4 posts tagged “yarn”
My husband finally took a weekend off, so I was able to get out of the house and do a couple things I had really been looking forward to doing: attending Seedy Saturday, and going to Lettuce Knit's yarn handpainting workshop. Seedy Saturday was an event for local seed savers/sellers to make their open pollinated/organic/heirloom seeds available for sale/exchange, and for people to attend workshops and meet local gardening resource people. An old colleague from my former employer was there doing a presentation on Terminator Seeds (i.e. seeds that produce sterile seed so you can't replant it; there's a global moratorium on them, given their scientific and social dodginess) so I got to spend time with her as well. I went to workshop on growning herbs for spices, tea and medicine, and another workshop on how to plan your planting so that you will have vegetables year round. I'm not really quite that ambitious yet, I'm just hoping to gain something other than exercise from my garden this year. I did get some good advice on pest control, and I'm imagining building a lightweight, moveable covering for the entire garden out of light and water permeable material, so that I don't have to use any pesticides. But I was also told my only option against raccoons may be an electric fence, and with a toddler around, you can imagine how undesirable this would be. I'm going to check the Lee Valley catalogue, and see what kinds of options they may have for me........
And I was finally able to take my plain, natural Malabrigo worsted merino yarn and get learn how to handpaint it. The workshop was actualy quite brief and straight forward, and we had results pretty quickly. I wasn't sure when I went in what colours I would be looking for, but here is what I ended up with:
I have called it Tulip Garden, cuz it has the green and pink of tulips, with a little brown thrown in as the soil. I left quite a lot of it plain, because I was worried about the colours bleeding into one another, but they pretty much stayed put. If I used brown again, I would be a bit more committal about it, cuz in some place it looks kinda muddy, and not as solid as I would have liked it. I would also have wrapped the other colours in plastic wrap before using the brown, because it tended, more than the other colours, to get on the rest of the yarn, so parts of it look dirty. I haven't decided yet what I am going to make out of it, but from what I've seen on Ravelry, the Malabrigo worsted is best used for things like hats, mitts and scarves, and for felting, so this yarn will likely end up as one of the above.
What's the best thing about today?
That my husband put the baby monitor on his side of the bed, and got up with our son this morning.
That my son still wanted cuddles with Mummy, and crawled into bed with me.
That my husband offered to take our son and go get us coffee if I made waffles this morning.
That my picky eating son actually asked for breakfast, rather than being forced to eat it. He seconded the vote for waffles, a request I was all too pleased to fulfill.
That after being caffeinated and fed, my husband took our son to an indoor playground, so I could do some housework and shower without having to explain to a certain toddler where Daddy is. every. single. minute.
That I get to shower and dress like an adult, and go to Lettuce Knit for a yarn hand-painting workshop.
Yup, today is just about perfect.
I just received a package that I have been waiting for for months. 10 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted Weight Merino yarn. 216 yards each. That's, like, over 2 kilometres of yarn. 1.2 miles, my friends. Of the softest merino wool you have ever felt. I ordered it through a co-op order that a friend of mine was going in on (where the yarn is ordered directly from the company in Uruguay, for a discounted price). I just happened to have made the order when the Canadian dollar was at $1.10 US, so I ended up paying around $6 per skein, when if I was buying it retail, it would have been twice that. I'm not a stasher, so I am now obsessed with deciding exactly which projects this wool will go into. From the example projects I've seen on Ravelry, this yarn is best for mitts, scarves and sweaters, but it does felt and pill a lot, so we're not looking at knitting anything that needs to show a lot of detail in the design, or that I don't mind, well, being pill-y and felted. I also ordered all of it in its natural, undyed state, so that I would have an excuse to take a yarn dyeing class at Lettuce Knit. Between the project decisions, dyeing, and getting through all this yarn, I'm set for, like, six months. I just hope I don't get bored of it.
This is what a couple kilometres of merino wool looks like:
Yesterday, Lex dared all those yarn junkies out there to reveal themselves. And I ain't no yarn junkie. I'm not one of those knitters who buys yarn willy-nilly and builds a huge stash (yes, they call it their stash) of beautiful colours and textures within which they lie and daydream about what amazing feats of creativity they will attempt at some point in the undetermined future. No, not me. I only buy yarn with purpose. Every ball of yarn I own was purchased with a predetermined project in mind. Don't the words Dye Lot mean anything to you? I cherish those patterns that use up almost every last inch of the skein; I am left with a feeling of incompleteness when 3/4 of a skein is left, not enough to knit anything else, but too much too ignore. These are my inconvenient leftovers, like too much rice and not enough curry. Do you make more curry? Can you make a casserole with basmati?
As a demonstration that I am not exaggerating, I'm going to show you every ball of yarn in my, um, stash.
This ball of Lamb's Pride wool worsted wool in Deep Charcoal is for a pattern I found on Knitty for this Jacob Marley'esque chain link scarf. I kid you not. I can't wait to wear it on the subway at Christmastime moaning "Scrooooooge". Who am I kidding, no one will even blink. But it's the funkiest scarf I've ever seen, and it will be my first felting project.
These are four of ten balls of Rowan cotton tape that I inherited from my cousin Lisee who is a recovering knitting addict. She also gave me a pattern book, which is great, because it is a flat cotton yarn, and needs its own patterns. I was a little nervous once I saw that the patterns were for 6-7 balls or 11-13 balls, and this yarn has been discontinued, so I might end up with some leftover that I really won't have a use for. So I've already planned to improvise a scarf out of whatever is left over.
These are three skeins of some super funky cotton from Manos del Uruguay. I bought it for a specific pattern, but I'm not going to tell you what it is because it will likely be a Christmas present for someone. But believe you me, this pattern will use every last inch of this stuff. Every. Last. Inch.
Ok, so what does that leave me? These are all the remnants of yarn I have purchased for different projects that I have left over and I don't know what to do with (and you know I'm being honest, cuz I've included the Phentex):
I should really learn to love these remnants, they will remind me of projects from the past, even once they've been long given away. My grandmother used to take all her remnants and roll them into a big ball, until it was the size of a basketball, and then knit one afghan out of it. Maybe I'll think about doing that. Would help if they were all from the same dye lot.........
