Sunday, March 8, 2009

Yarny Incidents, Good and Bad

You take the good, you take the bad....

We'll start with the bad. There was a bit of a kitty incident with the yarn for the Alpine Frost scarf. I guess that the cat wanted to bring it to me, because while the scarf itself was on the couch, the yarn was across the room. This is, in itself, not a bad thing, except that the cat somehow managed to screw up the ball of yarn so that it was now in two separate but attached sections. I tried to crochet through it, but the yarn was not flowing easily, and I could tell more difficult times lie ahead. So I attempted to rewind the yarn into a single ball. Ugh. The yarn is a pretty hairy, loosely spun singles yarn. It likes to stick to itself. I ended up with a snarl. After desnarling, the yarn had weakened in a couple of spots and it broke. I hate the idea of having to weave in more than two ends (for the cast on and cast off) in a simple scarf, but that looks like what I'm going to have to do. This is my first crochet project, too, so I'm not an expert in weaving in yarns in this arena. It is a learning process, after all. Here's what I've got:

And the longer view, so you can see how much I've done along with my little balls of yarn:

It's a grey day today. I'm having a hard time with pictures. It's light enough that the flash doesn't come on, but dark enough that pictures don't look very good. I'm too lazy, it being a Sunday and the clocks springing (more like trudging) forward, to haul out lights and create ideal photographic conditions, so this is what you get.

I've been working mostly on my knee socks, because they're a nice, mindless stockinette, which makes it easy to knit and stalk Wollmeise at the same time.


They're pretty funky looking, especially where the calf increases start messing up the color pattern, but they are so comfortable. Too bad sock wearing season is almost over!

On to our good yarny incidents. Yesterday, the second Sundara Sock Club shipment arrived, with beautiful colors to cheer me up:

On the left is crushed cherries, a deep, rich tonal combo of reds; in the middle is sour apple; on the left is viola, violets, of course. On the left, peeking into the frame, a kitty paw. Here's another photo, from farther away, but slightly better light:


Pretty.

The final good yarny incidents come to us courtesy of Wollmeise. My dentist turns out to be my lucky charm -- this is the second time in a row that Wollmeise updates have not only come on days I have appointments, but I've also managed to score a bunch. In Thursday's big update I got some Herzblut, some Rosenrot, Single Malt, Farn, Amazonas, Honigtopfchen, and Poison No. 5. There will be some great sock knitting with those (plus, I think there might be a sweater in there, too.)

But wait! There's more! as Billy Mays and his ilk might say. After the big Thursday update, there was a smaller "easter egg hunt" on Friday, in which individual colors are put up and you have to hunt around for things. None of what was put up on Friday was on any of my wishlists, so I passed. I was good. All that was left on my wishlist was lace, and a few more sock colors, mainly in the blue range, with a few others thrown in.

After the easter egg hunt, someone asked Claudia if she was all done for the week, and her response was "no comment." Hmmm. After two days of sock updates, what more could there be? Lace, I was hoping.

Saturday morning, there it was. Some new lace! Remember the Sundig und Verrucht sock yarn I got last time, the dramatic black and violet? That was one of her new lace yarns. I snagged two, one in the medium, and one in dark. There were a few other new and old lace colors up, but none of them were on my wishlist. She also put up a couple of new sock colors, a semi-solid fuschia and a navy, both of which I passed on. At this point, I can afford to pass them up, plus, I'm limiting myself to specific colors that I want.

So wait for some lovely yarn pron pictures in about two to two and half weeks.

6 comments:

Scott T. said...

sham-wow

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the cat incident, but the scarf looks great! The new yarn is gorgeous and lucky you about getting all the Wollmeise...

Anonymous said...

The scarf does look great. Your stitching looks perfect.

I have to confess I do not understand the "process" surrounding obtaining the Wollmeise. You mention it regularly. Can't you just buy what you want outright?

Loren T said...

Oh, Sharon, if only it were that easy. It's a supply and demand issue. Wollmeise is essentially a one-woman operation, a single dyer. She just recently hired someone to help her with the administrative stuff. So she dyes a bunch of yarn and puts it up on her website, at which point people pounce on it. Whatever she puts up is gone in a manner of minutes. She used to announce when she was doing shop updates, but that led to server overload, so now she does it somewhat randomly. She's in Germany, too, so her updates can some in the middle of the night eastern time. There's a lot of strategy that goes into getting some of her yarn, but basically, if you are not sitting at your computer, ready to go when the updates go up, you ain't getting any.

This is becoming more common as certain indie dyers become popular. Sundara's been that way for a while now. A month or so ago, I could go to the Sanguine Gryphon's website and buy some Bugga, but now it's the same thing -- Tuesday morning she puts new stuff up in her shop, and it's gone in seconds.

Part of this is a herd mentality, the next new thing to be interested in. For the most part, I don't care about yarn enough to do that, except in the case of Wollmeise. Now that I have a decent stash of it, I don't feel a strong need to go crazy for more.

How are things with you? Another crazy week ahead?

kippi said...

Bad kitty! Good job salvaging it though as it looks really great.

Love the knee socks and look forward to some model photos.

The good news about the Wollmeise is you are certain to be able to unload it if it isn't what you want. Also nice to see other people choosing not to participate in the recession.

kippi said...

Bad kitty! Good job salvaging it though as it looks really great.

Love the knee socks and look forward to some model photos.

The good news about the Wollmeise is you are certain to be able to unload it if it isn't what you want. Also nice to see other people choosing not to participate in the recession.