My mother, the enabler

I called my mother this evening from My Favorite Big Box Store. I had gone for one item, but it wasn't there, so I consoled myself by trolling the cross stitch book aisle. I've been designing a cross stitch sampler in my head, and looking into alphabet books, small item patterns and the like.

It's a sickness, a very, very special sickness.

I found one and was browsing the others to make sure it was really the one I wanted, when a woman approached me for help in matters yarnish. I assisted her with finding a yarn to go with her beginner's crochet hook and book, then started browsing the yarn myself. As I have more yarn than Big Box Store does, thank you, Yarnia, you'd think I wouldn't find anything worth buying, would you? And you'd be wrong. Wrongitty-wrong-wrong, as it turns out.

I went down the Lion Brand aisle. BIG mistake! I saw their Hometown USA yarns. They had a team colors version in Da Phew's school colors -- and a general home town version in the 'accent' color. All bulky yarns. Shockingly soft, for Lion Brand. I'm so super pleased that the major yarn companies seem to have gotten the memo that knitters, crocheters and other yarn fanciers prefer their acrylic soft, but sheesh. Makes impulse buying just too easy.

So to control myself I whip out my cell phone and call my mother. I say, "Either I don't need any more yarn, or you need a scarf in Phew's school colors." The lady next to me snorted in laughter, and I end up walking out with this:

Because I need more yarn.

Sigh. I guess I should just accept that I'll always be easily seduced by spun fiber, but it's aggravating. I mean, where will I keep this stuff until it's knitted up and Mom is wearing it? I have no earthly idea.

And the whole thing is compounded by the fact that earlier today I impulse shopped this little gem:

I guess the army wives stuck in Berlin during the blockade got bored and decided to cheer themselves by writing a cookbook based on the trouble you can get up to with limited 'vittles'. It's got a recipe for making cottage cheese out of powdered milk. And a soup made out of cream of wheat.

Oh, there's normal stuff in there (creamed spinach, various sausage dishes, Toad in the Hole, etc.), and a punch for a party that made me realize that while they didn't have fresh milk, they totally had the contents of sixty liquor stores hidden in their basements. It calls for 20 bottles of wine and cognac. YeBobs. I'd think you'd get high off the fumes, never mind drinking the thing!

It's perfect bound, which means that even though I was the first person to turn the pages, and that about six hours ago, they're already falling out. I will have to make a trip to my local FedEx/Kinkos and avail myself of their spiral binding services again.

I do that with all my softcover cookbooks, actually. I got in the habit with my piano music books, and realized it would make using those cookbooks so much easier. They lay flat on the counter! You don't have to worry overmuch about losing pages! It's a wonder, and no mistake.

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?

C'est fini.

The Milkrun Shawl, Adapted.

I apologize for the state of the room behind the chair, I tend to...stack and pile things.

Anywhoo, it's done. I've washed it and dried it (which I won't do again, I want this thing to sag and I think I'll need to air-dry it if I want to accomplish anything like that) and worn it. Heck, I've even taken a nap in it. Super-squishy comfortable.

In other news, I slipped through the door into Yarnia again. I went for one thing. Just one skein of yarn.

I walked out with $23 worth of goods. Granted, $3 of that was in needles (I got a couple pair of square needles and a set of hand-made needles that are as soft as kitten ears), but the rest was in yarn.

Oh, I am sooo weak.

Here's the highlights:

Peter Pan from Wendy Yarns. Softest acrylic I've ever touched, and no lie.

This is what I went for, more of the Colinette Giotto ribbon. It's not the same color as the other skein I bought, but it's still super sexy. I love this stuff. I may have a new addiction.

Schaefer Yarn Lola. It's even superwash. Good yardage. Pretty soft, too. Me likey.

MORE ribbon yarn. I bought another skein of this stuff (Judi & Co Galaxy) in a slightly different color (this is called "Calypso", the other is "Mulberry" and slightly darker).

I'm not even sure how to use ribbon yarns, to be honest. But I seem to have fallen in with them.

Other than that, I got some workaday Frog Tree Alpaca and some wool that I'm going to knit then felt into a cat cave for Yoda boo... I foresee a lot of knitting in my future.

And this, for a sweater for me:

Aww, yeah, baby. Merino and Mongolian Cashmere.


$8 for enough merino/cashmere yarn for a sweater. Heh. I'd laugh maniacally, but I'm fighting a chest cold and don't want to hurt myself. I might be unable to knit if I strain my ribs, after all. 

Poppin' tags

Have you ever done a thing that was both so awesome and so wretched you simply didn't know whether to jump up and down for joy or smack yourself with a shovel?

It's like that.

Four years ago, one of my coven found a yard sale at which were being sold luxury yarns for $1-2 per skein. Skeins that, mind you, bore price tags marked upwards of $40. And not just one or two skeins, no, bins of yarn. Boxes of yarn of identical dye lots. Heaps and piles and bunches of yarn, nice yarn, soft yarn.

She went nuts. Then she called other members of the coven, they went to the sale house, and they went nuts. One of them went away to get more money, and when she got back was informed that someone else had arrived and carried off the rest of the yarn she had in the garage that day, alas. But there was more! Garage Sale Lady said, her mother in law had owned a yarn shop, and there were scads more yarn where this had come from. But it was not there that day, she would call us when she was ready to clear it out.

Over the past four years, this yarn and yard sale have taken on the tone of legend in our coven. We'd go along for weeks or months before someone would say, in hushed tones of reverence, Remember the garage sale lady? I hear she's getting ready to sell the rest. The coven member who found the garage sale tended to stalk Garage Sale Lady's house on the weekend of the community garage sales. In a totally non-creepy way, of course. She'd just cruise by to see if the tables were out or not (always not.)

Oh, we who did not attend the first sale did not believe! They couldn't have been all that nice! Not for $1 per skein! Who does that sort of thing?

Well, after four years of rumor and speculation, the garage sale lady re-emerged from the darkness. She contacted us and said she might be available soon. Not one to let a good thing go, our coven leader emailed her, asked what she wanted for the lot, and bought it all. Our coven now has it's own mini-yarn shop, and they DID NOT LIE. This yarn is...it's stuff I've only ever heard of on Ravelry, through other knitters, through foreign blogs. Silks and super fine merinos and ribbon yarns that look like candy, more and more and more. It's Mythical Yarn. We have our own doorway to Yarnia.

I went last night to the private Coven Store, and paid $43 for over $540 worth of yarn (if I go by the price tags). There's antique yarns and foreign yarns and yarns I've never heard of anywhere. I'd show you everything I bought, but I think I'd break Blogger. Here's some highlights:

This yarn? IT'S FREAKIN' CAMEL. And wool. But CAMEL!!

I am...without words. This stuff is beyond awesome. Now, I just have to figure out where I'm going to store it all!