And from Plymouth Yarns of all places! I bought two skeins of their Bristol Yarn Gallery Buckingham 80% baby alpaca, 20% silk. A total bargain for $7.99 for approximately 218 yards (50g). I bought one skein in a soft chartreuse and one in a lovely cream. I’m going to knit myself the shortest of the stocking caps in the Whimsical Hats pattern from Blue Sky that I bought yesterday at Flying Fingers. Stripey for me, solid blue for G. I looove alpaca. It’s soft and yummy. From the BSA ball band: “Alpaca is a rare, small, curious, and intelligent fiber-producing camelid sheared once a year for the most luxurious fiber in the world. Alpaca fiber is warmer, stronger, softer, and lighter-weight than wool!” (grammatical errors and typos fixed by yours truly). Looking at the yardages though, I’m thinking I can get away with maybe even the medium stocking cap (218 x 2 = 436 yds vs. 120 x 2 = 240 yds), I’ll just keep knitting until I run out.
I was afraid of falling into the sock yarn while I was up at Cornwall and fall I did, if only a little ways. Here is Sakura from Bluestocking Yarns, inspired by Memoirs of a Geisha: “I thought of the petals I’d thrown into the Kamo River shallows…imagining they might find their way to the Chairman. It seemed to me that, somehow, perhaps they had.” I find myself actually not just stash-enhancing now, but buying for specific projects. Does this mean I’m becoming a more responsible knitter? Is that such a bad thing?
After watching the Repugnican debate (most of which I slept through), I decided to cast on for G’s hat. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I had forgotten how to cast on any other way than the simple loop method! I quickly checked out YouTube and found some fuzzy, stuttery videos looking like they’d been shot using Skype. No help there. I went upstairs to tell G that I was having troubles and could he help. “But I don’t know anything about knitting!” he protested. “Yeah, but you’re really smart.” No dice. I ended up hunting up the Lucy Neatby DVDs I’d bought after her sock class last summer. Was I thoughtful enough to buy the Knitting Essentials DVD with basics on it? Yes I was! Minutes later I had two versions to play with, plus the bonus tip of doubling my tail to eight times’ length to create a super-strong and stretchy edge. Just perfect for a hat. The pattern calls for 144 co sts, but I may increase that to 168 (24″ circumference x 7 sts per inch). I could listen to Lucy all day. I’m going to go put the DVD in the player downstairs and watch her on the big screen.
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On this day: pms 2006
