Just fooling around

This is the time of year when the new spring yarns are coming in, when the new colours of existing yarns come in, and often when new combinations of fibre come in. There is a surfeit of really great yarns.

The store has stocked the chosen new Berroco lines, we've put out all the Rowan summer yarns, and that is only the surface of the depth of this springs great yarns. They may be heavily cotton, bamboo, linens, but oh my, oh my, oh my. These are not your momma's cottons.

Yesterday, one of the things we were working with was Carezza, a very well priced 100% cotton. Each 50 gram ball is , well, small. The balls claimed to have 85 metres on them. How could that tiny ball have so much yarn on it? Even more so, how could that fairly small yarn knit up to 18 stitches over 4 inches on a 5 mm needle. It just wasn't that big.

Ever the skeptic, I picked out some colours I liked, for a small baby blanket, a summery stroller blanket or car seat blanket: a soft golden yellow, a rich creamy orange and a warm toasty brown . They looked marvelous...

right up till when my boss came along and said 'oh how cute, the A & W Rootbear baby.' Back to the drawing board. I picked out a dusty blue instead of the toast and took them home and played.
And here you go, a baby stroller blanket, about a third done. I'll need 3 of the blue, 2 and possibly 3 of the yellow, and only 1 orange. I ought to be able to get a pretty fair sized blanket from 6 little balls of yarn, total cost of the blanket is going to be about 25 dollars. Not too shabby.

I know some people don't like to knit with cotton, and non animal fibres. Not me. My first working with yarn was done with cotton and in a lot of ways, I never considered worsted weight anything to be nearly as nice to work with as a good clean cotton. Yes, that was back before my knitting days, and back before I came to find that there were yarn shops with warm and friendly people selling delicious yarns, and yes it was before I discovered seriously fine wool and alpaca, but working with good cotton is a warm and comforting pleasure.

Working with cotton takes me back to places and things from the beginning of my fascination with string things. It takes me back to hot dog roasts in the back yard and quick dips in the lake after dinner. It is like the smell of fresh cut hay and orange Koolaid on a hot summer day. Its popscicles and summer cherries. Cotton is sun and warm and the scent of honeysuckle on a hot afternoon.

Its nice to think of all these things sitting here in -10 C temperatures, recovering from a week of -20 C. There is a foot of snow and the spring melt is a good month off.

If I can't have it outside right now, I'll gladly take my little pile of memories of summer and carry them in my head. But only till April. Come April, I'd better see some green.