Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Every Yarn Tells A Story

Doesn't it? For me, it does. Today I'm going to tell you the story of this gorgeous skein of Lisa Souza handspun Cashmere Merino in Jungle. Sigh.
Lisa Souza Cashmere handspun

mmmm....cashmere. You don't really care about the story anymore do you? Last October when I went to Stitches East, I made a vow to myself that the yarn I would buy at the market would be different, original, nothing that I could buy at my LYS or readily get my hands on. It was a good plan, it really was. The night of the market preview I was totally overwhelmed. I was walking around in a bit of a daze surrounded by gorgeous stuff when the pen of yarn appeared. Yes, PEN of yarn. One of the vendors puts up some fencing & it is chock full of bags of yarn at discounted prices - it's INSANE. I got a little caught up in it & found 2 colors of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool that I really love & was hoarding them. Sweater quantities of a yarn I've been wanting at discounted prices. Heaven, right? It's exactly what I wasn't supposed to be doing but I couldn't help it, I was caught up in the frenzy. As I was trying to decide which color to get (or just get both), I turned around & hanging in Lisa Souza's booth was this single skein of yarn. A perfect combination of greens, handspun, plied like I like it, and a 50/50 cashmere wool blend. It was soft & squishy & beautiful & exactly what I envisioned buying at my first Stitches experience. I threw the bags of yarn back in the pen & immediately bought this skein of yarn. My first Stitches purchase which set the tone for my additional purchases & my whole trip. It's what I think about every time I see it in my yarn cabinet. This morning.....I wound it into this:

Lisa Souza handspun

Today begins Single Skein September, which is a month long Knit-A-Long hosted through the Stash and Burn podcast group on Ravelry. The intention of the KAL is to burn through the oddballs of yarn that you have stashed - you know all of those hats & scarves & small stuff that you buy yarn for but never get to? For me, I like to buy a ball or two of something to "try out" or sometimes (as is the case with this skein), the yarn is fairly high priced & one ball is all I can justify. What in the world do you do with all of those single skeins? That is the question I've been answering for the past few days, planning what yarn to use for this challenge. My first thoughts fell to various hats & the odd skeins of different Knitpicks yarn that I often throw into an order to get to free shipping. Or the yarns that are on the clearance rack at my LYS because there is only one or two of a color left & I buy them because "they will be perfect for chemo caps". Or the countless one skeins that I've bought to swatch to see if I like it enough to make a sweater (PS...I NEVER follow through with this!) Then my thoughts went to this yarn. This lovely squishy, gorgeous yarn that I've been sitting on waiting for the "perfect" project & the "perfect" time to knit it up. I'm here to tell you, today is that day. No time like the present! I'm going to make a Mustard Scarf. I love the look of it, I have a soft spot for scarves, and it is knit on size 15 needles so it should go fairly quick.

Stay tuned for more updates on fast one skein projects during September - I plan to burn some single skeins! We'll see how that goes.

3 comments:

Fru-la-la! said...

gorgeous yarn and I sooooo admire your resolve about not buying big ole honkin' bags of yarn pron!

Dawn said...

Gorgeous yarn!

chococat78 said...

Drooling over the yarn ;)