In the spirit of Stash Appreciation Wednesday, I have another yarn purchase to confess. It's not huge for some people, and I would love to say that I had a whole stash full of this wonderful stuff... but the truth is that I can't afford to buy sweater amounts of much of anything. Cute little tank amounts? Sure! Sock amounts? Sign me up! But when it comes to full sweater commitments, I fail pretty hardcore. Cascade 220 is my limit.
Occasionally I will go insane and get an entire Autumn Rose's worth of Jamieson Shetland... but that's an investment, you know? My meager student bank account can't afford for me to buy 23 balls of Debbie Bliss anything, unfortunately. So I stick with laceweight and sock yarn (because really, a whole project for $8-$20? Lots of bang for your knitting buck) and my friends all laugh at me because I own about 4 pairs of socks that aren't hand-knit. That, and I have a sock yarn stash the size of Pluto.
Actually, that's sort of a lie. At the beginning of the summer, I was down to 11 pairs worth of yarn. Considering that I was at about 25 last fall, that's pretty tiny. But then the summer happened, and, oh, you know.
Anyhoo.
Want to know what I bought an entire sweater's worth of?
If you hadn't guessed already... mmmhmmmmm. Malabrigo. And what can I say about this yarn that hasn't been said before? That it's an incredibly soft single ply merino wool kettle-dyed in luminous colors? That it feels like butter (in a good way!) and has amazing, squooshy stitch definition? Because it has definitely been described in all of these ways at one point or another.
It's destined to become Amanda, from the beautifully designed and photographed A Fine Fleece. Although I don't spin my own yarn, this book is incredibly inspiring - full of aran sweaters in wonderful, tweedy, earthy yarns. I'm planning to do some waist shaping to make it more flattering to my body type. In the meantime, I've already cast on for Halcyon in one of my few sweater-amounts of yarn, Ella Rae Classic in a burgundy color that is a pretty close approximation to Oberlin red. (Our school colors are red and gold; our mascot, the Yeoman. Yeoperson? Either way, I know: awesome.)
Now, if only there was a less conspicuous way to fiddle with a cable needle in class...
3 comments:
*Nice* pattern choice!
Cable w/o a cable needle? I used Grumperina's tutorial and was surprised how much I liked it. It's how I cable in class...I got lots of practice with Must Have.
Mmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaalabriiiiiiiigoooooo
You need more sweaters in your life.
'Specially one made out of that.
I LOVELOVELOVELOVE Malabrigo. I love it oh so dearly. And that color is beautiful.
And I second Ondrea, cabling without a cable needle rocks. It's made my Urban Aran Cardigan (which I have finally picked up again and will hopefully finish in the forseeable future) go so much faster.
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