Yummy, Yummy Yarny Goodness (and a P.S. for Readers)

First off, a big shout-out to my next-door neighbors, who let Melissa and me tromp around their yard yesterday taking lots of knitting pictures among their flowers and veggies and sweet, pebbled paths. Go Next-Doors! We love you!

It will take several posts to write about the various photos we took, but I’ll start with some mouth-watering shots of yarn. (Is there such a thing as yarn erotica? Yarn porn? If so, these shots might qualify.)

Here’s the amazing yarn that Kay, of the Cotton Commandoes, sent me, along with the dishrag that I showed you last week.

I’ve been thinking carefully about a project for this yarn. I have about 80 yards, so can’t knit anything large. My best idea thus far is to knit a long scarf in a shiny blue/green/purple yarn, perhaps with some rayon, then drop stitches in a regular pattern as I bind off. I could let the ladders work their way down, then weave strands of this ribbon yarn through them and leave the ends for fringe. How does that sound? I’m very open to suggestions, if you all come up with something brilliant.

This yarn was an out-of-the-blue gift from Clarabelle across the pond.

It’s an absolutely cobweb-fine lace yarn that has a subtle, rich color variation to it that moves from yellow-cream to peach to palest pink and back again. I’m picturing this yarn as long, fluttering scarf, a la Isadora Duncan (though I will be more careful that she was in convertibles).

And here are my goodies from the Blue Sky Alpacas yarn tasting at Article Pract last weekend.

Christina, the shop owner (and co-author of Viva Poncho), always packages things beautifully. You can see the little mini-hanks she winds up and carefully labels for us. This month’s yarn-bites came in this great little burlap tote that makes a perfect project bag. The two light-colored skeins in front are the undyed organic cotton that I purchased, thinking of making a soft, cozy, snowflake- or vine-patterned hat. The dark green is suri merino, which I’ve earmarked for lacy wrist-warmers.

Thank you Kay, Clarabelle, and Christina for helping to feed my knitting addiction—I hope to return the favor!

P.S. I’ve discovered a new mystery novelist I’m much taken with, C. J. Sansom. He’s written a series of three books, Dissolution, Dark Fire, and Sovereign all set in Hanry VIII’s England, that feature hunchbacked lawyer Matthew Shardlake, a one-time reformist with cooling religious sentiments, who carefully treads the volatile Tudor mix of faith and politics. Once I read the first of these novels, I tore through the remaining two—and I’ve been moping a bit since then that there aren’t more for me to move onto. Happily, a fourth novel, Revelation, is due next year. My one caveat is that the middle book, Dark Fire, includes some cruel treatment of animals. If you don’t like novels that use such brutality as plot devices (I generally don’t), you may want to skip this one. By time I’d reached that section, i was too hooked to put the book aside, but there were some bits I did not enjoy.