I was supposed to go to a sort of folk-harp masterclass on Sunday morning. So I grab my harp, hop into my car, get horribly lost and miss the class. As a consolation prize, I took my husband, who shall remain nameless, to The Sow's Ear for yarn and chai, both of which he enjoys. Did I win the nameless husband lottery or what?
So I spent the $30 that I didn't get to blow on the class on yarn. Nice fall yarn, unfortunately, and I'm knitting something devastatingly simple, so expect a rather unseasonal free pattern to emerge before long. :-) I'm going to be nice to myself, knit for myself calm and easy before getting back into the "knitting for publication" groove. I have ideas, but I'm not going to push them out just yet.
I finally bought yarn. Oh, that feels good. And what yummy yarn it is. Merino wool, alpaca and silk. Sulka. Yes.
I didn't swatch. Rather, I used my hot water bottle cozy as a swatch to figure out gauge and how the yarn would behave after blocking. I figured this was perfectly reasonable - I was using the same yarn, same size needles, same stitch pattern - the only difference was the colorway. And oh, what a difference it made!
Berroco Peruvia in "sea turtle" is soft, squishy, warm, luscious with just enough of a halo to make it cozy. In black, however, it is scratchy, straw-like, less elastic, itchy and hairy. "Halo" is not the word - it's hairy. I noticed the difference early on while knitting - the yarn wasn't as soft, it was hairier, it was splittier than when I'd knit it in "sea turtle." I figured it would all even out after blocking. I was a fool.
The lesson I have learned, and I hope you'll all learn from my mistake, is to SWATCH!!! Swatch even when you don't think you need to. Switching to a new yarn of the same weight? SWATCH!!! Switching to a new colorway that feels slightly different? You're not crazy - SWATCH!!! I feel like I've flushed an itchy, hairy sweater's worth of yarn down the toilet. Ugh.
But in reality, I haven't. I have a prototype, I tried it on. I now know that the basic design works the way I wanted it to. I now know that if I raise the neckline and shorten the shoulder straps, it will look perfect. I now know exactly how much negative ease I want (it fits great width-wise, but the black yarn had less vertical stretch than the green yarn). I will find suitable yarn, I will swatch, I will knit a perfect and glorious Person Cozy, and it will be good. Someday. When I can afford the yarn. Like the phoenix, Person Cozy will rise again!
My "Happy Weekend" present to you: a new free pattern cum blog giveaway!
Pattern
Download the PDF here.
"Tied Up and Twisted" is amazingly quick, amazingly easy and surprisingly versatile. The twisty pulse-warmers will keep you (surprisingly) warm while the weather warms up, and the hairband can be worn in lots of different ways. There are yarn overs worked down the length of each piece, which allows you to button them anywhere along their length. Use these pictures as “serving suggestions.” There’s plenty of room for creativity!
I knit these to show off the wonderful handspun yarn I received for Christmas from Woolly Hands. Worked on large needles, this yarn knits up quickly and with lots of character! You could substitute a bulky yarn of more even thickness, but I think you’d lose some of the character of the piece.
Blog Giveaway
Remember "Bluebonnets?" It's coming along great, and I'm almost ready to have it tested. Because this pattern is slightly more complicated than my two free patterns, I'm going to charge a little for it.
Want to get it for free?
Knit up "Tied Up and Twisted" and post it to Ravelry with pictures and a rating by the end of the month, and I'll enter your name into a drawing for a free PDF copy of "Bluebonnets" when it's tested and finished. I'll draw 2 names at random and contact the winners through Ravelry on May 1. You have to be on Ravelry to enter, but this gives you time to get an account if you don't already have one (it's free, and soooooo worth the clicking and typing). And yes, I will enter your name even if you only give me one star. Be honest. :-)
Yarn When I first started knitting, back in college, it was with...like...Lion Brand and Red Heart acrylic stuff. The cheapest stuff I could get my hands on, essentially. Since then, I'm afraid I've developed rather more expensive tastes in yarn. This wasn't such a problem back when I was working full time, but now that I'm back to being a broke-ass student, well...yeah.
I'd say that my strongest preference when it comes to yarn is natural fibers. I realize this is somewhat arbitrary. There are some nice synthetic blends out there. It's part a crunchy-granola thing, and part the fact that I grew up in The Land of Spontaneous Brush Fires, not far from The Land of Spontaneous Hurricanes, where we have a deep appreciation for the miracle that is 100% cotton. But cotton isn't all that's good and pure in this world. Natural fibers in general breathe better than synthetics, and even in winter, when you're wearing layer upon warm layer, acrylics will make you sweat when wool won't.
I'd like to be even pickier in my yarn selection. I'd like to buy more locally produced fiber, wool from manufacturers with documented humane standards of treating their animals. I'd like to buy organic cotton and yarn dyed with the environment in mind. There's lots of locally, responsibly produced wool to be had in my area, and some gorgeous hand-painted artisan yarns. I'd like to focus on these, to help my community and vote with my dollar, but damnit, I can't afford to.
Not only can I not afford to, being a responsible consumer sometimes seems like an impossibly daunting task. A lot of people are faced with unacceptable choices - if there's not much locally produced organic produce to be had, for example, your decision to buy organic might send a message to the industry that buying local isn't important to you. If you want to buy locally, you may be sending the message that there's no demand for organic produce. Industry can spin your economic vote to further restrict your choices, if it's in its own financial best interests, and that is so frustrating when I think about it. I'm lucky, in that I live in an area in which I can buy my produce at farmer's markets and, during the right time of year, not spend any more than I would at the grocery store. Locally produced wool, however, is still beyond the reach of my wallet.
So...unfortunately, regarding this area of the economics of knitting, I just don't have any answers. I'm not going to give up my knitting because I can't afford to be as responsible a consumer as I'd like. That's not going to happen. I'm obviously not going to give up my graduate studies so that I can make enough to afford all-natural, organic, humane, locally-produced yarn. And I'm not going to start knitting with cheap-ass acrylics, which frankly, for all I know, could be environmentally destructive to manufacture (I really don't know. If you do - comment!).
It goes back to my reasons for knitting. It's a sensual experience. If I hate the yarn I'm using, I won't enjoy it enough to continue. But I also hate the idea of spending more than I would for a store-bought garment. I can pretty much knit small things, hats and scarves and whatnot, for considerably less than what I'd pay in a store, but I start to get diminishing financial returns when I move up to, say, sweaters. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and pay through the nose for what you love. But I will not pay ~$100 for a sweater no matter how nice Rowan Cocoon is!
So I continue to bargain hunt. Every once in a while, you'll find some nice, yummy wool in a gorgeous color for $6 a generous skein, and then you buy those puppies up! I'm going to start looking in thrift stores for sweaters to frog - we'll see how that goes, I'll post about it here when I get around to it. Gift cards to yarn stores allow me to splurge. Felting being all the rage these days, the big yarn companies are coming out with more 100% wool yarns, so if I'm knitting, oh, say, a blitz of Christmas gifts, I can actually find wool that's worthy, nice and not too expensive at my local big-box fabric store. I'd still rather support local businesses and...y'know...shop in a store that feels like a store and not a warehouse.
