Warm Ewe Up Bi-Weekly Blog Question #2

If you could only knit with one brand of yarn for the rest of the year, what would it be and why?

My gosh, you might as well ask "Which of your children is your favorite child?" or "When did you stop beating your spouse?" or some other question which is equally as impossible to answer.

I don't enjoy contemplating questions which start, "If you were on a deserted island..." mainly because I know I am a fickle, fickle person. I know that if I would be limited to one thing, the thing I love most would soon become what I detest most.

I can't even travel for a weekend without carrying along more projects than I could finish if I did nothing but knit for 3 weeks straight - because you never know when you might end up on that deserted island.

Well...

There's Cascade 220, which is the workhorse of the knitting world, I think. Good for many projects (sweaters, scarves, hats, mittens, bags, maybe even socks for wearing around the house) - soft enough for garments yet can also be felted.

But I might have to choose a brand of lace weight - at least large lace projects would take most of the year to complete. (Ooooh! Have you seen Mountain Colors Winter Lace? Fab-u-lous!)

Then again - if somebody else were paying for the year, I'd choose buffalo, or cashmere, or quivet! Some luxury yarn that has a price per skein which makes knitting a simple long scarf extremely cost prohibitive.

See?

Fickle, fickle, fickle.

In The Deep Freeze

Hey! Who turned off the heat?!?!?!

It is colder than (fill in your own description here - mine are not printable). The temperature right now is -4 degrees (-20 celsius for you readers north of the border and across the pond). Wind chills by Thursday are going to be minus 25 to minus 40 degrees! At this rate, hell will freeze over. This is one of the distinct disadvantages of getting older - my tolerance for this extreme cold is lessening with each winter.

Reason #921 for a stash - insulation.

My Secret Pal must have foreseen this need for additional insulation. Get a load of this -

Hmmm...what could it be?


The Loopy Ewe wraps the items in tissue paper and includes a little bag of Hershey's Kisses.


A preview of spring.


And to encourage some sock knitting around here - 2 skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn


and a cool case to put my sock project in!


I'm pretty sure my Secret Pal didn't intend this - but they also included a cat toy which provided hours of amusement.

Both cats spent the better part of the day squeezing themselves into and out of this box.

What an incredible package - thanks so much!

I haven't had a chance to sit down and knit this week - but am itching to resume Girasole as I'm coming up on the end of skein #2 and skein #3 is burning a hole in my knitting bag. If I can get to late night knitting this Friday night, progress will be made!

OMG! OMG! OMG!

Such were the exclamations emanating from the Haus this afternoon.

It's not often that the mail is greeted with such enthusiasm here. Maybe post office delivery people should carry the same gadget as did the policeman in victorian times. Today was out of the ordinary - with the arrival of an extraordinary package from my angel (mommabear6976 for those of you on Ravelry) for the Ravelry Swap On A Budget.

The box had this message.



Holiday ribbon as a packing material.







The colors in this skein are fantastic.







(Click to see the beads in better detail.)









Unpacked, the goodies took up one end of the sofa! I think Mommabear went over budget on this box - I can't believe how much she fit in it. At last count,* there are 2 patterns from my queue in Ravelry, a skein of hand-dyed (by her!) laceweight merino, 2 skeins of Patons' Classic Merino (which are destined to be a sweater for my soon-to-arrive nephew), stitch markers (made by her!), bath salts, a journal, and an abundance of chocolate - hot chocolate and snacking chocolate. Plus, Mommabear included 3 recipes - Buffalo Chicken Dip, Dump Cake, and the last for Rich Hot Cocoa with three variations of peppermint, vanilla, and cinnamon.



I'm still in shock.

Did you know if one has no smelling salts on hand one may substitute the fondling of merino as an effective therapy?



* I'm a bit overwhelmed, so it may not be an accurate accounting of the contents.

Knit On

I hope you all had wonderful holidays. For us, it was a haze of eating (too much) good food, playing games, bowling, shoveling snow, opening gifts, and nursing a bad cold.

DH asked me for a wish list. The in-laws draw names and have a limit of $30, so I thought the request of a list was from the person who drew my name. Nope - just DH taking the easy way out for shopping. If I'd known that, there would have been many more books on the list - like some Japanese knitting pattern books!

DH could not figure out (even after having it explained to him) why I'd want the Teleidoscope. Some things are just beyond the understanding of a non-knitter.



Also on my list were a few books from Persephone Books. He bought me this one, which I've already read. They sent a catalogue and I've marked nearly each one of the 81 books a number of them for future purchase. How I would love to visit at their bookshop!

I had a brief crisis - I ended up at my parents' home with no knitting! We had been on the road about 45 minutes and were stopped at a gas station when we discovered I had left my knitting bag at the in-laws. I wanted to turn around (and if I'd been alone I would have). DH refused to turn back but I was the person driving so a bargain was struck and the next morning I headed to the LYS in the town where my folks live and bought yarn for another Noro Scarf.

I really need to put some emergency yarn, pattern and needles in the trunk. How many of you keep a knitting project in the car so that you are never without a project to knit?

So I now have 2 Noro scarves on the needles.




One is already promised to a nephew.

I also casted on for Jared Flood's Girasole. Now, this will shock you, but I'm actually using yarn from the stash for Girasole. I making the large (blanket) size.I'm a little bit further along since this picture was taken.



I'm using Cascade 220 Heathers and am loving how it's turning out.

Resolutions

This may be one I can actually keep -

“A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.” - Edgar Guest


And specifically for the knitter -

I shall pass through this world but once. Any fiber therefore that I can obtain or any kindness that I can show to any knitter or any potential knitter, let me do it now...let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again...unless this way passes by a yarn shop.