Monday, October 7, 2013

For the love of yarn

This Friday is 'I Love Yarn Day', and there is going to be a lot of celebrating all over the web, all week.  Here at Hugs we're a bit ahead of the game for two reasons, one of which involves a recent Yarn Shop...


but more on that in a moment.  That blue yarn is bright purple in real life, incidentally, and I'm pretty sure the two colours together are a tea cosy in disguise.

The other reason is that I'm guest posting at Stitch and Unwind later this week!


If you don't know that blog, it's linked with AllFreeKnitting.com, which very generously features quite a few of my free patterns - I was so happy to have a chance to participate in the festivities there.  My turn is on Thursday, when I'll be sharing my latest free hat pattern.  Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure you'll want to put your name in for the prize they're offering there (click on the picture above for the link.)  Go check it out, I'll be here when you get back.

Here at Hugs, we're going to be talking about yarn all week.  (I know, I know, that makes it so different from every other week, right?)  I'll have another pattern to post, tips for yarn substitution, and a few glamour shots of yarn in transition.  Yay for yarn!

Today:

A yarn story (or: a yarn about yarn)

On Friday I was supposed to be meeting a friend to see the Ai Weiwei show at the Art Gallery of Ontario, except that I got the Fridays wrong.  So there I was, with a free day and parking already paid for the duration.  I figured I could turn around and go home, or accept it and go to Romni Wools.

As if I had to think twice about that.

I did wait to get onto a streetcar though, until after I'd stopped at City Hall for a look at a sculpture going up for Nuit Blanche - Forever Bicycles by Ai Weiwei - thereby getting in my art fix.


Incidentally, if you're not reading Hugs' Google+ page, you'll have missed this other sculpture that went up early for Nuit Blanche - Tadashi Kawamata's Garden Tower:


Maybe we need a closeup of this one...


There's actually an archway in there, with an open space for those blue chairs.

Gotta say: I really wished I could have made it out for Nuit Blanche itself.  Maybe next year.


And now back to my story.  In the crowded yarn aisles at Romni I spent an hour agonizing about yarn to use for a hat I've been obsessing about since I saw the film Hugo again recently and got more or less (okay, a LOT) fixated on Hugo's too-small sweater.  This seems to have happened to quite a few knitters who have recreated the sweater itself, but I don't have that kind of patience and hats are faster.


I ended up with this Debbie Bliss Blue-Faced Leicester superwash wool, which is quite soft and was available in all the colours I remembered from the film.

(except that I got one really wrong: it was burnt orange, not bright red.  dang.)

While hunting, I got chatting with a very nice knitter who was hunting for sweater yarn.  We had the same problem: trying to be true to our idea while faced with the reality of what yarn was available.  In the end we both compromised but she really helped me out by recommending the yarn at the top of the page - Diamond brand Luxury Merino.  I think I will like working with it as much as she does.

And I met a nice man in the bargain basement who reminded me it's just 10 weeks to Christmas.

(10 knitting weeks, I asked in horror, or 10 normal weeks?  either way, YIKES.)

But then I got to carry yarn around with me for the rest of the day, which sort of softened the blow.

Hope  you have a lovely day, and I'll see you tomorrow!

1 comment:

Trish said...

Only 10 weeks! Yikes!