Sunday, September 9, 2012

Sartorial Sundays

Yarn! Ok, so, yarn is a very easy thing to start a hoarding addiction. No, seriously. You go into a yarn store and you think of all the projects you could do (99.9% of which you will never get to). Why do you think that there is actually a term for your hoard? It's called a yarn stash. Because it's a drug that gets a hold of you. Rowan and hand dyed, and specialty and on and on, oh look, this is alpaca. You want it all, for color, for feel, you to just have! So, in order to avoid my going crazy and blowing tons of money on yarn I didn't allow myself to even set foot in a yarn store till I had finished my tea dyeing and had the color palette set... ok, little fib, I was at Wisconsin Craft Mart, buying buttons, not yarn, and looked at the yarn for ideas and become very covetous, but only bought the buttons... a lot of buttons. But they're Steampunk and will be part of outfit number two... and I didn't by my yarn at that visit to the store, but I did go back...

Ok, so here is the color palette I'm working with. I would like a yarn with more than one color in it, so not a uniform brown, but with hints of the warmer cream and pink... maybe a twill thing going on. So, I was going to go to my uber elite, high end yarn store, but that way leads to temptation. Instead, having been to Wisconsin Craft Mart and seeing that they had tons of yarn and more in the nice mid-range selection that they do carry at the elite stores, but without any of the elite yarn temptations, I thought going back there was a better bet.

My visit also totally paid of! So, at the beginning of your pattern, they always recommend a weight of yarn... I kind of don't ever really look at this, I go for more the color or the feel than the recommendation, which I wouldn't really recommend if I where you, but that's just me. Luckily the yarn I fell in love with was a Worsted Weight (the recommended weight)! Ah, felicity, you are my friend. I picked out a very nice Encore yarn from Plymouth Yarns. Surprisingly, I chose a nice rich brown, instead of a more mottled yarn, this one has more of a color depth inherent to it that I just love. Like a dark brown with a lighter more molten chocolate brown woven in it. Also, not being pure wool, I won't be sweaty and itchy all weekend, which would not be fun!

The yarn was nicely priced at $6 a skein (aka ball o'yarn), and promptly upon making my choice I took apart the display. The owner of the store walked by and nodded sagely, dye lot, asked if I needed help and moved on. See dye lot is key! Most people don't tell you that all skeins have their dye lot on them. What this means is all the yarn with the same dye lot number where dyed at the same time and will therefore be the same. Because say you bought two skeins and didn't check the dye lots, then there might be a weird color shift, which you don't want in the least. So I was able to get enough of the right dye lot and skipped my way up to the register happy in my find and even happier when I got home and placed it on my outfit and it looked like they where made for each other! Now to get my knit on!

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