A Tale of Two Yarns

We're kicking off Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2011 with a post about yarn (naturally!).  I was inspired by A Playful Day's post, so I'm going to tell you about three instead of two yarns.

Fiber Optica lace

My tale begins in my hometown in Idaho last May.  I don't usually go home in the summertime, but last year, I would have lost my mind if I hadn't.  It just so happened that three wonderful things occurred simultaneously that May: 1) I discovered a local yarn shop in my tiny, tiny town where 2) I heard word of a fiber festival, and 3) my then 8-year-old brother took enormous interest in knitting.  So I took my little brother with me to the fiber festival, just in case there were bunnies, alpacas, or sheep around.  Surprisingly, he was content just to look at all the pretty yarns.  He didn't believe me when I told him he was supposed to pet them!  Long story short, I bought two skeins of lace weight yarn at the festival.  One was natural so that my little brother and I could attempt to Kool-Aid dye it and the other I just had to have.  That never happens to me!  I always buy yarn after I have a project in mind!

Kool-Aid experiment

And lace weight....Really?  Why did I buy lace?  I don't wear shawls, don't even really care for the idea of them (though they look adorable on everyone else, don't get me wrong!).  Turns out, people don't even knit shawls with lace weight anymore.  If I had bought sock yarn, you wouldn't be reading this post today.  But...look at the pretty colors!!!

In any case, I'm not sure what will become of these gems.  I had an original vest idea for the Kool-Aid yarn, but I don't trust it to hold up to that kind of wear, so that's on hold.  I have a green-themed wedding to attend that might agree with a Fiber Optica green shawl, though.  And, although I complained, I have found the perfect pattern for it in the Autumn Arbor Stole, if it will pool properly. :)

And that brings us to yarn number 3: another whim purchase.  I am on Ravelry a lot and sometimes notice pretty advertising banners.  When I noticed the one for a Stellar Sock Club, I had to join!  As you already know, I'm a sucker for amazing hand-dyed yarn.  What you may not know is that I am also a very large sucker for space pictures.  Dye a yarn based on colors in space pictures and I am there!  Even though I don't knit socks....I received my first skein earlier this month.  It is based on Orion's Nebula.  I posted a picture of the hank and goodies a few posts down.  I wasn't in love with the pattern that came with it, so I tried Skew.  The pooling was perfect, but the sock was too small because I modified it (it's a long story which may be detailed in the finished object post, if it ever gets done, but is shown on the right in the photo).  So I reknit using the pattern exactly and got some weird pooling (left).  Now I'm stranding the frogged sock on the left with the frogged sock on the right, haha.  It looks great, so I think it will be worth the effort.

I have a feeling my love of hand-dyed yarns is just going to cause me more pain than pleasure, but oh...it hurts so good!