The other evening, I was sitting in my study, with a fresh cup of coffee, and '84 Charing Cross Road', one of my favourite movies, was about to begin. My shawl and I were suffering from a little too much familiarity. I'd worked on it on and off since 4 in the morning and I was feeling a little bored. With one other knitting WIP on needles, and only 2 real WIPs (as opposed to UFOs) on linens, and 2 languishing crochet projects, you'd think I'd have found something to work on, but watching this movie needed something different.
I was given a skein of Patons Classic, in Forest (go to the bottom) by a friend and it just kept sitting there at the edge of my mind saying, 'knit me, crochet me, do something'. Its a wonderful mix of a really dark browns, tans, and soft rich greens that end up in a bright apple green.
The Classic at 204 metres (223 yds) didn't seem like enough to make a scarf with. I dug into the depths of the stash. I knew there were 2 balls of a brown from Lana Grosso. What I have seems to be discontinued, but I will update the link if I find it later. What I have is a merino, on the light side of a double knitting weight and 160 metres (175 yds) per ball. I picked it up in case I ran out of yarn for a different project, and since it is now unlikely that I will need it, I felt comfortable using it here. I don't get the opportunity to work with brown a lot since it's a colour I don't wear, and leaving such nice yarn sitting there with no idea of what I was going to do with it seemed wrong.
I'm alternating the yarns, 2 rows Classic, 2 rows doubled brown, then 4 rows Classic, 2 rows brown...
The yarns felt lush, scrumptious, rich and smooth. I love the sqishiness of both of these wools. The way it looked with its bright green balancing the dark greens and tans, fitting sublimely with the warm browns of the lighter weight yarn was breathtaking. It might only be a scarf but it was as close to perfect as I've ever seen on my needles. It sang to me, and for one moment I was almost in tears at how good it all was. I felt just a bit irrational.
It had nothing to do with the fact that the movie makes me tear up, that I had uncountable cups of coffee through the day, that it was no 11 p.m. and way past my bedtime. No. It was the knitting.
Knitting can make you just a little irrational, but in a good way.
Hi! Thanks for your comments. Embroidery can also make you irrational, perhaps it's the creative brain that is irrational, Who cares though, I see it as individual, unique, not irrational!
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