woolythyme

you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear....or can you?

One beautiful skein of Swans Island fingering weight merino started it all.  It's the sole survivor of souvenir yarn from Swans Island that I bought on a 2016 Maine trip with a friend.  And this fall she and I are going back.  How can I justify more in the stash if this is still hiding out there?

Isabell Kraemer to the rescue. (That woman has rescued me more time than I can remember....I love her style, her colour sense, her patterns.) 

I probably would never have put these colours together, but....copycat that I am, when I saw her shawl, I knew this was a winner that maybe---just m-a-y-b-e---I could replicate.  A very, very, very deep stash dive...and I came up with perhaps  enough partial skeins of pink and assorted mini balls of grey....to make this happen.

Be still my beating heart...

I just want to knit, knit, knit.  

I'm still in the heart of a major yarnchicken game. Are there enough odds and ends to make the full size shawl?  Way too soon to tell.

All those bits, pieces, mini balls, oddball skeins that alone were nothing more than a poor sow's ear, but combined.....????

A silk purse A treasure.

Fingers crossed.

souvenir yarn….

 

Every once in a while souvenir yarn actually gets knit.  When there is a souvenir pattern to go with the souvenir yarn, one has to wonder why ???? it took 8 (EIGHT!) years for this little scarf to materialize.

 

In 2005 I was with a group of knitters on a trip to Shetland.  Some people on the trip were friends; some soon became friends.  One of the new friends wore a little ruffly scarf she had designed...using Jamieson spindrift (the Jamieson mill was one of the highlights of our stay in Lerwick). Of course, we all went home with some yarn to make this scarf. 

 

Fast forward to last weekend.  I helped Miss V clean out her yarn closets (yes, that IS plural)-- I think it was a new-year's-clean-sweep-thing, which I had high hopes would rub off on me (it didn't.); we were down to the last couple little bags of yarn....we turned to each other and said together---Coreta's SHETLAND SCARF!!!  Being the overachiever that she is, Miss V had several scarves worth of yarn in her baggies, but....

 

I knew I had a bag, too----somewhere.  I don't think I've seen it in 8 years.  I was beginning to think it must be hidden with baby Jesus (who STILL remained MIA this year), but low and behold...it was with assorted other scarf-to-be projects.  And I had to make it.  Now.

 

How easy it is to forget why some projects go to indefinite time-out. It became pretty clear that I didn't have enough of the contrast yarn to make even a short scarf, and it was equally clear that I couldn't just run to my LYS for more.  I could maybe turn it into a cowl, but the ruffles on the ends were what made this so darn cute...so.....

 

I followed the pattern until I had used about 1/2 the contrast; cast on again and used up the rest...then continued with the solid color in a 3x3 ribbing that emerged from the pattern to make the neck part with the intent of grafting the two pieces together.  So far so good.  A plan.  (That I obviously failed to think through to the end.)

 

Kitchenering stockinette---OK.  Garter, no problem.  But ribbing?  Not so good.

 

I ended up treating it almost like double knitting, putting all the knit stitches on one set of needles--the purls on another set of needles, then c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y grafting the facing knit stitches---flipping the work and then grafting the other side (now also knit stitches).  If the yarn had been a light color---or not quite so wooly wool this would have not worked.  It's far (FAR) from perfect, but...

 

totally unnoticeable wrapped around my neck.  It's fine.

 

 

 

 

The best part of this little project wasn't really the scarf anyway...it was remembering the wonderful time with great friends in this beautiful country.

a souvenir...

Guatemalans obviously don't share my love affair with grey yarn.  On PapaGeek's recent trip he found some yarn in an open air market.  Two skeins stuck in a corner...in a basket...with a bunch of other debris.  When he showed a little interest...a few more skeins appeared---all 'hand dyed' according to the vendor--all in crayola colors--all different.  He bought the two biggest balls.  (I guess that was as good a criteria to use as any.)

Interesting yarn.  It is quite obviously wool.  A coarse wool with quite a bit of Guatemala still in it.  It is plied (three plies) very very loosely, resulting in a rustic, super bulky thickness.  Most definitely qualifies as souvenir yarn.

 

He loves it.