I Love Yarn Day – 2020
This Saturday, October 10, 2020 is official “I Love Yarn Day” for 2020. Seems a bit unnecessary, no?
I Love Yarn Day Is Everyday for QueerJoe
Sorry to inflict some yarn-bragging on you today. I am definitely not the most obsessive when it comes to stash acquisition.
Nor am I the least obsessive. But suffice it to say, I do love yarn.
Wool, handspun, acrylic, fingering, coned, hand-dyed, commercial. It doesn’t matter. I love all yarn
A number of years ago, Thaddeus and I went to Martha’s Vineyard on a beach vacation with his sister’s family. I decided to take a break from knitting and brought no yarn/needles/project with me. Two days into this silly experiment, I finally started to spin the family’s dog hair into yarn (I fashioned an old plastic container cover and pencil into a drop-spindle). When I had enough yarn, I found an old pair of chopsticks and started to knit.
It was dirty, greasy, disgusting yarn. But it was yarn. And it satisfying the jonesing enough until I got back home.
So, this coming Saturday, I won’t be doing anything differently than I usually do. I will still love yarn.
Do any of y’all participate in a different way?
Pop-Quiz
Can anyone identify the yarn I’m using from my current cowl project? In the five minutes it took me to create this yarn explosion, I found the yarn (I was glad, so I can make a second one if this one turns out well).
Current Knitting
There was a lot of progress made on the Subtle Striped Cowl in the last two days.
I only have three more inches of wide-ribbing to complete on this garment before I bind off and block it. So far, I’m very happy with the look and the feel of it.
You lasted two days?!?? I would have been climbing the walls in half a day! Very impressed with your work around, did you make an afghan out of it? 🙂
Cat
Fortunately, Thaddeus’ family kept me entertained. An afghan was my plan, but the dirty grease coating on my fingers made me rethink that. I did consider scouring the yarn, but they didn’t use Dawn and I didn’t have a decent degreaser.
I had no idea there was such an event. I could go down town to our local yarn shop and social distances with masks outside, as we do each Saturday now.
But I find I do have a different goal for “I Love Yarn Day.” To relearn how I used to knit. The wrong way.
Peggy, the mother of the “second family” we grew up with, died yesterday. She had knit me a scarf when I was a teen. Acrylic, probably from the 5 & 10 cent store. Now, soft from years of wear and washes. I still wear it.
Sometime in the 80’s, Fred asked me to knit him one like it. I told him I didn’t know how to do that. “You can learn, can’t you?”
So I took Peggy’s scarf to a yarn shop. “There’s a twisted stitch in the scarf” the owner said. “Irish.” The woman taught me to knit, using that same twist stitch Peggy had used. After I had made scarves for Fred, Andy and Edward, I stopped and didn’t start knitting again until 2017. Peggy’s twist stitch came back to me.
But fellow knitters told me I was knitting incorrectly. Especially problematic for cables. I learned a new way, the right way.
So in honor of Peggy, I want to try to recall how to knit the wrong way again. Wish me luck!
There really is no right or wrong way to knit, if you get results you want. Turns out I was a “combination” knitter and didn’t know it. Quite a problem with lace. Annie Modesitt was my knitting hero as she revealed this to me. To avoid “translating” patterns, I changed to “western” knitting.
Ah! Combination knitting! Now I have a name for it. Thank you. And now I can search Youtube! Best wishes!