Lady in Red

My best friend/college roommate was just here for a three-week visit and wanted to bring me presents, so I asked for yarn dye. Vira brought me lots and lots of Kool-Aid from the states, so we had to have a dying party. Even though we had five different flavors, they were all various shades of red and pink, so we decided to go for some of the most intense reds that I have ever seen. I'm still really new to hand-dyeing, but its amazing what I can do with a pitcher of hot water, Kool-Aid, yarn, and a bathtub. It didn't take that long, but the result was three beautiful skeins of red, in some subtle varieties. All the yarn came from Ingrid over at Yarn Workshop. The few times that I've attempted hand-dyeing has been with her yarns, and they are so user friendly and absorb the dye really nicely. I think that I might be hooked! Vira helped a lot, and it was her first time dyeing yarn, so I think that I am going to use one or two of these to make something for her. She just moved to NYC, so she is going to need fabulous knitwear come winter.

Instead of just taking a plain picture, I was really inspired by the reds in the skeins to find all the favorite things in my life that are red, which turned out to be a lot! My favorite cookies come in red package, one of my softest scarves, cranberry juice, nail polish, and my MAC lipstick. I really like how this photo turned out, so this could become a regular thing. I will have to expand more on my stock of hand-dye as well then!

Forays into Welsh Yarn

So even though I spent six weeks in the UK, I managed to restrict myself to only buying four skeins of yarn. (Having a strict budget also helped) Even though I bought 2 skeins in Edinburgh and Whitby, both yarns turned out to be Welsh. If it came down to yarn over food, I think that there could have been a couple of times on this trip where I would have been happy to go hungry.

The first place I found beautiful yarn was in a shop in Whitby, on the north-east coast. Whitby is a great little seaside town itself, and its claim to fame is, if you have read Dracula, the town where Dracula's boat ran aground in the novel. Ontop one of the cliffs is a ruined abby, which gives Whitby a great deal of spooky charm. Add in all the Dracula fans and gothic kids who make pilgrimmages there, great fish'n'chips, and you have a good day on your hands. On the side of the town where the abby is, there is the knitting shop. It looks like it was a church hall at one point, and right on the outside was a sign that said "Knitter's Paradise" I of course, entered to test this assumption. The store itself is actually called Bobbins, but it is indeed a knitter's paradise. Inside, it was just one giant room full of yarn, books, and some of the most intricate sweaters I've ever seen. Instead of having neatly organized shelves, yarn was inside great wooden seacheasts, and I wants to dive right in and roll around in the yarn. The ladies there were really fun, helpful, and great to talk to. I found this great wrinkley yarn in all my favorite shades of blue and green there. I could have bought every colorway, but that would have meant living in a cardboard box for the rest of the trip. This is one of the yarns that I think will have to go on the shelf just for me, and I'm thinking a delighfully snuggly shawl or scarf. The pictures I've taken don't do justice to the range of blue and green in this yarn, but if you know me, its every color that I love to wear and work with. This yarn is the Colinette Zanzibia in the Velvet 114 colorway. It feels so soft on the skin and slick to the touch, so I cannot wait to make it into something lovely and cozy. Now I just have to find the perfect pattern.......

The next skeins of yarn I purchased were found in Edinburgh, Scotland, on a street just off the Royal Mile. I really loved the time I spent in Edinburgh, and it was topped off with find this great shop, k1 Knitting Boutique. The vibe of this shop is liking being in an old 1950s ice cream palor, because its filled with bright colors and comfy couches to sit and knit on. The lady there was one of the nicest women I have encountered from all the yarn shops that I have been into. She took a great deal of time to help me find the perfect yarn, and also just spent a lot of time making small talk, If you ever go to Edinburgh, you must go here! The yarn I picked up here was Fyberspates Scrumptious, in this great green/grey/bronze wool and silk blend. Once again, pictures do not do this yarn justice. Even just in the skein, it shimmers. This is definitly going on the shelf until my skills improve and I find the perfect pattern. I am going to be selfish and keep this one for my own, but I feel like it deserves to be made into something spectacular. For now, I will be content with occansionally petting it, and sighing. I do think that I am in love with this yarn.

Even though that is all the yarn I bought on my travels, I did encounter a cute shop while staying in York, down the Shambles. I believe that it is the last yarn shop in York, and the staff there were great. If I had a little more time and money, I probably could have bought a lot more, but then I did have to think about suitcase space. All-in-all, yarn shopping in the UK was a huge sucess!

Mo Rocca and Itchy Sweaters

Every Sunday morning, I like to sit with some coffee and knitting and listen to one of my favorite radio programs from NPR, Wait Wait....Don't Tell Me The past week featured comedian Mo Rocca stating that he never wore handmade sweaters because "they are always itchy". As a knitter, I was defensive, but this week's program is currently an apologetic Mo Rocca reading a prepared statement after being bombarded by knitters up in arms, and I nearly shot coffee out of my nose from laughter. I think that it is a testament to how we take things too seriously sometimes, but it is nice to know that many knitters have decided to convince Mo wrong, and are making him some lovely hand-knit sweaters. At least we know that the knitting community welds some power in the world of mass communication.




So I feel this this photo of my stash is a fitting commentary on where my life is right now. If you compare it with my past one, you can see that things are a bit more organized and co-ordinated, but still with a little chaos, which I need my life. On the bottom shelf, I keep most of my FOs that have yet to find a home, and the top shelf contains most of my craftyness tools. WIPs are scattered around the apartment, some on my nightstand so I can finish a few scarf rows before bed, or the pair of socks next to the TV, so I have something to do when I watch bad television. Everything is a little bit scattered, but I like it like that. Organized chaos and all...



My favorite project at the moment is a pair of socks that I am making for my friend Heidi from some lovely hand-dyed Footscray from Ingrid over at Yarn Workshop. A few of us gathered around her yarn-dying kettle a few weeks ago, and these beautiful yarns came out of that. It was my first time hand-dying anything more than a tie-dye t-shirt, and I must say that I am hooked. Since then, I've been perusing the asiles at Jusco and Japan Home Center, musing over the rows of stainless steel cookware, mentally justifying the money it would cost to buy myself a shiny kettle of my own. I keep telling myself that as soon as I finish my TEFL, I can reward myself with the kettle and some dye and then just go to town. The thought of all the colors that could come out of my kitchen makes the 4 hours of coursework on verbs and conjugation a little less daunting, but still tedious none-the-less.