New Yarn & New Project
Sunday was a gorgeous day so I headed out to the closest Farmer's Market, which unfortunately is still kind of far away from our apartment. I didn't find anything I really wanted to buy there, but I did end up going to Knitty City since it's only a few blocks away from the market, and of course I left with some new yarn! Above are two skeins of Claudia Hand Painted Yarns' Chunky Merino in the color Hawaii -- I just could not resist the colors in this yarn! I've never worked with any Claudia yarns before, and didn't even know she MADE a chunky weight wool, but when I saw this I just had to have it.
This wool is not labeled superwash, and thankfully doesn't FEEL like superwash either. It's got a great twist to it and is a very round yarn, so my stitches are coming out beautifully even in stockinette. I'm making a top-down earflap hat, and I'm loving the way the colors are flashing and pooling. Strangely enough, when I tried doing a 2-row jog with this yarn like I do when knitting with just about any handpaint, the colors pooled MORE, not less! So I am just working from the one ball and hoping the transition to ball #2 won't be so bad -- it's going to happen near the hem, which will be in garter stitch and will therefore help disguise any color change, so I'm pretty confident it should look ok.
What's that you say? You don't believe I walked out of a yarn shop with only 2 skeins of yarn?
Well, you're right!
These beauties also came home with me! This is Punta del Este Mericash Handpainted, which is another yarn I've never seen before. I've worked with some other Punta del Este yarns and really loved both the yarn and the finished projects, so when I saw this gorgeous color and felt how soft the yarn is, I really couldn't leave it on the shelf. Had there been more matching skeins, I probably would have bought more! In this picture you can see that the 2nd-from-the-right skein is a little off in color, but these 4 were the best I could do in matching the skeins . . . I expect that a little 2-row-jog action should yield a perfectly acceptable color distribution.
I'm picturing a pullover with a wide neckline and maybe some directional changes to play with the yarn's color . . . I wonder if the rain we had all day yesterday and so far today is to blame for my winter-ish knitting? You'd think I would be looking forward to hot weather and knitting a cotton something, but all I can think about right now is wrapping up in something wooly cozy and staying indoors out of the rain!
