Friday, June 21, 2013

A roomful of knitters (and pretty new yarn!)

At this year's Knitter's Frolic, Trish bought me a raffle ticket and it won.  This resulted in a (brief) period of Moral Dilemma time until I told Trish, who immediately absolved me from guilt, bless her. All that was left was for the two of us to show up at a Downtown Knit Collective meeting to pick it up.  Ha! like that's a hardship - we'd go more, if we had more time.

Here is the raffle prize:


Isn't it gorgeous?  It's a giant skein of Fleece Artist Tosca, mostly wool but with a bit of nylon to bind the boucle.  As I was walking toward the table of raffle loot I saw it and thought Ohhhhh, I hope that's for me.  And now that I have it I hope I am not imagining that I have 9mm knitting needles in my stash because this stuff is mega bulky.


I wonder what I'll make with it?  Whatever it is, I'm committed to meet and greet it before November because there is no excuse for leaving in a skein something that knits up as fast as this will do, when the weather is perfect for it.

Today's story should end there, and it would if I hadn't actually walked into the meeting room.  A very nice woman had two tables of yarn set out just inside the doors, and, oh dear.  Of course I don't need more yarn - who among us needs more yarn? - but this was all very beautiful yarn and I felt I had to look, at least.  And when I looked I saw early labels marked Twisted Fiber Art and the penny dropped.

This was beloved stash yarn.  You know, being destashed, at a massive discount from its original prices, for a move to a smaller home.  And it's not as though the skeins could be tucked into throw cushion covers or into the base of a glass coffee table as Art (now there's a great idea!) because apparently this was just a small fraction of the excess yarn she was compelled to address.

Of course, my heart went out to her, and so did the cash I'd put into my bag for subway token emergencies.  I told her I would take good care of her yarn, and make something with it.

I bought this very old colourway in Duchess, a superwash and squishy DK weight I love to work with:


and this equally old colourway in Arial, a fingering weight I've only ever used for shawls but I'm thinking might make an awesome woven scarf:


After that... and after Trish arrived and I took her over to the table too and then we left empty-handed because she has so much more self-restraint than I do and resisted her nemesis Cashmere which was represented all over the map... it was time to sit and knit and listen.

And here's my favourite part of the whole evening.  Well, not the listening, in spite of that being fantastic and informative and just generally enjoyable - my friend at Sel et Poivre wrote that up better than I could, and I only wish I'd spotted her there because it turns out we were quite near each other - but the looking.

The room was full of knitters, knitting.  In fact only a handful of the group was not working away on something or other.  And all the somethings and others were incredibly beautiful.  It was like browsing through the highest-level project pages at Ravelry, but in person, and it was all around me, plainly visible thanks to stadium seating in the room.  I've been at these meetings before so I know this happens in real life, but omigosh, it really struck me this time how lovely it is to be present with people who do what we do.

It's a good life we have, making things.  I hope you get to enjoy lots of it this weekend - I plan to, thanks to some serious passenger time in a car - and I will see you on Monday!

4 comments:

Leslie said...

Beautiful yarns you picked up! When you buy multiple yarns at one time, do you find that you typically shop in the same colorway (as you did this time)? I do! Without even realizing it most of the time.

Mary Keenan said...

You know what, I find I shop in the same colourway *everywhere* for ages, and then switch over to something else. I've been wavering lately between greens, which might be 'done' now, and then orangey browns. Now that I think of it, I just bought a dress the other day in the colours of these yarns, too!

Annie Cholewa said...

What a lovely post, and you're right, it is a good life :)

(Thank you so much for your kind comment on my guest post at whipup.net)

linda gaylord said...

To sit in a room full of knitter's,knitting things I can only dream about.....how envious I am! Around these parts,there is only one lys,and I don't think they have a knit nite.but since I can modify patterns and knit socks,I am the person my knitting friend comes to for help,so I guess that makes us our own knitting group,lol!