Saturday, February 23, 2008

Swooning is Good


If you are not addicted to yarn & knitting, read no further. The following message contains unabashed, nonsensical yarn adoration. It all started simply enough. I went to my LYS, Purl’s Yarn Emporium here in Asheville, for another ball of Berocco Comfort for one of the 2 baby blankets I’m working on. I kinda/sorta wanted to browse for yarn for my upcoming Beryl top. After much contemplating, I came home with this: Queensland Collection Pima Fresca, a 100% Pima cotton yarn, hand dyed in Chile. I LOVE this yarn. It’s SO pretty, if you’ve never noticed before; I am a huge fan of the color pink. They have it in lots of summery colors, there’s a bright coral, a gorgeous turquoise and several shades of blues that would look great with jeans. But then, there it was. I kind of noticed it out of the corner of my eye, way up there in the corner. The perfect shade of pink. That dusty, subtle pink, that girly pink that makes you hear “She’s a lady. Whoa Whoa Whoa. She’s a lady.” by Tom Jones. (Alright, I made up that last part, but you get the point.)

Now of course, if you loathe the color pink, then you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Suffice it to say I came home and swatched immediately while watching Sopranos Season 6. Washed and dried the swatch and was surprised to find no change in gauge at all! Interesting. I’m knitting this up tighter than recommended, getting about 5 sts. per inch on US size 6’s, instead of the 4 sts. per inch using 8’s, this obviously will give you a more flowing fabric. For Beryl, I think I need a little tighter. The yarn is very textured, which produces a great fabric, interesting and very fun to knit with, the hand dyed nature gives it beautiful tonal variations. I’m in a pink shaded heaven!

Ummm…have I mentioned I have these baby blankets to work on??? So after the swatch, I did NOT cast on, I worked on the blanket for my friends whose baby shower is in 2 weeks. Yikes. That one caught me by surprise too; I thought I had until the little munchkin popped out. This one is coming out very pretty; I’m using several different lace panels, in an asymmetrical blocks design. They are decorating the baby girl’s room in non-traditional blue & yellow, that is my color palette for this one.

Baby blanket #2 is for William the 4th, my husbands’ co-workers child. His blanket will be in 5 different colored strips of cable patterns. The center panel is an argyle pattern in a taupe color; I am so slow at cables. I can see this one will take much longer than the lacy blanket.

As for the Ruffled Jacket, I think it’s on hold until I get further with blankie #1. I’ve gotten a couple of suggestions on my sleeve cap issue, I will prevail!

Knit on!!

1 comment:

Alison said...

I love pink! Nice yarn!