I was about to title this entry “Yarn Tribulations” But I realized that I’ve done that already. So be it.
Having blathered on sufficiently about spinning last night, I’m going to take this opportunity to bather on about a few yarn purchase decisions. that i’ve been going over.
For starters, given my current employment at a yarn shop (and the resulting discount), I’m going to order myself a St. Moritz 2003 sweater kit. Because the shop carries Dale Yarn, and I’m not going to get any better deal on this one. I don’t expect that I’ll start knitting on this one terribly soon, but it’s worth a shot. For those of you who don’t remember for the past 8 months, or so, give or take, I’ve been quite interested in a Dale of Norway, sweater called “St. Moritz 2003” Apparently it was the official sweater of the Swedish ski team for the 2002-2003 season. Whatever, I think it just looks really cool. Probably hideously complicated, but no matter, I’m determined. The XS size for the adult sweater is, get this 44 inches. If the pattern for the kids sweater isn’t bad, and just looks like the adult one, then I’ll do that (the kids XL size is 41 inches, and while still a wee bit big, probably just right for this experience). This will probably be my winter break project, as I’m in no great rush to finish it.
Slightly higher up in the cue, is a sweater idea that I’ve been toying around with for a few weeks. Inspired by Wendy’s Ingridsweater, I’ve wanted to take a simple color work pattern, and using sport weight, make a sweater. I really like Wendy’s idea of using one variegated/hand dye strand and one solid strand. The store where I work caries, Cherry Tree Hill Sock yarn, which is a slightly more economical version of the Koigu (in my opinion). It’s superwash, which doesn’t bug me that much in this case. It’s still expensive, and I’ve run into a little stumbling block with this yarn. According to the website, and the label the hand dyes are 420yrds./4oz, and the solids are 370yrds/4oz. And the yarns are the same as near as I can tell.
Update: Apparently: the solids are dyed at the mill, which makes a yarn that’s slightly, but apparently unnoticeably more twisted. This accounts for the difference in yardage.
In competition with this are what I think are amazing yarns from Knit Picks. Now the quandary is that, I feel like for this summer when I’m working at this yarn store, I should buy yarn from them, because I have opportunities to get yarns (at prices) that I’ll never find again, and Knit Picks is going to be there later so I’m not in a rush with them. Having said that, knit picks yarn for this project, and Cherry Tree Hill yarn price wise are about equivalent. My Knit Picks choices are also alpaca yarns (in all or in part). On the other hand, there aren’t solids and hand-dies in the knit picks option.
First off I was thinking of this yarn, it’s sport weight, and baby alpaca is always amazing. The pattern could get lost in the fuzz, but I’ll have to get enough color contrast. I was thinking of Summer Sky/Mystery, Fog/Granite, or Fog/ Woods. There’s also This yarn which is an alpaca, silk, merino mix. It’s bulkier, but the yardage is only 14 yrds, less per 50 grams, than the sport weight alpaca. So I don’t know. I’ll probably make sweaters out of both of these options.
So that’s it. I have a private knitting lesson in an hour and some chores to do before then, so I’ll stay in touch.