Yarn! And Books!

Oh my goodness yes, yesterday was a good day.

For one thing: I forget how nice it is to have a conversation with someone that (a) lasts more than five minutes and (b) does not revolve around work, or the various types of volunteer work things I do. (My everyday conversations tend to be very functional, or they tend to largely be interrupted - there's not much time to chat in the "donut fellowship" at church, for example).

I met up with Laura around 11 at the knit shop. And we shopped. And it was excellent.

As usual, I decided to be the Little Pig because I live so far from any sources of super good yarn:



Yarn for two toys, a shawl, and (probably) fingerless mitts.

The pink and green are for a pair of Loopers from Mochimochiland Patterns. I have already tentatively named them Kip and Muffy (unless I can find a preppy-male name I like better). Because, see, they're pink and green? Classic 80s preppy colors?

I don't know; I find that amusing. Maybe no one else does. Maybe you have to have my personality and have had gone to a don't-call-us-prep-call-us-independent-high-school. (I never really fit in with the preppies but I do think the whole culture influenced my mindset a wee little bit in some ways).

The rust-colored yarn is for Zeke the Alpaca, another excellent Dangercrafts pattern. I wanted a yarn that specifically contained alpaca for it. (Yes, I know. But I'm also the person who made tiny eggs out of Sculpey for her dollhouse and put tiny yellow yolks inside them, even though no one would ever see the insides, just because. Because I would know it was there and it would please me.) It's one of the Auraucania yarns and I admit it was pretty pricey for a TOY, but part of the fun of making toys is having excellent yarns to make them with. (And there will likely be enough left over for a hat. I think I'm going to do some stash busting and knit a bunch of hats this winter, and then send them off to one of the many groups that can use them.)

(I need to get back to making more toys. Making toys makes me happy).

The green - which isn't coming out true color in the photo, it's more of a peridot green - is for the Oscilliscope shawl in the new Knitscene. I knew I wanted to get some of this yarn for SOMETHING when I saw it, it has a lovely shiny quality to it (it is called Lustra). It's a wool/Tencel blend; it's the tencel that makes it shiny. I think it will be excellent for that shawl.

And the one little ball of the multi yarn is an Auraucania Aysen. I just liked it. I think it will become a pair of fingerless mitts for me. I think there's a pattern for a worsted-weight yarn in one of the Clara Parkes books.

And then we went on to lunch. Thanks to the suggestion of an excellent short cut from Sue (or maybe it was Frances. I can't remember which of the yarn shop ladies is which), we managed to avoid allllll the construction on loop 281 (and I will remember that shortcut for the future, as it's a much faster way to get between Barron's and Stitches N Stuff, which are my two main destinations in Longview).

And we had an excellent lunch. (I've never had a bad meal at Barron's.) And we split a piece of cake. And as I said: it was wonderful to have a conversation that DIDN'T revolve around work for a change. We talked about a lot of things, including some about our own work, but as we both do different things (she is a CPA), talking about work is more interesting and less of an echo chamber.

And then after lunch, we shopped around a bit in Barron's. I bought some books there, a couple books came later (after we had split up) from the Books a Million (which is so much larger and so much nicer than the one near me):



I found an inexpensive copy of The Time Machine (I know, I know: you can read it for free online. But I don't want to!). And the other two books from Barron's were total serendipity finds: "Operation Mincemeat" (love the title), which is about an attempt by the British to fake out the Nazis in World War II. I find the Britain-in-WWII history stuff interesting so I decided I wanted to read it. (Also, the title grabbed me). And then the diary of a Farmer's Wife from 1796-1797 ("Anne Hughes: Her Boke"). I picked it up off a table while Laura was looking around, read a few passages, and decided I wanted to buy and read it. It looks fascinating - it has bits on the problems of sheep-thieves, and recipes (well, in very much an outline form), and discussion of village festivals, stuff like that. The kind of stuff I love reading about - how people lived. And yes, it is from a genuine diary that the woman kept back then.

(The other books were purchased at the Books a Million. The Charlie Chan one was one I was looking for; I saw the author interviewed on Book TV a couple weeks ago and found the interview so engaging that I wanted to read the book. And as I said, I think, before: I hadn't known that Charlie Chan was based on a real person, who apparently had an even more interesting (and far less stereotyped!) life. (I have read a few of the Charlie Chan mysteries. They are fun mysteries if you can get past the sort-of-cringey "Wise and Inscrutable Chinaman" stereotyped stuff. I guess I managed by imagining that Chan was playing an act - that he didn't really talk like that but he was playing into people's stereotype of him, so he could get more information by seeming less than he was. Kind of like Miss Marple being the sweet old lady knitting over in the corner...

The other book is called "The River Where America Began" and is about the James River, and now that I look at the title again, I'm really hoping I don't have another copy - purchased earlier and stashed on my bookshelf somewhere.)

And I found the Interweave Crochet accessories special article. Lots of scarves, a few things I might want to make, and besides, I just like having stuff like this to look at.)

After the lunch and shopping at Barron's, it was closing in on 3 pm, so we went back to the yarn shop (Laura had left her car there - I knew the way to Barron's so I drove). I decided to go back in to use the restroom, and also looked again at something I had looked at and tentatively decided against, because it was spending still more money.

But then I weakened.



It may be a slightly tired joke, seeing how many times I've used it, but I do like big skeins and I cannot lie. These are three more skeins of that Stylecraft yarn - the one I'm using for Potter. These will be for the Polperro jacket in Country Weekend Knitting. (Yes, Charles: probably my 2011 sweater!). The pattern calls for 2200 yards. Two skeins would have been about 1980 yards; which might have been enough, but I didn't want to risk it. The leftovers, I can either turn into hats and scarves for charity knitting, or, if I don't break into the skein and if I get back to the shop at a time when they are still selling the yarn, I might be able to return it. (Or I might be able to knit a vest out of the remaining skein.)

I decided to buy the yarn after all, because:

a. This yarn is by-and-large more reasonably priced than other yarns I could use (excepting some of the KnitPicks yarns, or a very lucky find on Elann).

b. I really like knitting with this yarn, and Stitches N Stuff is the only place I've seen it for sale

c. The pale purple color is pretty much the color I was envisioning knitting the jacket in. (In the book, it is grey, but I wanted something more lively, seeing as it's a heavier sweater to be worn on really cold days).

d. I really, really want to knit the Polperro Jacket sometime. I like the historical-pattern nature of the stitch pattern, and I wear cardigan sweaters all the time in the winter, because some rooms on campus are cold and some rooms are overheated, and it's good to have a garment that's easily taken off and put on as needed.