Experiments

Last summer I concocted an idea that turned out to be one of my better ones. I decided (and ended up carrying out only thanks to the enormous help of my friend Janel) that we should have a fibre and yarn swap. Basically what that entailed was tons of knitters and fibre crafters coming together to trade and swap yarn/fibre/books/needles etc. One section was for items that you didn't want anymore but that you wanted to trade for something else.... good yarn that you knew you wouldn't use but that others would fall over themselves to get. That worked great! The other section was for items that you didn't want anymore and you didn't care what happened to them, so long as you didn't have to take them home. There was a LOT of that! In the end I took all the 'donated' yarn and donated it to charity.


BUT! What I did end up getting, which was super awesome, was five balls of an unlabelled yarn. It's giant bulky single spun... almost a pencil roving, but with a bit of twist in it. I have two (huge) balls of dark brown, one (huge) ball of medium brown and one (huge) ball of oatmeal. It's all undyed, so the colors are the actual colors of the sheep it came from, which I think is pretty cool!

It's taking up a lot of space in my yarn area right now... and up until yesterday I had no idea what I was going to make with it. I thought I didn't have needles big enough to even knit it, so there it sat. And then last night, after knitting my requisite two rows on my blankie, I decided to do an experiment. I got out the biggest needles I could find and cast on 10 stitches. Turned out my needles were the perfect size (10mm dpn) for this yarn. I knit for a while in garter stitch (and by 'for a while' I mean not very long at all... it's hecka bulky!) and then broke the yarn, leaving the live stitches on my (plastic) dpn and threw it in a soak. There was so much lanolin in the wool that it made the water weird and sudsy! I let it soak just long enough for the whole house to smell like a barnyard and then took it out, rolled it in a towel and layed it out on a piece of plastic wrap. (dries faster than on a towel because on a towel the moisture soaks out of the item and into the towel, but then for the towel to dry it has to go back up through the item). I gently stretched it both lengthwise and widthwise and then left it to dry. It has a gorgeous drape (where before it was a bit stiff and bullet proof) and I can't wait to attach the yarn again and continue knitting. Big bulky knits are in this year (so I've been told) and this yarn is gorgeous! Patrick said he thought it would be good as a cowl, and I have to say I agree with him there... probably a two toned brown cowl in seed stitch but for the time being, I just wanted a really really long, bulky gorgeous garter scarf that I can wrap around a few times and feel cozy and warm!

It's a gorgeous day here today... yesterday it was snowing flakes the size of golf balls and it must have been freezing rain during the night because my car was a cake of ice this morning. But today it's beautiful blue skies, gorgeous sunshine and the mountains have a fresh layer of snow on them.

For your viewing enjoyment, and because I haven't posted any decent pictures in a long time, here's the view from my desk at work. Both taken with my iphone, but the retro one was done using Hipstamatic. If you don't have this app yet, GET IT!