Mercato dei fiori shawl

Here we go, another shawl.  I don't even really wear shawls, but I love knitting them. Love the lacework, and with this shawl, the Mercato dei Fiori, it has colorwork, and lacework--the best of both worlds. I get so bored with knitting straight stockinette stitch, or garter stitch, that I need something more. When I'm in the midst of a project that is just stockinette or garter, I start feeling like I'm driving cross country and am in Kansas: Too far to turn back and too far yet to go. I'm almost to the lacework, using Wollmeise 100%, in Wilder Morn and Schwarz.

Guitarista: a Felted Guitar Strap

I made this for Brian a couple of years ago, and he's still using it: a felted guitar strap. If you want the pattern, I will send it to you. It's in parts. Here are photos.

Summer muse

Every knitter who writes, or writer who knits, needs a muse. In this case, it's the Fountain Pen Shawl. Do you see the fountain pen nibs in the shawl? Knit using Wollmeise (what else at this point?) in the Versuch Edelstein colorway.

Yarn as comfort food

A few posts ago I said that Sanguinella Wollmeise reminded me of tomato soup. Not just any tomato soup. Trader Joe's organic creamy tomato soup. Mmm. Soup is comforting, so is yarn. Tomato soup is the soup of my childhood. Always with Saltines. Can't have tomato soup without Saltines. Other soups are fine without crackers. Not tomato soup, though. Never tomato soup.

Receiving Wollmeise from Germany

First you see the bag on the red bricks beneath the mailbox....

You bring it inside....

Rosie worships it....

Nigel joins her and investigates...









And then you open the package and voila! there's the yarn......in this instance, beautiful Aquarius Twin.....delicious...

Speaking of delicious, accompanying every package is a mini bag of Gummy Bears. I didn't even like Gummy Bears until I discovered Wollmeise. At least they're not fattening. You'll see them next time, with my next package from Germany.

Waiting for yarn

When I was a kid, I waited anxiously for my box of Nancy Drew books to arrive.  Every other month or so, a new stash of new books showed up.  Nothing was better.

It's sort of like that now, only now I'm waiting for German yarn.  Even though the post person knows by now that he/she doesn't need a signature, that he/she (I have both, a male & female postperson) can drop the white bag(s) on the red bricks by our turquoise front door, I still don't want to be in the shower or out around the time mail's delivered.

When I hear the slippery plop of bags that came all the way from Germany, that rode in trucks and on planes, and then a minivan from the post office, I feel a slight thrill.  I may not rush to the door like I did in the old days, when the yarn was first arriving.  But I'm still thrilled. And then, inside, I slit open the bag, let the contents slip onto the table--an inner paper bag, invoice, pattern and mini-bag of Gummy Bears--and then open the paper bag. Usually I do this part slowly.  I want to savor.  I don't always know what I'm getting, especially if I ordered a grab bag. In some ways, grab bags are best because you only have a general idea of what you're going to get. The next time an order arrives--hopefully in the next day or two--I'll photograph all parts and show you.

In the meantime, isn't this just the most colorful yarn you've ever seen?

Dreaming of yarn

It's bizarre to nonknitters, how yarn finds its way into your life. I know any obsession is getting bad when I start dreaming about it. In the summer after high school, when Hughie and Faith and Ziggy and I sat around the Helpline Center in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, waiting for the phone to ring with somebody who needed help on the other end, we play pinochle.  Endless games of pinochle.  When I started seeing aces and kings and hearts behind my eyelids when I slept, I knew it was time to stop.

This morning I awoke with two things on my mind: the book I'm working on, and yarn--this yarn, in particular: Wollmeise Sanguinella.  It brings to mind tomato soup, not quite orange, not quite red.  Comfort food. As I got up, I thought: I could knit a shawl, and it would be my comfort shawl, the one I sink into when I need comforting.  I rarely wear shawls, but that's besides the point. And unlike my pinochle experience/obsession, I'm not giving this one up. I don't want to. And I can't. It could be worse...it could be a drug or food or gambling addiction. It's yarn! Yarn!

Back again

I had a knitting blog until a couple of years ago, and then it disappeared, and being a Raveler, I thought: Why start a new one?

But then knitters told me they missed my blog, so here I go again......

First order of action: to talk about the yarn that has captured my imagination, and dollars: Wollmeise. Oh, help me Rhonda....help, help me Rhonda..... This yarn is so dense with color, so gorgeous after blocked.....Here's a photo of a skein. Isn't this skein of Limone enough to brighten up anyone's day?

And here's a pic of a recent--my most recent--project: the Ishbel shawl, also knit with Wollmeise in the Fleiderbush 100% merino colorway/yarn. It was my first skein of Wollmeise, traded by a knitter in Asia. She saw something in my stash on Ravelry that she wanted, I saw this color in her stash and asked for it. She said yes. Big mistake--only sorta. It was my entryway drug to the world of Wollmeise.