Visiting Some Old Friends

I have been hit with the urge to knit. The reasons for that are many and varied, but it’s been a while since I actually wanted to knit something specific as opposed to working on a prayer shawl or dishcloth just to keep my hands busy. Whatever. I’ll run with it and see what happens.

I have a Very Large Yarn Stash. It is large enough that it has its own room—a small room, but a room nonetheless. That room is even officially referred to as the Yarn Room. I went to the Yarn Room last night to do some stash diving and came out of there feeling like I had visited my hometown, except that my hometown no longer looks like it did when I was growing up. I saw many familiar landmarks. Oh look!—there is the Alice Starmore Bainin! Scottish Fleet! And some Berroco Bluefaced Leicester! My beloved Brunswick Germantown! However, I am not the same person that I was when I used to live in that town. The town is full of a lot of new people, too: younger people, people who want hip and trendy. I doubt that I could move back to that town and fit in, but I am going to go there for a visit. That may have to be enough.

Perhaps some sweater projects will come out of that stash next winter. I certainly have enough yarn that no one would die of cold in a grid-down situation. For now, I settled on a simple scarf project using this:

This yarn was purchased from Knitting Traditions, Beth Brown-Reinsel’s business, back when she was still located in Pennsylvania. I am quite partial to those British longwool sheep breeds. They are some of my favorite fibers to spin and the tactile experience of knitting them is sheer joy. I chose a simple one-row garter and faggoting lace pattern for this yarn. The longwools tend to be spun loosely to keep them from feeling like piano wire, but this makes them behave almost like a bulky mohair when knitted up. The yarn gets a definite halo just from being handled while knitting. I’ve got about 2” of a scarf knitted up and I love the way it looks and feels so far.

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I’ve got six grocery bags ready to deliver to the organic market on Monday and another five that I may or may not get done today, depending on how things go and whether I work out in the garden or not. DD#2 reclaimed my cutting room as her bedroom while she is here, and that has altered my workflow significantly. I moved the cutting table into our bedroom but then had to move the ironing board to the upstairs hallway. It works, but it’s not ideal. And she’s only going to be here for another week, so I’ll just enjoy the minor disruption of having her around.

The poor husband is still working on cars. DD#2’s 2014 VW Jetta threw a check engine light the other day. He ran the diagnostics on it and the code seems to be pointing to a possible heater core issue. He wants to see if he can resolve the problem before she goes to Seattle. That has been such a great car for her otherwise.