Category: Yarn Tales and (Un)windings

Well, I have three real projects on my needles, one educational one, and a few planned projects. But these need to get finished. I have been looking at FB posts and seeing what other knitters have managed to finished during the Great Quarantine of 2020, and I can do the same thing if I put my head to it. I just don’t have the get up and go to do it..

And when it comes to yarn…well, that’s another story. I am a hoarder. I have more yarn than I can ever use, I admit, but there are times when I have donated to a good cause (Ms. Percio’s ladies at the nursing home), and then I turn around and get more yarn. But I love the feel and the colors of yarn, the adventure of shopping and squishing and feeling textures.

But I have also managed to rein in some (SOME) impulses. I am also becoming a little more particular and peculiar about my yarn choices. I like certain brands and types, and there are shops I will happily go to, or online sellers I will order from. I am also cheap but I buy in quantity. Sigh.

I don’t like bulky yarns, boucle, eyelash, or the scarfy ribbon-like stuff. I love fingering, self-striping, worsted or DK, merino…but I am on the fence about one-color skeins. I adore Gina, Noro Silk Garden, Lion Brand Mandala, Cupcake, Wool-ease DK, Bamboo Pop, Willow yarns, and Adriafil Knitcol. Red Heart Unforgettable–love the colors but it can be a pain to work with. There are some Hobby Lobby yarns I like, but these have to be the ones from Turkey; I have Cascades and some other brands made in China, I am on the fence about those. But it’s so much fun to look at my collection, rummage through them, and even think about things I could make with them. I need to get going…

Every Saturday morning, I pull out the AC Moore/Jo-Ann’s/Michael’s Sunday circulars, just to see what yarn is on sale. I check out Craigslist to see who’s selling yarn and knitting supplies, I browse eBay’s listings of huge yarn lots, I even have three sellers on my watch list. I get the Lion Brand Yarn and Knitpicks catalogs, I get Love of Knitting and Knit Simple magazines. The Dummies’ Guide, Idiot’s Guide, and Teach Yourself Visually knitting books. And I have about five boxes (not just little) in the basement, full of yarns.

Have I finished any projects? Well, yeah, mostly scarves. I need to expand my horizons. Think out of the box. Go circular. Mobius.

Until then, I shall enjoy my stash. Get lost in the range of colors and textures. Amuse myself with unkinking the wound-up circular needles. Dream about the square Kollage needles. Flip through the magazines and envision myself sitting contentedly knitting away…

If I could tell you what it is about this category of perfumes that just gets my attention, I would. I like the colors purple, violet, lilac, lavender–but there is something about the scent of violets. I bought Choward violet candies–takes a little getting used to, but they’re not bad. My niece Isabelle brought me back a bottle of crystallized violets from Paris. I have those violet-flavored mints in lavender tins. I cleaned out the supply of Italian violet soaps at the Centreville Tuesday Morning one day (I have done the same thing at a TJ Maxx and Marshalls)–Italian is much, much better than the Scottish version.

But perfumes? Ah, my downfall. Violetta di Parma. Paco Rabanne’s Ultraviolet. Diane von Furstenberg’s Volcan d’Amour. Marc Jacobs’ Violet splash. Yardley’s April Violets. Christian Celle. Oscar de La Renta. Tocca. Caron’s Violette Preciuse. Good grief, I spent a cold morning in the basement yesterday unpacking all my boxed-up perfumes and sorting out which ones were violet-based and separating them, sniffing at the stopper. There is just something heady about the smell of violets.

And right behind them is the aroma of iris. Yves Rocher. Claude Galien. Yardley. Warm. Woody. Mmmm..

Is it the chance to worship at the altar of self-striping yarn? Mochi? Mini-mochi? Chunky? Bernat? Berrocco?

And it’s not just the LYS, it’s the Michael’s,Hobby Lobby,AC Moore, Jo-ann’s, Wal-Mart. Carodan Farms, Uniquities, Yarn Cloud, Nature’s Yarn, Knitting Sisters, Yarn Explosion.

The feel of soft alpaca. The brilliance of scarlets, magentas, lavenders, golds, and leaf greens. The sensation of skeins of yarn cradled in your arms. The sight of a husband willing to carry balls and skeins of yarn patiently, following me into the store and not saying “you really don’t need any more yarn” but smiling when I am the one who admits it while swooping into a basket of clearance yarn like a vulture spotting a kill.Yeah. There is nothing like a yarn shop.

So many balls of yarn, so many stores…

I had taught myself to knit the summer I was 12, but I didn’t have the staying power then to stick to a project and finish it. A year ago (and nearly four decades later), I picked up the knitting bug again, and haven’t stopped (at least when it comes to buying yarn and haunting the local yarn stores). I have finished a few projects, and I actually managed to follow a pattern and brought it to fruition in two versions of yarn and two colors. Can’t complain, I am pretty happy about that!

But some of the yarn places I have visited include Uniquities, Knitting Sisters, Yarn Explosion, The Yarn Patch, Unraveled, Nature’s Yarns, Aylin’s Woolgatherers, Woolly Jumper Yarns, Mosaic, The Yarn Barn in Burke, and Gail Knits in Vegas. I need to check out the ones in Memphis, Huntsville, Gettysburg, and more…

And there is nothing wrong with Michaels, A.C. Moore, Jo-Ann Fabrics, Walmart, Hobby Lobby! Lion Brand, Red Heart, Caron, Berroco, Patons, Noro, Ella Rae, Crystal Palace Mochi and Mini Mochi….ah bliss…