Get fuzzy
Thursday February 25th 2010, 12:07 am
Filed under: Amaryllis,Knit

I’m not sure why I find myself wanting to catch up on old yarns as Stitches approaches.  But I do.

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I bought a wholesaler’s closeout of natural-brown 90% cashmere 10% nylon cones at–are you knitters ready for this?–$15/lb, and I bought ten pounds of it, all they had.  And then they found a few more in their warehouse and I bought those too.  They were giving it to me at their cost to get rid of it.  It needed a strong washing, and not just for the mill oils.  It was single-ply and cobweb fine, impossibly fragile; I plied it on my wheel into all kinds of useful, stronger thicknesses, scouring after spinning, and I made so many things out of it for several years.  Afghans, yarn that my mom knitted up into the most glorious Aran sweater, you name it.

Till I was down to the very last few pounds.  The idea of actually running out of this resource after all those projects… The rest of it kind of got tucked away, waiting till I could bear to let it go.

At some point, though, I wound some off, 64 g here, 66 g there, and threw them in the dyepot, one into a little red, the second a bit of purple.

And then those hanks, too, simply sat there.  I certainly didn’t do any spinning last year with all the stitching they did on me.

I got some Handmaiden laceweight silk awhile ago. Hey. While I was working on the shawl in Cashmere Superior and Dianne’s laceweight, the fuzzy and the colorful, I wondered if this new silk would look good with those two, and it would definitely add strength…

So today I tried it.  Plied the cashmeres first, then the silk around the other two. The yarn is balanced; no twisting in the finished skein, it hangs straight. So my being so out of practice didn’t hurt it.

The silk glistens, the cashmere fuzzes around it.  160 yards, drying now, waiting.  There’s a whole lot more, potentially, where that came from.


14 Comments so far
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Oh, that is simply gorgeous! You do such nice work.

Comment by ccr in MA 02.25.10 @ 5:09 am

Well, I’m impressed. It’s beautiful.

Comment by Joansie 02.25.10 @ 7:28 am

Oh, WOW!!!! That is truly gorgeous. No one could ask for anything more.

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 02.25.10 @ 8:24 am

mmmm, beautiful stuff! can’t wait to see what you make out of it

Comment by Bev 02.25.10 @ 8:44 am

Wow – it’s beautiful! Nice work.

Comment by (formerly) no-blog-rachel 02.25.10 @ 9:34 am

You’re right. 2009 was the year of Stitches Alison. (I was awake once to be stitched up, and the doctor explained each stitch to a resident. Gosh, she was as picky as you are about getting exactly the right stitch for each spot.) But you are no longer a WIP, but a finished masterpiece. So wear yourself with pride and have fun at Stitches West.

Comment by LauraN 02.25.10 @ 9:38 am

Well, as usual, I don’t really know what you are talking about. But much better you knit-dye-ply-… than be stitched upon.

Fun –

Sign on a septic service truck: 19,500 pounds of very gross weight.

Comment by Don Meyer 02.25.10 @ 10:21 am

Talk about ingenuity! Bravo!

Comment by Suzanne in Mtl 02.25.10 @ 11:41 am

Now you’re a yarn designer, too!

Comment by karin maag-tanchak 02.25.10 @ 12:31 pm

Ooooh, pretty, pretty! Don’t forget the vacuum effect. That hole you create by using up yarn creates a vacuum that just might get overfilled at Stitches. Can’t wait!

Comment by DebbieR 02.25.10 @ 12:38 pm

Beautiful!

Comment by Channon 02.25.10 @ 6:08 pm

As usual, you wait until your yarn calls out its purpose. Lovely!

Comment by twinsetellen 02.25.10 @ 6:41 pm

Absolutely gorgeous!

Comment by Diana Troldahl 02.25.10 @ 7:54 pm

Thank you!

Anybody catch the reference to the Get Fuzzy comic strip?

Comment by AlisonH 02.25.10 @ 11:37 pm



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