Yarn stuff ahead.

A little knitting at last, and man did it feel good to get back to it. The super-soft Piuma tubular-spun cashmere from Colourmart in 21105, their lightest beige, started on the plane ride home and finally finished. It’s not yet dry so the picture is darker than it will be in real life.

The cone was a bit of a splurge but I got two cowls out of the 150 grams with 48 to go. They were not huge cowls and would be best on someone of average or small build. Basically, I just had no idea how much the lace would grow on blocking, and winged it. (It didn’t grow.) I used US 7 needles but even with my loose knitting could easily have gone larger. I did hank and pre-scour to try to pre-shrink the yarn and let it bloom, and wow did it bloom: from worsted and solid-looking to wide and soft and quite airy.

Colourmart lets you put these in your basket for 14 days–half the usual time, due to the demand–where no one can touch them while you wait for a small sample to see if you really like that one, or while you make up your mind or try to finish whatever project you have on the needles first. So if you want to sneak a peek at what colors they actually still have around that aren’t showing on that first link, that you could hopefully snatch up as soon as someone else’s cart expires, go here for the Piuma. (I have no idea how to do that on their other yarns other than to ask them, I only know that one because they posted the link on Ravelry.)

They’re a mill-ends place and it’s been eight years since they got that many colors of that yarn. I saw their email saying they had new stock three hours after they’d sent it and the teal (and some of the other colors) were already long gone for good. People had been hoping for more for a long time. I bought the beige to finally try out the famous yarn and to see how cost-effective vs other yarns it could be (or not), and after seeing how things were coming out I too wanted more. More came.

After someone else’s cart expired. If yours does you have to wait a week before being allowed to cart it again. It’s only fair.

For whatever it’s worth, with this yarn there’s only a single ply sort of braided around on itself: it doesn’t have multiple twisted plies in the traditional sense. In the tradeoff between the friction that twisting creates, which takes away softness but adds strength, and wanting to preserve what that cashmere can feel like, they went for preservation of the softness. Cowls and scarves and hats are perfect for it. Cablework, maybe not so much–too much stretching and pulling, I would think, and I wouldn’t dare use it for a baby blanket, much though I wish.

A cowl will do quite nicely. My daughter Sam got the first one. I hope to find out tomorrow who gets the second. There will be more after that.