blue

speaking of line breaks...

...i made another one. a blue one. in six days. with fingerless mitts to match. i was in a rush, and in my usual rabid acid speed monkey mode. it does wonders for my project knitting, but less for what my friend, who recently spent a fortune and flew 15 hours only to see me knit non-stop for six days, calls social life.

that's as much of an apology as you'll ever get out of me, and you all know it.

but let it also be known, and visually observed, how pretty the set turned out to be. garter is my friend, my lover, my well-behaving woolly poodle bitch. garter makes the asymmetric short-rows drape gorgeously and the eyelets pop out just right. and the mitts, while completely brainless in construction (hence no pattern), hug your hands with all their squishiness and provide extra warmth thanks to the interlocking rows.

channa modeled. because she's pretty and photogenic. thanks, channa, for being pretty and photogenic, and putting up with my art direction. i curse because i care.

the set's already found its way to its new owner back in finland - a very special person who reached a rather respectable milestone recently and greeted this unexpected form of postal gifting with much joy and gratitude. normally i don't do much gift knitting, because i'm such a selfish tit, but this time the exception was both justified and rewarding.

we might have started something here, and it terrifies me.

miracle on 21st street

and it happened, that the boy and i took a little weekend getaway in san francisco recently. we saw the bridge, and rode the trolley, and climbed up and down the steepest hill ever known to man, because on top of that hill was where our hotel was.

it was all good and fun.

then, on day three, we headed to a funky bohemian district of the city for a photography session the boy had booked.

it was a sunny day, and a brutally cold day. i was wearing layers upon layers of woolly things, many of which i had purchased the day before, because not knowing anything about northern california weather i had only packed skimpy little tops and shorts teetering on the verge of vulgarity and general disapproval. topping everything i had my precious deep red line break shawl, and being thusly wrapped i walked up the street feeling happy and content.

somewhere along the way it got a bit warmer, though, and i took off the shawl and handed it to the boy so that i could take my sweater off, and again it was all good and fun.

we reached the photography studio and the boy was getting ready when i asked him for my shawl back.

his face went blank as he exclaimed, "i don't have it."

"what do you mean you don't have it?" i asked, with a profound sense of discomfort emerging from somewhere in my belly.

"i don't know where it is," he mustered as i began frantically looking through my bag, his bag and everything around us, not seeing the signature red colour anywhere.

"i must have dropped it on the street," he said, and before i could respond, he darted out the door and ran down the street where we came from.

fifteen minutes passed, with me standing there in the studio, explaining to the very busy photographer why the photographee wasn't there (because he lost something very dear to me), and why i couldn't call him to come back (because my archaic canadian phone doesn't work in the states). the photographer obviously wasn't happy with the situation, nor was i, so we stood there in an epically awkward silence.

finally he came back, sweaty and panting, his tail between his legs, and a terrified look on his face as if he was waiting for the fury of god's own thunder.

"i couldn't find it," he said.

"you are a terrible person," the photographed said.

i held back tears as they went to take the photos, and decided to walk up and down the street one more time. i looked under every car and every dumpster, and stared down every person walking past as if my imaginary x-ray vision could see into their bags and pockets and souls, telling me which one of these horrible, horrible people took something that didn't belong to them.

but i couldn't find it either.

so eventually i went back to the studio, where the boy had finished the session. i told him i couldn't find it, and he said he was really sorry, and tried to comfort me in every way he could. i tried to appear brave and indifferent, while in reality i was completely heartbroken.

"we'll go ask every store on the street if anyone found it and brought it in," he said as we walked out.

and that's exactly what he did - he went into every single store to ask for it, and in every single store they said no.

after three blocks and dozens of stores i stopped and started sobbing, because even with his noble attempts to make things better, the constant rejection just made me feel worse.

"i don't want to do this anymore", i said, my eyes so watery i couldn't see.

"i'm so sorry", the boy said and hugged me. "i know how much you loved that shawl."

so we kept walking, not really knowing what to do or where to go next.

then, at the corner of valencia and 21st, a homeless guy crossing the street had something red draped over his shoulder.

"THAT'S MY SHAWL," i yelped before my brain realized what was going on, and the boy darted after him with speed and determination i'd never seen before. i hobbled after them, crying with a newly found hope in my heart, and heard the boy plea for the shawl.

the homeless guy was stoned out of his mind, and seemed mildly terrified, possibly because he had just been grabbed by a tall bearded brown person who, true story, gets questioned every time at the airport because he looks like.. well, a terrorist.

"it's not mine," the guy managed to stutter, "my friend gave it to me." his voice was soft and confused, like michael jackson on sedatives. "but i can take you to him and you can ask him."

the boy hesitated, obviously recognizing that following a homeless person anywhere could be a terminally bad idea, but seeing me blabber made him go for it anyway.

so we went to another homeless person who had set up a little yard sale in the street corner, with stuff that people had "lost" and he had "found". he was a grey-haired elderly man, with a hawaiian shirt, no teeth and glasses so thick his eyes were completely distorted.

and again the boy pleaded: "that's my girlfriend's shawl and she made it herself and it means the world to her, is there anyway we can have it back?"

the man looked at me, and i looked at him, and all i could say was "please", over and over again.

finally he smiled, took the shawl from the younger guy, and handed it to me. "i can tell it's handmade and it's obviously really important to you, and i'm glad to return it to the rightful owner. i found it on the ground and was just going to sell it for five bucks or something."

i grabbed the red bundle and pressed it tightly against my chest, my first thought being THE YARN ITSELF IS WORTH 50 BUCKS ARE YOU COMPLETELY DEMENTED, and the second one being of such profound joy and gratitude that i literally lept and hugged him.

he was stinky and gross, but i didn't care.

the boy offered him money in return, but he refused. "i just want to do the right thing," he said.

and so we walked away, thanking him profusely, and still i sobbed, but now for a different reason. i held the shawl in my arms like it was a newborn baby that i was terrified of dropping and smashing his little skull.

through some divine intervention the next store we passed was princess animal, a lovely little shop that sells our yarns, and we went in, me still shaken and burying my swollen eyes into the sweet, sweet woolliness of the skeins hanging on the walls.

having heard the full tale of what just happened and discovering my employment relations the owner of the shop expressed some completely unexpected admiration and fangirl behaviour, and insisted on giving me a discount, which i fully and happily accepted, and grabbed three of the most luxurious skeins i could find.

upon finally reaching the register and reaching for my wallet the boy interrupted me and pushed my wallet back into my purse.

"i got this. you deserve it."

and i gleamed with joy as we walked out with 80 dollars worth of yarn in my bag, and had all kinds of fun the rest of the night.

afterwards i felt silly for getting so worked up over such a small deal. but i really do love that shawl.

and the boy's pretty sweet too.

manly

a certain special point in the course of things has recently been reached.

the point where it has become evident that one person is fairly interested in creating fluffy knitted things, sparking a second person to express a shy and modest interest in acquiring one of said fluffy knitted things.

a short exchange of thoughts was carried out, mostly consisting of the first person pondering within and out loud whether or not the relationship between the two persons has gone far enough to actually sit down and create a fluffy knitted thing for the second person, since history does offer evidence that doing so is a sign of some level of commitment to which not all second persons are prepared to take part in; and the second person saying, "sure, cool".

and so, a manly man cowl was born.

five by five cowl by felicia lo

ravelry link

malabrigo sock & sweetgeorgia tough love sock (90g each / 5mm)

it is custom-tailored to his color preferences and style, and without the mohair strand the pattern calls for, because while he does make his living in the film industry, and judging by his tea tastes is a bit of a girl, he lacks the edward d. wood jr. type obsession with dressing up in actual fluff.

the cowl was very easy to make and, had the first person not been distracted by the second person in many devilish ways, would have been finished in a matter of hours. but, as things were, it took a bit more. the result is very pretty, though, and well worth all the effort and pondering.

rumour has it that he actually wears it, too, which makes the first person happy, as well as a bit embarrassed that she keeps referring to him as "a bit of a girl".

artisticky

somewhere between everything that has and has not been going on recently, there was summer, and yarn, and a shawl.

quill by jared flood

ravelry link

size gigantic

BT loft (220g / 3.5mm)

also there was a deep and profound sense of discomfort at being photographed - despite the many, many unspeakably dirty favors the photographing party was willing to offer in return of a single frame where eyes weren't crossed, tongues weren't out and/or breasts weren't flashed.

what can i say. there is something utterly disturbing about posing in front of a machine that has the full capacity to capture your soul and put it in a jar and sell it to the gypsies, all the while being bent into weird shapes and attempting to look as if you were too cool to care.

still - what a lovely, therapeutic knit, and what a lovely heathered colour, which, incidentally, was personally approved for this particular project by the lovely jared flood himself at vogue knitting in april.

sizewise it turned out to be more of a blanket than a shawl though, and as such has found its place less as an everyday accessory and more as a priceless sit-on-me-and-fucking-die type of chair cover.

but for one day it got to go out and be pretty, and artisticky, and pretty, and indeed it was, and things were good, and souls remained intact, and afterwards there was a bit of boobage, and that was lovely too.

i made a pretty

loverly

by this time you should all be aware that when it comes to knitting, and reporting about knitting, i am not a here-and-now kind of a person. let's just say i'm very easily distracted.

so it shouldn't surprise you that i'm coming forth today with yet another FO that has been finished for ages. seven months sounds about right. although this time a lot of it really has to do with crappy cameras, which, i'm glad to tell you, have recently been replaced by awesome cameras. cameras capable of giving knitted things the vibrancy and depth they so thoroughly deserve.

lovely by melissa kwan

ravelry link

sweetgeorgia superwash dk (65g / 4mm)

it's a test knit for a cowl that was designed by my good friend, vigorous enabler, and cohort in all things yarn-related, melissa. she put the pattern together back in the winter and was brave enough to ask me to try it out (i say brave, because... well, all of the above). which i did, in two days, because i'm fast and awesome.

the cowl is the perfect one-skein project that doesn't take that much concentration, but won't bore you either. i used smaller needles, like i usually do, so the size came out a bit smaller than the pattern measurements. but since i like my cowls to be fairly close-fitting anyway, i can see how it could work even with fingering weight yarn. i can also appreciate the fact that the girly-girly heart motifs are balanced with rugged cables every now and then. i have my manliness to protect here, for god's sake.

so in short, it's a must-knit. go out and knit it, or else.*

in addition to all her yarn-related escapades, melissa periodically locks herself in a closet (literally - i've seen it) and sews project bags. she is too modest to believe it, but they are known throughout BC and beyond. so much so, in fact, that they don't even make it to her etsy shop before they're grabbed by knitters who notoriously hoard stuff and aren't afraid to use their elbows in the process (while being brain-burstingly, ever-smilingly passive-aggressive about it).

THESE ARE MINE SO BACK THE FUCK OFF, DEAR

but it just so happens that melissa is going to be a vendor at both fibrations and knit city (her first live appearances!) so this is your chance to have a look in person and get your own. act fast though, before some greedy skank buys them all. i'll be the one who's armed with zombie machetes and a pair of wolverine claws. what's your plan, bitch?

*or else what? exactly. 

unbroken

for those not familiar with what's truly imporant in life, the lady in the previous post was bette davis in now voyager (1942) and the letter (1940).

notice how she's ugly when she's weaving, frumpy when she's crocheting, and completely smokin' hot when she's knitting.

the defence rests.

in other news, here's a shawl i made. the boy took the pictures. he made me look all girly and pretty (i'm wearing a dress, for god's sake) and afterwards we went back home and had hot perverted sex chocolate milk until dawn. as some consenting adults choose to do.

line break by veera

ravelry link

madelinetosh tosh merino light (160g / 3mm)

to be fair the shawl has been finished since april. but i can't keep up with all the stuff that happens anymore. there's just so little time, and so much chocolate milk to be had.

mysteriously, at the same time, i've had to cut down work hours as well as knitting hours, because my retarded body won't keep up either. i'm 28 and so, so broken. i have hip pains, joint pains, back pains, nerve pains, horrible eyesight, thinning hair and a general sense of an expiration date long since passed, notably manifested in the 13 different medications i've stooped down to taking daily.

but as god, bob and all other deities know, it takes a shitload more than that to break my spirit. in fact, i dare you, I DOUBLE DARE YOU, MOTHERFUCKER, TO SAY 'WHAT' ONE MORE--

yes. the shawl.

indeed it is.

even at the risk of sounding unacceptably exhilarated, it's a divinely perfect combination of yarn, texture, shape and colour that enamors me and positively sweeps me off my feet every time i wear it - and apparently others too (hi becca - no you can't have this one, make your own bloody shawl!). making it was pure bliss from start to finish and taking it off the needles literally hurt my insides and made a part of me die - much like childbirth (episiotomy, anyone?), and indeed this furry piece of red cloth is my baby, probably more so than any actual human being will ever be.

i wanted it to be a bit smaller than the original sample, so i used 3mm needles instead of the suggested 4's. the size turned out just right. it's big enough to wear as a wrap, but small enough to tie around the neck. the tighter gauge makes it a bit warmer too.

not that additional warmth has been necessary here lately. we are now officially at day 35 of the epic nonstop heat wave of 2013 (it hasn't rained in five weeks, and i can smell it). but hot weather makes for pretty pictures, and also melts some of the permafrost of my cold, icy heart.

the spiders get fucking huge though. where the hell is the DDT?

triple threat

hi mom

you made me. that was a fairly awesome thing to do.

i know i've been the retarded black sheep of the family sometimes. made you lose your shit and caused you lots of worries and heartache when you deserved none.

sorry about all that.

and now i'm 5000 miles away and haven't seen you in six months. life is good here, but not being able to hug you and say thank you and have farting contests with you sucks donkey balls.

i really really miss you.

back in the winter i saw this lovely merino-silk fibre at work that reminded me of you. i was only just learning to spin with a wheel, but fearlessly i sat down every night after work anyway for a month to spin a skein of yarn. my first full skein of yarn, in fact.

after ogling the finished 500-yard skein for a good week or so it seemed only fair that you should get the very first thing i've ever knit with my own handspun, and so i started knitting you a shawl. the pattern is the same 22.5 degrees one i used to make my own shawl for TNNA.

towards the end i managed to run out of yarn for the scalloped edging, so i dyed some more fibre at work. not being very smart i added soap to the dyestock, and the fibre got felted. but being very persistent i spun it anyway, even though every second felt like a good old prison-style ass ramming (as you know i'm quite fine being gross).

and this is how it turned out.

it's soft and shiny and lovely and for some reason it's perfectly stripey too -- i can't say that was intentional, since i just split the fibre into two bobbins and plied them without any colour planning whatsoever, but i'm willing to accept all of your oohs and aahs anyway.

i hope you like it. i love you and miss you and one day i'll be back and we'll have us some good stinky times again.

baffled

life is awesome.

that is all.

giggle & swoon

i have a solid excuse for being so quiet lately. two solid excuses, actually.

the first one is, i'm freakishly busy these days. they turned me into a full-time dyer at work recently, which is awesomely nice, but also awesomely time-consuming.

the second one is, i've been getting me some. feel free to speculate over that one. i'll wait here in the corner giggling while you do.

giggle giggle.

despite all this i've been churning out FO's like an ambidextreous monkey on LSD, but again, the quality of my photography is so abysmal with the equipment i have that i'll just rather keep you all squirming with anticipation for now than post pictures that make me look fugly and untalented.

so, to distract you for a little while longer, here's a recap of our recent trip to vogue knitting live in seattle.

in short, it was awesome beyond all human expression. even with the thoroughly magical plane of day-to-day existence i'm lucky enough to occupy in my life right now, i want to go back and curl up in the fluffy cloud of creative energy, sheer talent and white angora bunnies that was bellevue that weekend and never come home again.

THEIR LITTLE NOSES WERE TWITCHING

i took classes in two-colour knitting, steeking and knitwear design, which were all taught by people i never ever expected to be allowed to occupy the same temporal space with - such as gudrun johnston, who's so nice and charming and cute that i just wanted to take a piece of her with me and place it on my mantelpiece (that did not come out right).

in addition to spending lots and lots of quality time with the best knitterly friends a girl could ever have, i met a whole bunch of new people and generally acted nothing like the awkward, socially disabled trainwreck of uncomfortable silences that i once used to be. what an empowering feeling to find yourself talking to a complete stranger and not want to curl up and fucking die of embarrassement afterwards.

on friday we caught a jeff bridges show in downtown seattle. oh, what a long wavy gray hair he had, and a stage presence that made me really really like country music.

and of course, i bought some yarn. a little bit of yarn. not that much. 12 skeins is not that much. one skein of hazel knits artisan sock, a few skeins of BT loft, some shetland spindrift for colorwork practice, two skeins of icelandic laceweight and a few local sportweight columbias. the purple knitted wit skein made me especially giddy since through some cosmic miraculous coincidence it's the same color and dyelot of featherweight rambouillet i got at TNNA, so now i have enough yardage for a proper shawl.

i bought my first pair of signature circulars too. and a whole lot of tea. but it's really quite challenging to go all the way to bainbridge island and churchmouse and not buy a whole lot of tea. it could've been a lot worse. that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it.

also also, at some point during the weekend, well, uh... this happened.

receiving this plastic trophy the size of my production manager's baby basically meant three things:

a) me being called up on stage during a stupendously expensive gala dinner, which i was completely and utterly underdressed for, to knit as fast as humanly possible with terror-stricken sweat-clad hands and a digestive system ready to burst into a diarrhetic dungfest of comically exaggerated proportions while being gawked at by 200 people who obviously were not familiar with the many perks of continental knitting;

b) me actually being the fastest of the final three and therefore receiving abovementioned trophy and a whole buttload of free stuff as well as an unexpected additional round against the likes of amy detjen and lily chin which, in some post-orgastic knitting euphoria i also totally dominated;

c) random people coming up to me in a semi-continous stream for the next two days to congratulate me and casually touch my seemingly magical hands, which was extremely weird and uncomfortable, but also kind of cool in a LOOK MA I'M FINALLY SOMEONE kind of way.

what also happened later was me standing in line to pay for my churchmouse purchases when somewhere from my left a hipstery form of pure magical talent, lovely body odour and general swoon-inducing awesomeness emerged, and it was jared flood, who had specifically sought me out to congratulate me and tell me how very impressed he had been with my performance, and i stood there staring into his beautiful eyes and mentally masturbating myself and it was all very very not-uncomfortable.

in fact, after having my entire purpose of existence fulfilled in such a way the universe promptly expanded to an extatic mushroom cloud of yarn and bunnies and unicorns and then collapsed in on itself, leaving behind nothing but faint memories and this black and white hologram of wobbly knees, heaving chests and unsurprisingly retarded smiles.

retard... with a trophy
(photo: melissa)

unnatural born

apparently i'm pretty awesome at this spinning thing.

did i mention that i only started with a wheel over christmas?

don't mean to brag or anything. but that's two months to the date.

seriously. don't mean to brag.

oh, fuck it. i know i'm awesome.

newlyweds

there has been a sharp and rather unforgivable decline in the amount of knitting i've been doing in the past few weeks.

here's why.

yes. i have been lured into the dark side. she's new, she's gorgeous, and she's mine.

exactly

nonchalant

so we went to the TNNA winter show last weekend.

i love how casually that rolls from the tongue.

just flew down to long beach, hung out with madelinetosh, took a dump at the stall next to beth casey, you know, the usual stuff.

with some delightful food-baby-walking-dead marathons scattered in between

for that completely nonchalant occasion i made two cowls and a scarf, all in company yarns, because i figured it would make me look even more professional than i falsely think i am.

the first one's a highly classified test knit which i cannot explicate further at this time. it's a cowl, and it's green. that's all.

the next two i cranked out in five days prior to leaving for the show. during those five days i also worked full time as well as moved my ever-increasing earthly belongings to a new apartment, so i suppose it's safe to say i'm pretty fuckin' fast. not that i'm one to brag (although i totally am).

22.5 degrees by martina behm

ravelry link

sweetgeorgia cashluxe fine (111g / 3mm)

cabernet cowl by monika sirna

ravelry link

sweetgeorgia cashluxe fine (54g / 3.5mm)

pretty things, aren't they?*

*the question above is not a rhetorical one and only has one correct answer

reine

i'm such a brooklyn tweed whore. you know that much if you've read any of my stuff anywhere, ever.

give me any pattern curated by the magical jared flood, and i'll be salivating all over it like them more girly knitters are doing to pictures of ryan gosling right now.

(personally, i don't find him that hot. but that's because my girly bits have recently dried up and withered away because of an involuntary and tragic lack of use.)

reine by alexis winslow

ravelry link

size 33.75

bc garn semilla dk (350g / 4mm)

reine was the ultimate piece of comfort knitting back in october. just a smooth relaxing sailing from skein to skein, from piece to piece. the pattern was extremely knitter-friendly and the top down, short-row set-in sleeves produced a sweet fit at the shoulders. it was such a perfect pairing between yarn and needles that i just wiggled my fingers every now and then and somehow from that a cardigan emerged. the sleeves took maybe 3 hours each, that's the level of simple comfort we're talking about.

but because i'm not very smart, it never occurred to me to consider some of the essential differences of semilla and the intended yarn. you may or may not know (and if not, why the hell not?) that BT loft and its delightful woolen texture allow it to be knitted up with a gauge of anything between light fingering to DK without losing any fabric integrity, drape or general awesomeness.

at 250 meters per skein, one could squeeze out this cardigan with just 200 grams of loft. semilla, as wonderfully soft and ever-so-slightly rustic as it is, is just 160 meters, so for me it took 350 grams--which is just enough for gravity to do its dastardly deed. and so the cardigan turned out droopy.

oddly, back in my LYS days, i was definitely smart enough to publicly ridicule anyone not familiar with the pitfalls of substituting yarn, i.e. those considering only one factor of the holy trinity of needle size, gauge and yardage. material obviously plays into it as well, but i don't know what you call a holy foursome in a fancy biblical way. quadrility? anyway. i know i'm a horrible person.

horrible, AND with a stupid face

but i can live with the droopyness, because the cardigan is just so freakin' comfy. and the pockets are perfect for those moments when you're feeling awkward among half-strangers and know that if you resort to your usual i'm-uncomfortable-so-i-need-to-do-something-with-my-hands routine and keep on twirling your fingers and tearing off pieces of fingernail in a visible manner, it will only contribute to making you seem even more out there than you actually are, therefore rendering the moment unbearably awkward and possibly fatal. but with this cardigan--voila! pockets.

my hand could be doing anything in here, and you would never know

not a word about the quality of seaming, though. i'm a knitter, not a fuckin' seamstress, okay? seaming makes me aggressive, which doesn't go well with my otherwise gentle manners. fuckin' seams.

again thanks to miss R for the photos!

northern non-summer

i'm back. sort of.

inspired by fellow bloggers, and encouraged by my employer-turned-mentor, i've decided that when it comes to presenting finished knits, even super duper late is better than not at all. you may direct any objections to that brick wall over there.

so in the following days, or weeks, realistically speaking--which we always are--you will see some very very random posts about stuff i've made. mostly from last year, because since moving to canada i seem to have caught a really sturdy case of i'm-just-gonna-wind-this-yarn-and-knit-a-few-rows-then-move-one-to-something-else-hence-the-pile-of-eleven-simultaneous-WIPs, and haven't been able to finish much stuff.

to start things off, this here is a shawl i made.. last... spring.

northern summer shawl by jo kelly

ravelry link

wollmeise pure in olio vergine (170g / 3.5mm)

i know it was spring because i was watching the ice hockey world champs on TV (we lost) while working on the lace edging. you know, the type of edging where you're effectively binding off exactly one edge stitch for every two rows of lace? sheesh, omg, lol. i thought it would never end.

i also remember going completely berserk when someone interrupted me on one of the last chart repeats, causing me to lose track and having to frog back at least 15 rows. with all due respect to my family, friends and the entire humankind: which part of this concentrated, constipated look on my face when i'm knitting lace does not scream "DO NOT FUCKING SPEAK TO ME RIGHT NOW PLEASE THANK YOU" to you?

i just don't like to be interrupted, is all.

i also also remember that i ran out of yarn with just two chart repeats left. i'm not gonna go over the details of that gruesome episode because it hurts too much. but i somehow managed to find a lovely generous person willing to part with her leftover yarn from the same wollmeise update (!), so i was able to finish the edging a couple of days later.

the pattern had some pretty significant errors here and there, but i trudged through anyway and i think the finished shawl looks fine. there's enough weight there to make it drape nicely and prevent the edges from curling, which is the sole reason most of my scarves and shawls are plain garter stitch. so in this case the yarn works--so much so, in fact, that this was one of only three hand-knit scarves that got to accompany me to canada.

(notice the decidedly un-springy scenery in the photos above. they were taken in mid-november, because for the actual northern summer i was locked up in the cave of fluorescent lights and windows facing a concrete wall that was my previous workplace. many thanks to miss R for helping out anyway.)

but the more i've worked with wollmeise the less i'm liking the base yarn--OMG SHE DIDN'T JUST SAY THAT--because the plying really really puts me off. an 8-ply fingering-weight yarn? are you fucking serious? yeah and we'll make the plies really loose too, so that we're effectively taking out all the luxurious squishyness of merino and replacing it with these lifeless little straws of fibre that split and fray like a mofo and completely disintegrate when drawing from a center-pull ball. why, in short we've taken a luxurious merino and turned it into something that resembles cheap cotton.

i really really want to like the yarn, because the colors are so amazingly vibrant. but i think my wollmeise hoarding days are over. surely it can only mean that my taste in yarns is becoming more and more refined? and surely that's only a good thing?