As I mentioned on Sunday things were sailing right along and I had made it all the way down to the bottom and cast off the body. On Monday evening I picked up the waiting arm stitches and started on down the left sleeve so that I could work on it over lunch at work the next day.
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The picture didn't capture the difference quite so well. But trust me its there.[/caption]It was, as such things are want to be, a bit fiddly, but it was still going well. But as I progressed I started to notice that the new knitting seemed different. This really isn’t at all surprising as often my tension will have changed as I progress through the project. And the shoulder/upper body portion has been shoved into bags/toted around and generally experienced some “stress” just by the nature of being the first part knit of a larger project. So I kept going.
And then I figured it out. The coloring was different. Not that it was a different color but the way the dye was on the yarn created a mottled/space dyed look on the body and the sleeve was nearly solid. I kept going for a bit but later verified with a second set of eyes (Bran) that it was indeed different.
The yarn that I am using for the sweater inevitably has a story behind it. When I was still running the Box Office at the symphony I discovered that one of the longtime local violists was also a knitter/spinner/crafter. We struck up a bit of a camaraderie over this shared interest and often at concerts she would stop to chat about what we were up to. One weekend out of the blue she showed up with a bag of yarn for me. I didn’t question too intently but I gathered that she had dyed the lace weight alpaca yarn for someone but the recipient wasn’t happy with either of these two resulting colors. And so the skeins had been languishing in her stash.
The sweater yarn I am using was all one big honking skein (actually I’m almost questioning this now, maybe it was two skeins). To make it easier to work with I wound off multiple smaller cakes of yarn. Apparently I didn’t pay close enough attention to notice that the first three little cakes had a much larger variation in the color than the remaining yarn which I caked later (this variation makes a ton more sense if it was indeed 2 skeins).
If I had caught the difference before starting the sweater it could have been properly handled
with planned use of the different cakes. Or the easiest method is to alternate skeins each row. But here I was now with the body haven used virtually all of the first 3 cakes. I had just a tiny bit of the third cake left, now rolled up into a little ball. As I considered my options I also realized that I had knit up three separate swatches all of the mottled yarn.So I went ahead and unraveled the sleeve to start it over again. My plan is to alternate skeins for a while down the sleeve and eventually transition into the solid yarn. It will still look different but the aim is for the difference to be more subtle.
Fingers crossed.
When it came time for lunch we had a plan. One of the complaints that I have heard about MDSW is the variety of food available. Most of it is typical/junky (and I mean that in a loving way, I definitely have a place for fried food in my heart and stomach) carnival type food. Plus J is a vegetarian which limits the options. Last year however we found a super excellent spot that had a few cheese vendors. One of them even had a cheese and cracker plate which we happily feasted upon. The three of us were salivating just thinking about recreating the same this year. Not to be outwitted in case things had changed I even packed my own crackers, just in case. But sure and happily enough they were there again. Some of the leftover goat cheese came home with me along with a delicious second sheepy selection.
Once back to the shopping I found all of my final purchases in the big barn. As someone who is highly appreciative of some soft fiber and constantly on the lookout for a good bargain I was super excited to find these batts of baby llama and angora. They are sure to be a dream to spin and I’m already contemplating as to what type of project I can knit that will ensure maximum enjoyment of the soft.
If nothing else they sure do look pretty. It would actually be quite fun to make a project dyed with various "shades of tea"[/caption]
So having been somewhat restrained in my purchases I decided to loop back and treat myself to some fun reasonably priced and super soft amazing fiber. This is 100% alpaca. I have a bit over 5.5 ounces and I can’t wait to spin it up but so far I have no idea how to spin up the fiber, particularly as it relates to the colors, or what my end knitted item will be. Probably a shawl its kinda my default anymore :-)
Now once we actually arrived J and I were all about the fiber sale. The fiber sale in its newly established digs of a small building all to itself was chaotic awesomeness. It had been open for about 30 minutes when we entered and according to the sign in the back 100 fleeces had already been sold. Luckily for us however there were still over 500 left. Yup, 500 raw fleeces sitting all layed/piled out across lots of tables sometimes in a slightly organized fashion. I failed at properly preparing myself for what I was looking for. But I felt, and J agrees, that I had learned from my fleece purchases last year and would be able to better choose this year. Fleece prices can range from as low as $15 to upwards of $300. So with just a budget in mind it was still a reasonable starting point.
My budget was very much on the low side of things but there were definitely still plenty of options. I happened across this beautiful looking Tunis fleece. Firstly the price caught my eye. Secondly the fact that the sheep was coated suggested that I should be looking at a rather cleaner/better fleece. The staple length was on the longer side which I prefer and the dense crimp suggests good things. I started carrying it around before anyone else could scoop it up.
Look at all the pretty colors in one fleece![/caption]
