Slo

I read this yesterday. It's about blogging that reflects a pause and a moment in time. I think this is what knitting is for me. It is a place where I don't have to live at the pace of things around me. It is where I get to live in the moment of one little stitch on the tip of my needle. I'm not sure I can extend that to blogging. It seems I just like to chat mindlessly along anyway.

I'm working with a yarn called Rimu this morning.

It is one of the newer New Zealand yarns from Zealana. It's the simple rust colour in this scarf. The more I work with Rimu, the more I like it.

You know how some yarns, like the Silk Garden Chunky (the multi in the scarf) feel dry and papery from its silk content, and how some yarns like Handmaiden Sea silk feels as if water is running across your hands only it isn't a water that is wet? Each yarn in the very vast array of yarns I get to play with feels so different. Each has a unique connection to our brain as they move between out fingers.

Rimu's unique quality is warm. As it slips over my hands and between my fingers, it is warm. It isn't a heavy warm, like a double layer of quilts on your bed on a cold night. It is the warmth of solidity, of close, of comfort. It's a little like wrapping your favourite sweater around you on a chilly day. It is only a DK weight and would normally work to 22 stitches over 4 inches on 4 mm needles. (I'm doubling it here and it still is a wee bit light for the heft of the Silk Garden Chunky. ) This little adventure into a yarn I haven't tried before makes me think this warm character would carry over to a sweater or shawl or something to snuggle into, in a most wonderfully comforting fashion.

Rimu comes from about as far away as you can get from Canada. That probably takes it out of the line up as far as the Slo Movement goes. But in every other way Rimu is the ideal Slo yarn. It is made from a fibre that is found locally in new Zealand that would otherwise be sent to the dump and combined with something they produce tons of and having it in your hands and on your needles makes you want to take time, to stop and treasure how working with it feels.

Rimu makes me want to live slow, surrounded by warm and comfort and time. My only problem is I have enough yarn. My stash is full. I'll have to knit fast to use up what I have to find it a home.

Knitting fast. I wonder if it is going to be the new Slo?