February Yarn Crawl Report

I promised I’d share the results of my yarn crawl this weekend, so here we go! My friends Deana and Dawn and I braved some incredibly gusty winds to head east, once again. Many kudos to Deana for driving, because I don’t think I’d have done as good a job as she did. It was nice to drive on the back roads, and even nicer to have good conversation and some real laughs. I appreciate them for putting up with their token heathen so cheerfully!

NOTE: I will re-do this post with the images centered later today--I am out of lunch hour time to re-do the photos.

Our first stop was Yarnorama, in Paige. They are approaching their one-year anniversary, which is impressive for an LYS that is in the middle of nowhere, and not really “local” to many people at all. They have closed the café part of the store (darn it), but still seem to have plenty of yarn, and even (ahhh) some new stuff.

The first new thing I got there is this yarn, called Haze, from the Queensland Collection. I got this rather subdued colorway, because I am trying to knit more things that go with a lot of clothing, which means neutrals. The colors are rather lovely together, though. What’s interesting about this one is that the yarn is 60% corn viscose and 40% cotton. I think corn does better in a blend, because this feels pretty good and really resembles a fine cotton more than anything else. I like the matte sheen. I plan to make this really cute DROPS bolero kind of sweater with a crochet trim. I do hope I got enough yarn. I bought three skeins.




Another thing I bought with a project already in mind was this stuff. Yeah, I am a sucker for a self-striping yarn, and I’d hoped to find this one somewhere. It’s called Poems and is from Wisdom Yarns. The colorways it comes in are nice and happy, quite reminiscent of Noro’s colorways. But the yarn is much softer and is sort of two ply (it is mostly one thick ply, but there appears to be a sturdy binder thread running throughout, too). The texture and feel remind me of Berroco Foliage, the one that pilled so badly on me, but it’s 100% wool. We will have to see how it works out on the project I have in mind, which is a best made of a sort of mitered rectangle. It’s in the Noro Revisited book where my funny-topped hat came from (I’d link to a finished version on Ravelry, but no one seems to have completed that pattern—it figures, as I seem to be a leader not a follower lately with projects). I got 5 skeins of this stuff, and as you can see I got a more subdued colorway with just a few pops of color.







That is all I was going to get until I touched a sock that Susan, the LYS owner, was making out of this stuff. They also had a beautiful sweater made from it at the shop (one that would be VERY time consuming on tiny needles). This is a merino laceweight, it says, but really is more of a fine sock weight yarn, Lace Merino from Ella Rae. It comes in some really pretty colors, but once again, I went for a neutral. The yarn is very, very bouncy and soft—all the best qualities of a merino yarn! I got some smaller sock needles, since my 00s are all bent up, and I think I’ll make socks from this yarn with a nice tight gauge. I do think these colors are very pretty, in a quiet way. It’s from SWTC, called Jezebel. I got it to be the “dark” color for those Simply Southwestern Socks I mentioned last week.






After we left Yarnorama, where we’d had a very pleasant time indeed, we motored on over to Brenham to see how Fibers is doing. It is doing fine, but I can see that they have sold a lot of yarn and not restocked. It’s not quite as overwhelmingly tempting as it was last time. But we spent a long time there, much of it because Deana’s 5 skeins of pretty slinky yarn took a while to put into balls. But, the ladies persevered and got it done. Deana got lovely white yarn to make a shawl from the Wrapped in Comfort book (I ordered it as a birthday gift to myself, too, because the techniques in it are really fun). Dawn got a nice shawl pin, too, a wooden one.

I’d been looking for a particular kind of sock yarn, but didn’t see any exactly like what I want, so I may end up ordering from DROPS, skeins of the yarn my Kauni Jacket is supposed to be made from. I did run across the skein of semi-solid blackish purple yarn you see above.

Now, this isn’t to say that I found nothing much at the store. Ha, I wish. I discovered a beautiful pale green (the colorway is called shallot) 100% bamboo yarn called Bamboo Soft from RYC Classic. Actually, I discovered the book with a pattern that called for the yarn first. Ooh, it is one pretty book. All spring stuff, and apparently so new it isn’t online anywhere. I fell in love with a lace-patterned vest that looks so light and delicate, but not too frilly for me. I better like it, since it called for 8 balls of some not-very-cheap English yarn! The book also had some nice cotton sweaters that I’d consider, too, and some over-done picture-knitting bags that I didn’t like much. Still, I think this will be a great project. I hope some day to get to it.


Current Knitting Binge

Which brings me to knitting. I got a lot done on the Kauni jacket over the weekend. Only a few more rows and I will be finished with the back. I ran into a weird issue where the yarn suddenly switched colors, then returned to where it should be. It was like they but in a splice, backwards. But, I undid the ties, re-tied it, and though there may be a slightly too-long red section, the colors now keep flowing. This jacket is reminding me of the Baby Surprise. I don’t think it’s going to look “right” until it is sewed together. Then I think it will be just brilliant! It’s really pretty in person. Maybe I’ll get good knitting time in this week and get it done! I’m 75% through almost!