Even though it's appropriate, I won't repeat my familiar refrain about new projects and holes in the head. I'll just note that last week, in a moment of weakness, I ordered the White Caps Cowl kit from Purl Soho. I searched all over to find equivalent yarns, but even with two trips through one of the finest yarn stores in the region, I just couldn't find anything similar. I love the look of the silk alternating with the lumpy cotton, so finally bit the bullet and just ordered the designer's choice of yarn.
The yarn arrived this morning, and I made a point of going to the post office to pick it up the surprisingly small package. The three skeins were neatly zipped into a plastic bag, which was wrapped in hot pink tissue paper and fastened with the Purl Soho seal. It was very snazzy and I hated to take it apart, but keeping it intact would defeat the purpose of the whole operation.
First, I had to wind the Silken Straw into a center-pull ball, and this gave me the chance to really get the feel of this yarn. It's shiny, crisp, and tape-like, and composed of six or eight fine strands held together with whatever starchiness holds silk yarns together. If you work with it for a while (as in knitting and frogging while trying to start a project) it gets soft. I cast on and frogged the whole 184 stitches twice; the silk grabs the needle and made the first row so tight that it was almost impossible to work it. I got out my straight needles and used one that was a size larger to get that cast-on loosened up.
Three rows in (subsequent rows are easy) I find I really like Silken Straw. It has a satisfying feel and gives stitches amazing definition. You almost think it's squeaky (in a good way), from the way it feels. This is going to be fun!
Other Ravelers found that the cotton yarn tends to break if you're not very careful with it, so I'll handle it the same way I handled that orange cashmere I used to knit Pretty Thing -- you don't think of it as yarn but as a wisp of cloud. The cotton came in center-pull balls so there won't be any fiddling to get started with it.
It may be the new year, I don't know, but I usually get a wicked case of startitis at this time of year and this year is no different. I've got plenty to work on -- I've been picking up the Jupiter cardigan recently and have made some more progress on it, and I could do the second half of the Victory Turban. I need to put a pair of socks on the needles for the Emperor's secret Christmas sock, and I've got the Flower Power sock already going in my basket here. But no, I order high-end yarns and start cranking out another cowl.
One project I'm thinking about making is a version of the Kusha Kusha Scarf, another fine pattern featured by Purl Soho that uses radically different yarns than I'm used to. This one calls for you to knit a stockinette scarf with one strand of wool and one strand of wool/stainless steel yarn held together, and about three-fourths of the way through the project, you drop the wool and just knit with the steel. When you're finished, you full the wool a bit. The thing is this -- I've got enough silk/stainless steel yarn to do the pattern, and have some gorgeous cobweb weight yarn in an appropriate color in the stash. I could just go ahead and cast on for it. I don't think I'd drop the wool and finish the scarf with just the steel, though, because it creates a harsh, straight horizontal line across the scarf that I don't find attractive. I do like the way that the steel yarn gives the scarf memory.
There's something else I've been doing that's a little bit out of character for me: I've been spending money. I normally wouldn't order expensive yarn, although it did take me six months to make up my mind about it. Last week I decided that instead of making a backpack purse, I'd just go ahead and buy one, and then spent several evenings going through piles of virtual purses before finding one that made me happy enough to order it (I'll save that whole story for another post). I sent off for two books (for school) and splurged on a school sweatshirt. To top it all off, I decided that we needed a couch, went out to look for one, and not only picked one out but purchased it, all in one day (it will arrive around the first of April as I requested a different color than the one in the store). It cost a bundle, but we'll have it for at least twenty years, so that's really a home investment. But I also splurged on a nice 20 ounce leak proof water bottle to keep me working on my New Year's resolution to drink more water. I replenished my supply of cosmetics.
All of this spending didn't add up to a huge amount of money, less than a hundred dollars, but this is enough of a departure for me that I feel a little unsettled. I've re-tightened my purse strings and the wanton distribution of wealth in imitation of a drunken sailor has stopped. Control has been reassumed.
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