On a Cheerier Note

Yarn
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Yeah, so I did run out of yarn on my shawl over the weekend (and thank you to Lee for commenting and breaking my two-week comment drought, though I don't know if a comment from someone who lives at your house really indicates much reader interest). Even so, I had a good knitting (and shopping) weekend in Fredericksburg with my yarn-shop friends (as you may recall, we are known as the Methodist, the Mormon and the Unitarian--all drawn together by our being the exact same age and loving knitting).

Thank goodness the Methodist knew where the LYS was in that town, so I finally got to visit it. And what a nice visit. Most of the scenic part of F'burg is old buildings, many of which are pretty cool, but the yarn shop was in a really neat one, all wooden and rustic. It has a huge room in back for their primary purpose--hooked rug kids and spinning stuff, but the front was a fair-sized yarn display, mostly of Rowan yarns. I had hoped to find a couple of "organic" yarns there, and was not disappointed. They had all of Rowan's new natural line, and I snapped up a ball of Black Welsh sheep yarn and a nice naturally-dyed cotton (the far left two yarns in the photo). Then I found some cotton that is from Peru and certified organic, undyed. I got the brown and the green color, on the right. It is really nice to touch, so I can't wait to mess with it. Then I found local stuff. Jackpot! The two center top yarns are marketed by the shop (Stonehill Spinning, no website, but there's contact info on Ravelry), and are undyed merino, nicely colored--baah baah, you black and cream sheep! And the bottom yarn is another Texas product, this one from El Coyote Ranch (elcoyoteranch.com). It is undyed wool and llama. You don't get a lot of llama in yarn, so that's cool.

I may do some collaborating on an organic project with a coworker, which is why I got this sampler. It's all rather "rustic" but may be just what the granola crunchers (my peeps!) want.

Everyone else also got neat yarn. Both of my companions got pretty colors for what should be lovely projects. The Mormon got some very pretty scarf-wannabee yarn, while the Methodist got some very thick, soft stuff for another afghan. She loves to knit big.We did lots of knitting around the house. Both the Mormon and I made a lot of sock progress. I got the heels and gusset done on the Hawaiian Leis (photo is from before the gusset work). Mostly I worked on the shawl, until there was only one inch of yarn left and 30 rows of border left to knit. Wah. I just buckled down and ordered another ball from the Loopy Ewe, using my $25 certificate (I love those). I'll just make slightly short (and not that comfy) socks, or maybe happy handwarmers out of what is left.

I am back at work on the purple crocheted top now. I am getting close to being finished with the back. Then it should go a bit more quickly, unless I get distracted thinking up things to do with that organic yarn.