Sunday 11 October 2015

Yarn Story

My yarn speaks to me.  I hear their little voices from the Rubber Maid tubs in the basement.  "Knit me first.  I want to be a shawl.  I don't want to be a sweater.  Knit me now."

I find the voices hard to drown out in the quiet of the early morning when I wake up sweaty once again, another hot flash ruining a perfectly good solid sleep.  I lie there and tell the yarn to shut up.  If the Hubby is on Pelee Island, I simply turn on the TV to drown the yipping noise from the yarn.

I tell the yarn that yes, I will knit with you.  But I want to knit what I want to knit when I want to knit it.  Don't nag me.  Your turn will come.  But then I go out and the fibre in the store is new, exciting.  I am seduced by the curve of the skein.  The colour has never been so bright.  I am overcome with a warm glow (could be another hot flash, I can't tell the difference).  I don't care that I have lovelies already at home.  I have to have that virgin merino, polworth or alpaca.  I have no self-control.

The voices from this yarn were getting strong and making themselves heard over the din.


There are three yarns in those piles.  I purchased this yarn many years ago from Grand River Yarns.
The plan was to make the Simple Elegance Poncho from the book Knitting with Fleece Artist 2, The Yarn Garden.  I can't find a photo of the poncho but there is a photo of the Simple Elegance Afghan and the pattern is the same.  Just visualize half the afghan and the ends sewn to the sides to form a poncho.

I have tuned out their voices for a long time.  I love pink and purple but for the last few years I do not have these colours in my wardrobe.   I still don't. However, my boss does.  She says that she is willing to wait a year to receive it and wear it.

I located the yarn in my inventory records.  It was not hard.  They were the first entry.  That shows that I have had this yarn at least as long as my recording system.  More than 10 years I think.  Well, out it comes.  I take the pictures, separate the skeins and then I take a close look at the Curly Locks.  I swear a few times, pound the table and have a little cry.  I don't think I have enough of the Dark Pink Curly Locks.  I weighed the skein.  It is only 100 grams.  A regular skein is 125.  In fairness to Fleece Artist, I purchased the pink as a kit for another sweater because it had 2 of the three yarns I wanted.  I never thought to check if the kit had full skeins or only the amount needed for the kit sweater.   In 10 years the yarn stayed silent on its skinnyness.  I needed fat skeins.  Now what.  I booted up the desktop and started my search.  Confirmed the colour is discontinued.  Confirmed a standard skein is 125 grams.  Checked if any of the current colours could work.  The colour named Wine seemed like a likely choice.  Next step was to check if any of the yarn shops between home and my mother's place carried this yarn.

Hubby and I would be passing through London Ontario on the way to Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's place in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  I could not believe my luck when the Wool Boutique website showed they had one single skein of Fleece Artist Curlylocks in the colour Wine.  It would only add 45 minutes to our trip to detour to the shop.  I tried calling from the 401 before exiting but the shop was so busy on the Saturday morning no one answered.  I decided to chance my Hubby not speaking to me for the rest of the weekend if we got there and the skein was gone.  Luckily (or not depending on your point of view) he is still speaking to me.


I did check the skein colour to make sure it went with the other colours and I can't believe my good luck this weekend.  Right now this is making the top of my list for what I am thankful for.  I know I should have more profound things to be thankful for, and I am, but today this tops the list.

I did resist the siren calls of the other yarns in the shop.  It wasn't easy but telling Hubby I would be out in 5 minutes helped.

I finished casting off the shrug in the car.  Hubby drove again, letting me play with the needles.  I did not think the cast off would ever end.  I did not count the stitches but the circular needle was 24 inches long tip to tip, the yarn was thin and the needle was stuffed full of stitches.


The cast off took 5 hours but worth it for the lovely little ruffled edge.


I am waiting on the arrival of a niece later this afternoon to take final photos for you.  The shrug looks like nothing special photographed flat.  It needs a body inside to show off its charms.

40 left to go.

2 comments:

  1. Forty to go or.... two down, and you're not out of October yet. There's a way of looking at it. The balance will shift in time. The scale will tip on the other side. You're gathering momentum. What a lovely boss who will wait one year for her present. But what a prize!!! Hot flashes not a good thing. Yarn is taking chances speaking to you while you hot flash.

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  2. Wanna see that shrug on a person. Those pictures are teasers!

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