Me and diets.

Food diets and yarn diets. I can't stick to either of them. In the case of food diets, I start to crave donuts (which, as anyone who knows me will know by now, I don't like -- it's disconcerting; like craving mud.) Apparently, in the case of yarn diets, I get given yarns.

It's hard to see, but there are four skeins there. For the uninitiated, that's 1,020 yards of wool and nylon goodness. Yes, the colors are that intense. Possibly even more so, because the flash has washed out the green.

One of the ladies at coven brought in 16 skeins in various flavors to give away. The other ladies each took four skeins, and, in a ritual very like a gang initiation, forced me to take the last four. I was only going to take two (because really, who can't use two skeins of sock yarn?), but they quoted the rules of Fight Club at me: No orphan skeins.

So I had to take all four.

Sigh. You know, I go for nearly four years on an inadvertent yarn diet, acquiring less than ten skeins/balls/bits and bobs per year simply because I was broke, and in the first year I have cashmoney to spend, I end up with...Good Bob, I don't even know. Let's see, the 70 I got at Yarnia, my new Wollmeise, these four....

Now I really need a yarn diet!

I can't blame this on Yarnia.

There are limits to what I can blame on the mythical, magical Yarnia. But my quest for legendary yarns continues.

And I have crossed off one more, Wollmeise.

 The color is called "Klapperstorch", which Google-Fu tells me translates to "stork". I'm not sure why a yarn that cycles from a pale, pinkish-white to black would be called "stork", but perhaps German storks are just a little different.

Anyway, I bought it second hand off someone on Ravelry who couldn't bring herself to knit it because the colors are the same as her local pro basketball team. Plus, I get the feeling she's not big into red. Which is fine and natural; we can't all like the same things.

But I do love red, and the colors are beautiful. Witness:

And this is the part I love best, I think:

Maroooon! I love maroon. I don't know why, seeing as I was abused with private education, which includes pleated knee skirts in unattractive plaids (ours were maroon and gray). Still and all, I love it all together with the other colors.


It's going to become a Clapotis eventually. I've met another Wollmeise Clapotis, and it was lovely.

I think my little stork is going to be beautiful, too.

A-HA! Wikipedia provides me with this lovely fellow's picture:

A painted stork.

Now I get it.

Dammit, Yarnia!

Yarnia's portals ope'ed wide yet once more, and this was thrown out and into my hot little hands.

Now I have to figure out a pattern that ties to both Fasching and Wiener Schnitzel.

A knitter's work is never done....

Reunited and it feels so good....

So, Yarnia is closed. It was picked clean by the coven. By and large, the coven's yarn-shaped kitty has vanished into a dozen stashes across town, and the leftovers are going to be listed on Ravelry's 'to sell or trade' pages.

But in the meantime, I got reamed by fellow coven-members. For abandoning yarn.

See, I had four skeins of Frog Tree alpaca yarn, two in hot pink and two in navy blue:

I'd actually put them on my own 'for sale or trade' page on Ravelry, but then the last trip to Yarnia netted me this:

Two skeins of slightly off-white. There were actually three in the tub, but I figured -- two of each of the colors, two of the white, right? Makes for balance.

I got told at coven last night that the last skein was crying, lost and alone, in the tub, like the last puppy of the litter. So they brought it in and made me take it home.

Apparently, there is a new rule at Yarnia: No orphan skeins. If there's one left in the tub, you're taking it home with you.

So, here you go:

Nestled up in quarantine together.

Temporarily. The two I bought first left quarantine today for the new stashtainer in the house. The new skein has to stay in quarantine until Thursday night, then it comes to visit its family again for three days, then back into quarantine for the final three day stint.

And I have another 130 yards of sport weight alpaca yarn to figure out what to do with. I'm thinking...something with panels in the colors, borders of the white. Double knit scarf? Perhaps?