden, and as the yarn moves they sort of shimmer to the surface and peek out and giggle and go back into hiding again. I was uncertain about it at first, and now I’m madly in love with it. The M.E. even thinks it will look good on me, and he’s very quick to bust any colors which he refers to as “dead.”
So, I can’t wait to see how it looks after I wash it and it's all fluffed up. (Right this moment, the cone is being kissed by faint light from the overcast sky coming in the window, and it is the perfect shade of camel gold. Be still my heart.) In case you're wondering, the yarn is fingering weight, 80% cashmere/20% merino, for Seraphim. Also here. I wanted a perfect neutral shade, so the shawl will be one I can throw on over anything. I adore shawls; I’d rather wear one than a coat anytime I can, and I keep a pile of them in the hall closet so I can grab one as I scurry out the door. This will be the perfect grabbing-and-scurrying shawl, don’t you think?
This week has been nothing but mistakes, crankiness, fixing things and brain-sucking calls to Comcast. If I picked it up, I dropped it. If I wrote it down, I very soon erased it. If something seemed straightforward, it wasn’t. And if I knit something, yeah, I probably ripped it.
I’m hoping to make a turn back towards better things and a better mood by getting into a little bit of feel-good trouble. So, at long last, and in complete defiance of all the unfinished projects rattling around in my knitting box (and, I admit, strewn over chairs, sofas and tables), I cast on for Honeybee. Also here. (No, it doesn’t have a weird pink edge. That’s a provisional cast on with a crochet chain.)
And then. With even less justification. But with deep desire and poutiness. I bought this kit.
I’ve bought gorgeous yarns before. Many of them, those of you who are observant might observe. But I have to say that this one blows most of them away.
It glows in the photo, yet you really have to see it in person to get the depth of the color. I saw it and worried that, as a hand-dyed work, this color might not be there if I waited two years to get around to buying it, so I threw all reasonableness to the wind and clicked. I’m so glad I did. And I won’t hesitate to buy from The Woolen Rabbit again. Her work and eye for color are really top-notch.
Big skein, too. Just as big as the one for Honeybee...
I suppose I have to be good and finish that one first, don’t I? Since I only just started it.
...of any mad money which happens to appear in the Mystery House coffers. You know, as if you couldn’t figure that out. This was my Christmas money:
Baruffa Cashwool in Camel, for this (also here). I got that pile of gorgeousness from Yarn Love in Texas, without driving to Texas! Katie went to heroic efforts to help me make certain I was getting the right color. I’m very particular about color.
Jaggerspun Superfine Merino in Mahogany, for this (also here). This came from Sarah’s Yarns. Also a very helpful, friendly soul to deal with. And she was having a Valentine’s Day sale. I think there may still be a few things on sale, if you click fast enough and are reading this at the right moment. If you’re reading at the wrong moment, don’t blame me.
Either of these could keep me knitting for the next ‘leventy-squillion years. I intend to make both of them. Plus all the other stuff I’m going to knit. Am I nuts?
Yes, there was yarn!
Sandwiched between the deep blue laceweight and the lilac bulky merino from Handpainted Yarn (both courtesy of the M.E.) is some beautiful Vesper sock yarn given to me by Amy. Mmm...Neapolitan ice cream feet coming up! I’ve got lace projects in mind for both of the others. Shoot, I’ve got lace projects in mind for these, too:
I loved working with Schaefer Laurel so much that I may have hinted a wee bit that I might possibly sorta want more for Christmas. Oh happy day, I’ve now got enough for a shawl, in the Billie Holiday color. And on the right is STR Laci in Oregon Red Clover Honey, because I’ve been dying--dying, I say--to make this.
Knitting is very much on my mind as 2008--2008, isn’t that crazy? Remember when that sounded all far away and sci-fi and everything?--begins. I have such an embarrassment of riches to work with (on top of the embarrassment I already had), and I’m excited about every one of these projects. Huge thanks to Amy and to my incredibly wonderful husband! You guys know how to keep me off the streets.
It’s been a grueling week and I’ve been cranky and verging on one meltdown or another--until the mail truck rumbled down my street the other day and left a package. A package with this in it:
Hobbledehoy's Raspberry Cocoa, a custom color just for me, a care package I ordered because I knew I’d need one right about now. What could make a girl feel more special than that?
Do you see that color? It could melt the snow. I had to wind it right away, of course, even though I was too tired to knit last night. Yes, really. Too tired to knit.
See, in the first photo the yarn is resting on a mirror frame I painted. In the second, a cabinet. Those are merely two of the lengthy list of things which got painted this week. Some of said things are not quite done yet...back I go before the Christmas police get me....
That’s the yarn I’ll be packing up soon to send to knittingnovice. Two skeins of Karaoke wool/soy silk, and two skeins of hand dyed Mystical Creations rayon. I hope she'll like her loot.
My mailbox is happy because of the marvelous packages that have recently arrived; one I expected and one which was a complete surprise. I’ll have to come up with extra special projects for both of these gifts.
I knew that some lovely yarn would arrive courtesy of Quiddity, because I won a contest on her blog.
And lucky me, it’s just beautiful. Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Jeans, which perfectly suits me since I’m nearly always in jeans when I leave the house. She threw in some cute notecards, too. Thanks very much, Quiddity! I love it.
Here’s what I wasn’t expecting, another gorgeous skein of blue which went a long way towards banishing the blues.
From my dear friend Amy, gorgeous Malabrigo laceweight in Alpine Pearl, with a Day of the Dead card that’s a work of art. I intend to frame it.
Inside the card was this:
Could that be any cuter?
Amy’s intention was to give me a thank you gift for something I did to help her out, but when she heard I was having a rough time last week she was sweet enough to send it early. It arrived exactly at the right moment and was a beautiful reminder of how important it is to have a good friend in your corner. Yarn can be a nice reminder of friendship, can’t it? Thanks so much, Amy!
It’s a gray day, not the best for photography, but these bright spots arrived in my mailbox yesterday and I have to show them off.
New yarns from Bellamoden! On the left is an extra-dark version of The Color Purple, which Frarochvia double-dipped especially for me. On the right is Fanny Hill. Pretty, pretty! And as if this yarn wasn’t already like crack, she sends chocolate along with it.
So what will it be? Socks? A shoulder shawl? At the moment these skeins are my office companions, things to pet and smoosh while I work. Beautiful yarn is just the sort of bright spot that can help get me over the hump. Thanks, Frarochvia!
I love days when the mailbox has good things in it. Things which are not bills. Things which are in no way drama. Things like...
Yarn Addicts Pink Dream, the gorgeous yarn I won in the August Sockamania drawing. It’s such a perfect color, I’m torn between socks and lace. It would make the prettiest socks, wouldn’t it? But the color’s so good on me, I’d love to have it wrapped around my shoulders. Hmm. I’ll leave it out where I can look at it, until I decide. Thank you, Anni, for such a fabulous gift! I’m thrilled.
In my email box this morning was another nice thing. My Ravelry invitation! There’s one problem, though. Someone seems to have run off with the name Miss T already. This will not do. I’m Miss T. I can’t sign up until I come up with another name!
I did give you fair warning that my pink jones was acting up. Warned the M.E., too, so that when we wound up taking an unscheduled trip to Madison in the middle of last week, he wasn’t surprised that I did some advance research, found a yarn shop and printed out maps and directions. A pink yarn raid was brewing.
Lakeside Fibers--unlike many places which have names such as “Oceanview,” or “Forest Trail,” and which turn out to be near neither oceans nor forests but are instead plopped down in suburbs which look just like all other suburbs--actually does have a gorgeous view of Lake Monona. You wouldn’t know it when you drive up and park and walk inside, however, unless you know the area. Nor would you have any idea how much yarn is inside--the shop looks tiny from the street. So tiny that the M.E. figured I couldn’t get into too much trouble. We’d surely be out in five minutes flat and he’d have no need to bring along his twelve-pound biography of Stalin. Big Joe stayed in the car.
Well. Weren’t we wrong. What you think is the whole shop when you first come in the door is only the front room.
There’s a middle room, too, which is sort of corridorish, and a big, open, sunny room in back. With a coffeeshop and huge windows that look out over the lake. I wanted to settle in and stay there all day. Wish I could have. The M.E. was probably wishing he’d brought Stalin. Coffee, sandwiches, knitters knitting, rain pattering on the roof...mmm. But it was not to be--we had many miles to travel before the day was done.
Lakeside has more yarn than you can shake two or three sticks at. And a basement, too, with big looms and hundreds of cones of yarn. If you are not a weaver and you want some of this yarn, all you have to do is grab a cone and run upstairs and the very helpful staff will wind off as much of it as you’d like. Zephyr wool/silk is $3.75 an ounce. An ounce is about 310 yards, more than enough to make this. (Or something. I could change my mind at any moment.) I wouldn’t know this for any particular reason, of course. No reason at all.
Nor would I know how this bag found its way into my office.
Hmm, let’s see.
Pink! Look at all that pink!
I must have been overcome by yarn fumes. Astoundingly potent stuff, yarn. Not only is there a cake of the aforementioned wool/silk, that ball on the right is 825 yards of extremely fine, very soft Chinese lambswool. Someone around here thinks she’s going to make pink lace. And three balls of Millefili cotton. Someone’s not quite sure what she’s going to do with that, but it’s quite a luscious pink so its true purpose will eventually become clear.
My pink jones has (I believe) been satisfied. At least, we made it all the way home without my needing to find another yarn shop, so I'm good for the moment. And in case you’ve been worrying about the M.E., he did not go unrewarded. Lakeside Fibers, though, could be a problem. I keep finding myself thinking Madison and the basement full of cones are only five hours away.
