A Good Yarn

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Exciting!

I did end up getting quite a bit of knitting done on Sunday, but not as much cleaning as I would have liked. The kitchen is mostly clean, and I got a couple of loads of laundry done. I'm trying to unpack my winter clothes as I go along too. I keep them in the basement (where the washer and dryer is as well as most of the stash), so if I have a free arm when I'm doing laundry, I bring another box up or back down with summer clothes inside. I'm always in denial about winter until it starts to snow, so my wardrobe change is more gradual in the fall than in the spring.

I worked on Florentine Flattery on Sunday. I was going to take a picture, but I decided not to. Too much stress getting the pieces outside to photograph. I tore the back apart and release the first skein, which I think is only about a half skein. I was chanting, "It's the process, not the product" as I was ripping apart all that lovely seed stitch and the cute little cables. Fortunately, I do really like knitting this pattern and I always have great motivation to reknit yarn that has been frogged. I knit up that partial skein, but wasn't even close to finishing the sleeve, so I decided to just knit directly from the back so I don't end up taking out more rows than I need to. So the sleeve is attached to the back with a strand of very kinky yarn.

I went to The Yarnery yesterday to pick up a couple more skeins of the pink cotton I had settled on for a replacement and found a yarn that matches even better:



This is a pretty close match on the color. However, as the name says, it's bamboo, not cotton. Plus, it's a chain construction and pretty loose. Not a tightly spun Egyptian cotton. So, despite the fact that this might look better, I think the texture will counteract the color and look worse. I'm sticking with the slightly lighter cotton. I contemplated just re-knitting the entire back so that the back would be all the same color, but at this point I can't make that kind of commitment. We'll see how much of the back I have to rip out to knit the sleeve.

While at The Yarnery, I also picked up this:



Last winter I knit a sweater for my sister out of a gray alpaca. After I finished, I tried it on (yes, it's very tight on me since my sister is about 100 pounds lighter than me) and it's pretty scratchy. So, I'm going to knit the cowl neck in something that will feel better against the face and neck. So I've been collecting very soft gray yarns for her to pick one out and this is about the softest there is.

I also couldn't resist this:



It's Noro's new "Transitions" yarn. As the color changes, so does the fiber. Very cool. They have a cabled sweater out of this yarn that is gorgeous, but would be unbelievably expensive to knit. I think I'm going to steal Wendy's idea and knit the multi-directional scarf with mine too.

When I got into the office, there were 3 boxes sitting on my desk! Yeah!! One was from Overstock - Junior Knits by Debbie Bliss and Knit Wit. I'm hoping to knit some stuff for my nieces and nephew from these books. I also had a package of more pink Dale Kolibri. This didn't match my Florentine Flattery, but I still love that yarn and since it's discontinued, I'm buying up what I can at a cheap price. The final package I saved for last because it was from Seattle - my Secret Pal!! Yeah!!! I love presents.

I told her I'd be interested in getting something that is uniquely Seattle-ish, so I can pretend I've been on vacation. She sent me some yummies! I can't wait to taste these:



I'm not exactly sure why, but I just love the packaging on the Salmon. I almost don't want to eat it so I can keep the can, but of course I love smoked Salmon so I most definitely will be eating it. The back of the can says, "This can contains another fish caught by Pete Knutson". How cool is that? She also sent a big bag of dry roasted Hazelnuts. However, I brought those over to my brother's last night and shared with him and left the bag in the car. I'm too lazy to go to the car to get it because I had to park it down the block on the cross street - they're sweeping the streets here today.

I also found out that pictures from Stitch n Bitch Nation are now on the website, so I got to see a picture of one of my cuffs. It's a cool picture with a cute guy wearing my knitting, so that's very exciting. Chele posted on her blog that she got the book at Bound to be Read already, so I'm somewhat annoyed that our copies haven't been mailed yet. They didn't have it at The Yarnery yet yesterday either. I'm tempted to go buy a copy so I can have it and then gifting my copy to my Secret Pal.