Progress with an update

pro·gres·sive  (pr-grsv)

adj.

1. Moving forward; advancing.

2. Proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments: progressive change.

3. Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods: a progressive politician; progressive business leadership.

4. Progressive Of or relating to a Progressive Party: the Progressive platform of 1924.

5. Of or relating to progressive education: a progressive school.

6. Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases: a progressive income tax.

7. Pathology Tending to become more severe or wider in scope: progressive paralysis.

8. Grammar Designating a verb form that expresses an action or condition in progress.

I am going to whine.  Look away if the sound (or should it be sight) of a 50 ish (heavy on the ish) woman whining disturbs you.  

I have bifocals.  Have had them for over 10 years.  I'm comfortable with them.  I wore the Executive cut, Benjamin Franklin's original invention.  I had clear vision all across the top and all across the bottom.  It was lovely. Crisp clear all the way to outside the lens.

The last time I got glasses I had to shop hard to find a place with an executive cut.  This time, executive cut is not available unless you went with regular plain plastic lenses.  You know, the kind that only fit in the truly awful looking frames and are heavy and thick and ugly.  

I'm not tremendously vain.  I'm not tremendously picky, but I have enough trouble with my vision that clear vision and decent lenses matter a great deal. So this lack of proper executive cut lenses irritates me.  I didn't have a lot of options outside of ugly. Of course I could have gone for that hinky little half moon, where you end up bobbing and weaving and looking like a dunce as you go through your day.   I let myself be talked into graduated lenses.  

It is NOT good.  I am not sure at all that it will work for me.

I am going to hope it is just a pair of very badly cut lenses. If not, heaven help me.    

Really, you should be able to read a single column in the newspaper without having to turn your head. There should be a spot somewhere, front and center one would think, where you could actually read the letters on the page. You should be able to read signs along side the road before you pass them.  You should have some peripheral vision, not just a blur.  If I wanted blur, wouldn't it be easier to just take my glasses off?   

This is so far far beyond bobbing and weaving that bobbing and weaving to see clearly sounds pretty darn good. 

Hey cool.  I've been playing around and you know when they work the best?  If I take them off and turn them 45 degrees!  Cool.  Hey and you know what?  I can read my keyboard and screen of my laptop at the same time if I hold the whole frame about an inch away from my nose!   It makes me queasy though.  I'm going to stop playing.

When I left the store today, I told the lady I would try them.  I know it's a big change going from good old ordinary bifocals to progressives.  But a sucky pair of lenses is still sucky and not seeing will not be cured by waiting a week.  Glasses should feel good if they are cut right and if they are centered right and your eyes should have almost no adjustment time whatsoever.  I have had it happen twice in my life.  It was lovely and whatever this is, good isn't it.  

Or is this how it works with progressives?  If it is, they are named poorly.  Because I fail to see anything progressive about this.  Indeed, I fail to see at all.

OK, I am done now.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.

Updated to add:

I went back to Walmart and they said the glasses were perfect.  She would reorder the lenses, but not give me the difference back for the much, much less, $200 less pricey lenses.  So I returned the whole darn thing and I have to talk to the manager if I want the same frame to see if he will 'let' me buy from them.  So good luck Walmart I won't go back to you again.

And they used to be so good before they fancified the store.

Should have

I should have knit for hours on the shawl.  It is so close to done.  But I didn't.  I did knit some, but the knitting was early in the day and amounted to 4 garter ridges.  Since 2 garter ridges is pretty much an hour...I'm starting to wonder if this thing isn't going to be miles wider than I wanted, though each time I have done the measuring, it is just about right. And I honestly don't know if I am going to get the shawl finished in January, but it will be close.

My study was in serious need of reorganization and cleaning, so I spent Sunday doing that and doing laundry and generally getting the house in order.  Tonight I have a little work to do out in my spinning area, but when that is complete, my fibre world is tidy again.

Tonight after a bit of work, I shall knit and play and enjoy tidy my surroundings.

Content

Did I mention that I love garter stitch?  

The ladies at knit night do.  I think I mentioned it.  Maybe once or twice.  

And I am just about to move on to the final colour on my garter stitch shawl.  I cannot say enough, I love garter stitch.  

And I am quite sure I am smitten by the colour changes and the minimal stripes.  

I have made a few decisions for this last section.  As soon as I am done the colour striping section, another 3 1/2 rows, I will knit it onto many needles, so that I can lay it out and see if I have the width I want and need.  If it is wide enough, the white will be knit without increasing on the edges.  If it needs more, I guess I will keep increasing.

I won't do any lace on the edging. I will have a bit of each colour left, so I think at the end of the white, I am going to knit 1 garter ridge of each colour from white, moving to the darkest of the grays.  Dark edges give the piece some defiinition and weight and give the most sound edging for what is a pretty prosaic wrap.  A wrap such as this needs a sound,simple edging with just a dash of character.  

So, here is to sound simple edgings with a dash of character. In garter stitch.  

I am content.

A linen collection?

A very long time ago, I was planning on knitting some very simple placemats and a table runner for my table.  I had a couple of colours of Louets Euroflax linen, a long gone colour called eggplant and a soft taupe.  I wasn't really sure about just how I wanted the placemats to look so the project never got started.  

And so it sat and seems to have given birth. Those 4 skeins have begat a fair number of other skeins of linen and they have given birth to more than one other linen blend yarn.

Oops and this one too.

In the first photo, the original eggplant Euroflax, a taupe Euroflax, silvery Punta Montoya Beach linen and right there in the center, a striking blend of linen and viscose, Lang Mikonos multi-colour.  The second photo is Elsebeth Lavold's Bamboucle, also a blend.  I think there might be another blend in the deep stash, but I can't for the life of me think what it is.  

I love linen.  I always have.  I have about 8 metres of a truly stunning long ago purchase of Belfast or Dublin linen from my embroidery days.  Somewhere around here is an old hankie that someone gave me, with a ratty hem, that long ago nuns edged and embroidered for a long forgotten priest.  

I have a bunch of linen from a foray to the fabric store when there just happened to be a good sale on linen. Summer skirts and casual shirts are the goal.  It isn't the fine delicate Belfast type linen, but a much sturdier sort of thing that will wear like iron but be soft and drapey and oh so grand.

I do love linen but then, if I want to be perfectly correct, I can't think of any animal or plant fibres I don't like.  There is a place in the world for acrylic too - just not for that slipper yarn by Phentex.  No that shouldn't be in this world.  

Oh all right, it can be in some peoples world but not mine.  My world is full of linen and other very good things.  

I talked about little projects.

I woke about 3:30 this morning to absolute quiet and absolute dark.  The power was off.  I snoozed for a while and then got out my wee book light and started looking at mitten patterns in my library of knitting books. I'm trying to focuson some little knitting, trying to bring these back into my head.  I feel bad for my pretty Deep in the Forest mittens.  I feel as if I have ignored them.

There is knitting on my pretty Forest mittens.  I'm right about where the chart gets a little busier and I keep waiting for a good chink of quiet time to work on them.  Since chunks of quiet time are hard to come by...

I guess what I really have to do is get over the idea that I need quiet time or even a chunk of time. Truly, a round of mitten knitting takes such little time and so long as I am careful and deliberate in marking down what I have completed, it should be an easy thing to do a row here and there.  The only thing I would have to watch my gauge.  Too tight or too dramatically loose can kill a colour work project.  I've moved the mitten to stop it from being buried in the study.  The mitten is now my kitchen knitting in the hopes that I would do a row here and there.  Since I haven't been in my kitchen very much this last couple of weeks, not much mitten knitting.  Or so I tell myself.

What really is slowing down the mitten knitting is the big shawl.  Which I just can't wait to see it complete.  I can't wait to wear it.  My heart and my hands and that less logical me, who sways to follow absolutely no path at all, want to push on the shawl to make it be the completed January thing.  

So to heck with the little projects.  I'm working on the big. I'll deal with the rest in February.

Time and knitting

When I was a kid I recall feeling like that last month of school took forever.  Christmas felt like it would never arrive.  When I was a kid, time moved so slowly and the more you were waiting for something, the slower time moved.

It changes when you get a little older.  According to my mom, the older you get the faster time goes.  I am sure she is right but I think I am appalled.

If time moves any faster than it is now, there will hardly be time for me to wake up and say what happened to January.  

Logic and rational grownup behaviour says that time is moving the same as it always has.  Memory tells me exactly what I have done in the past few weeks and yet, there is the inescapable feeling when I look at the calendar, that I missed something, that some part of the month went astray.

When I sat down at my desk yesterday, that is what I felt. January 23 and not a single completed piece of knitting.  Not a sock, not a mitt, not a shawl or even the sweater that I must redo - the one I did not finish for Christmas.  I didn't even look at that sweater all month.  

I enjoy that little Knit Meter widget on my sidebar.  Its fun to see how far I have traveled with my hands.  But this point, before I finished anything, where there are no completed projects sitting listed on it for the year -  I hate that.  "I have knit 0 metres this year"  I fear it is mocking me.  

I knit a lot in January and I have had a very good time, but it is going to take a lot of work to finish anything before months end.  That is going to be my goal for January.  To just finish one thing.  One anything.   And that is the January goal.

And then maybe the knit meter will be it's usual fun self.

Knitting, knitting, knitting

I spent an awful lot of time this weekend knitting.  I had really hoped to  move forward to the last colour, a rich creamy natural.  

However, no matter the number of hours that I knit, it wasn't enough.  The rows are getting really long and I have every confidence they will wrap around me just right...or almost just right.  If my goal was to have a sontag/ danish tie/wrap around me type shawl, I think I've got it.

I started at the neck with colour 1, a very dark charcoal gray.  I increased 6 stitches over 2 rows.  I increased at the center every 2nd row and on the sides every row.

Then after I was into colour 2, a slighty lighter warmer gray, I realized that it was getting plenty deep but wasn't nearly as wide as I needed.  So I started to increase two times on every 2nd row as well as the 6 increases already under construction.  In order to not have a second line of increase openings, I did a double yarn over on the purl side.  Increase total every 2 rows is 8 stitches.

When I slipped into the 3rd colour, I started to do that double yarn over on every row.  That brought the increases up to 10 over 2 rows and it is moving along at just the right pace for my short stumpy body.

I think that my extremely short bust to waist distance and my girth made working someone else's design less than correct for me.  Winging it is working.   I think.

It looks ok and seems to be doing what I want it to do, but in all honestly till it is off the needles, I really won't know what I have or if it will work.  

What I do know right now, is that the rows are getting really really really long and it is taking forever to knit a pair of rows.  

But that was not all!

Oh no.  There was more.  As good as the shipment in which I talk myself into buying St. Denis Boreale, was It was not the only exciting thing that arrived yesterday. 

There was a little yarn, Palette from Kniticks, but Palette with a purpose.  I plan to use it for mittens and hats and other good thing in this year of colourwork.  Only it was not the yarn I craved.  It was the rest.

Here is the rest.

Knitpicks is once again having a 40% off book sale.  It goes for a little bit yet, if I recall correctly.  Very good value especially when you know you want the books anyway.

I had my eye on the Alice Starmore from the moment I heard about it pre-publication.  It is everything I hoped.  Following Alice down a path?  What a wonderful way to go.

I read some very good things about Mary Jane Muckletone's book, 200 Fair Isles Motifs.  The colour samples are wonderful.  Without the sale I probably would have left it on the shelf, but I am really pleased to have it.

And the last, the delicious Norwegian Mittens and Gloves.  Annemor Sundbo.  Sigh.  It is the true gem of the bunch.  It was unexpected.  I read about it only the day before I ordered it.  It was a complete impulse buy and I love it.  The mix of history and mittens and patterns and warm charm.  It is a gem.  If you love knitting traditions and like a mix of history and knitting, you will love this book.

January has been a month of good things.  Now I need to settle down and knit and make some of the fantastic things in the pages of these and the other good books and magazines that have come to me this month.  

The good stuff

The light gray sport weight arrived!  

Seriously.  Does it get any better than this?  

Well, no and yes all at once.  

Because I did my purchasing of the Briggs and Little through Veronik Avery's online ST. Denis yarn store, I also had the perfect opportunity to do something I had long wanted. 

I could try some of her St. Denis yarn.   Here is Boreale a fingering weight yarn, the second in her line of yarns.  

I have always loved the look of this yarn when it is knit up.  I have spent way way too many hours looking at the website pondering colours.  I have coveted and I have dreamed and now I have.  A little to start but  There.  Will.  Be.  More.  Oh, yes, there will.

 

So considering the choice of colours, why did I pick that funny weak kneed yellow white cream?  

I didn't.  It is the palest, of pale blues.  Chalk Blue, an absolutely stunning shade.  

Breathe deep.  Inhale the yarn fumes.  Then stop over at St. Denis Yarns because you really need to try some of this.  

It doesn't look like much.

There is always that stage in knitting, where you know you have put in a lot of time on this project, but it doesn't look like much of anything at all.

And that is right where I am.  You have yer dark gray on one side and yer medium gray  on t' other.  

This is good knitting and I'd be sorry to see it end too soon**, so I guess it is a good thing that I decided I need a light gray before I move into the rich cream.

I plan to end it off with the cream.  There may be a simple pattern and there may not.  I have not decided.  the garter stitch looks pretty good just as it is.

**Well, except for the finish part. The finish part could come faster, if you know what I mean.  I can't wait to wear it.

If I was motivated

If I was motivated, I would go and get my shawl and show you how it goes.  But I just don't feel that motivated.  Its in the front and the front is cold, cold, cold.

So I will tell you how the office at my place of work is newly renovated and like many newly renovated spaces, the furnace is not balanced well.  I'm not in the warm part.  We do have a heater but with the cold we have this week.  Its not enough.  

I might take some of these along for the window.  (I thought about inserting an emoticon here, but I don't think I am kidding.)

Going back on what I said

You know how sometimes you end up doing exactly what you said you would never do again,  

and it is never quite so bad as when you did it the first time?

I always said I was never knitting black socks again and yet, here I am.  It isn't so bad.  They are not going to win any perfection contests (but then my knitting never would and I would never enter anyway) and they are quite simply not something I can work on in the evenings, but a few stitches here and there in the afternoon...It hasn't been so bad.

Maybe it is a weird sort of punishment for finding a nice yarn store in Lacombe Alberta, and having a really really good time.  

Happy Mail Day!

I have done a little online ordering lately.  And a little local yarn shopping (but that was for my birthday) .  OK, OK, it has been yarn accidents left right and center here at Chez Needles.

But some of it wasn't yarn just happy accidents.  This is one of the happy accidents.

 I managed to scarf one of 6 copies of the brand new Haapsalu Scarf  by Suri Reimann and Aime Edasi.  I just happened to visit Elann.com (who are now out of stock) when they just had the book up on their website.  And the timing was perfect.  I had just earned a $50 certificate too.  And it looks like a gem of a shawl book from my quick skim just after I got home.  And scarves only in their eyes.  Scarves in relation to the very large sized full square Haapsalu shawl.

I'll tell you about some of my other adventures as they come in.  But till then, I'll be busy reading and thinking and planning my hear out  

and knitting plain black socks and a garter stitch shawl.  No way can I read the book and knit on my pretty mittens at the same time.

Stuff

I have to tell you something else, something I have not forgotten about, but something that I was not allowed to tell you about till after Christmas, because the giver said I must leave it alone till after Christmas.  (It almost killed me)

And then it just never happened.  I forgot to tell you.  I am sorry about that.  It is one of those things you really must share with friends.

I was given a gift of some of the very very delicious Loft , Brooklyn Tweed's new fingering weight yarn.   Oh my.  

 Spun by Harrisville, it has a depth and quality all its own. And the colours.  Oh my.  The photo does look pretty good but in truth it is yummier.  Besides that pretty box of yarn to ponder over, in my view everyday for the last few weeks, has been a pretty gift bag full of delightful yarn and some very charming birds.  

Pretty, Yes?

And yes, Sandra and all my blog readers, I too wish we could all get together and knit.  I've been to Sigrun's house and oh my.  When my farmstead is ready, Sigrun and I will be neighbours.  We aren't quite around the corner neighbours but country neighbours,  the just a little way down the road sort of neighbours.  It is only a short drive down the way.  Sigrun and I will get together one of these days to knit and toast our cup of tea to all of you!    

Knitting has brought so many good things to me.  So many many wonderful people and very very close friends, both near and far away. 

After digging in the stash

I was digging in my stash the other day with my daughter in law ( Yes she knits. No not obsessively, but most of the young women from eastern Europe learn when they are young. I aim to fix that!) and because it was very late at night, I let it percolate over night.

When I did, the two buckets of yarn that we had open seemed to get all mixed up together.  There was Cascade 220 everywhere.     

The next morning while contemplating the sorry state of my space as I sipped coffee, I noticed a little bit of sweet magic.

 The cascade 220 is a perfect bridge between the Mini Moochi at the front and the Nuna at the back.  

I doubt that I would knit them together, but isn't it pretty how the colours all just work? 

I have some very pretty things.  Sigh.  B)

Solitude

I heard someone say the other day that knitting is a very social activity.  And it is.  I have no doubt of that.  The modern knit night is the quilting bee of old.  Women have always loved to get together to do things in a social atmosphere.

But knitting is also a very solitary pursuit.  For every social knitter there are a thousand quiet knitters out there knitting in solitude, valuing it for that quiet.   

I think I knit for both.  I treasure knitting with friends.  Its been a long while now since I have gone to my usual knit nights, and I am really looking forward to it, but I also love the quiet that is my knitting.  

Solitary knitting blocks out the sounds of a busy day. The quiet pursuit of one stitch after another, an unbroken rhythm across a row, the gentle clicks of the tips of your needles as they slip past each other as you move along.  

These are just some of the things you notice more when you are knitting in quiet solitude.  Knitting is rather like a well cut gemstone.  Every time you turn it in the light you see another flash of its brilliance.  Every time you look at it in low light, you see something else again.

In the Forest

I am working along on my Deep in the Forest Mittens and I cannot begin to tell you how much this pattern echos life.  

It starts out simply enough.  Just a simple little cast on and a garter ridge as a fold line, to tack back later to finish and firm up the wrist edge of the mitten.  Then simple knitting for a few rows and some fancy foot work.  The braid is a bit of a learning experience, but just like learning your abc's it isn't all that hard once you get the hang of it. You do have to let your assumptions go and do what the errata tells you.  I did have a leg up, having done it before for the mini  twined knitting class I took last summer.

It stays interesting as your work you way through the middle of the project but it isn't really hard.  I think this part would be the knitting equivalent of the early teen years.  It goes just right if you follow the rules and listen to your mother, aka the chart.  From there on in, I don't know.  I'm keeping it covered.  

It isn't that I keep my eyes closed.  Not at all.  I always work like this when I work from a chart.  I know where I have been and use the knowledge to inform the next row I knit.  I don't really know just where that path is going to go.  

Oh I can guess.  From the photos of the completed mittens from the pattern and the many projects on Ravelry, its is going to get just a little more hectic down the road.  I think this slowly getting more hectic must be a little bit like the teen years.  

I'll let you know if the analogy holds as I keep knitting it.  

Again

Again with the sleeping in!  Almost late to work late.  

So there you go.

A very special something

Even with all the delicious knitting there is happening around here, not a stitch was knit yesterday.  Morning was sluggish and evening was company.  My son and his wife came out and we had a lovely dinner.  They brought a birthday surprise for me.

My daughter in law brought some vintage patterns from the Ukraine.  They are Russian magasines and patterns, vintage 1985-87.  

Very very interesting.  While the shapes might have changed, there is a lot of fodder for thought in them.

See what I mean?  Interesting things, wonderful starting points, but you would modify the shapes and lengths and update the colours.  There are some really stunning colourwork charts.  

I would also like to thank blogger for helping to upload the photos. Why, those little back room code monkeys know exactly how my photos should upload.  How wise of them.

Anyway, my photos aren't that great even if they posted with the original orientation, but I hope you can see just a little of the treasures within.

A Bittersweet Mist

I have spent a long time thinking about where my knitting would focus this year and just what I wanted to challenge myself with.  This year I'm thinking smaller, focusing on colourwork and lace.  

To that end, I am setting myself up to start down both those paths.  I started the Briggs and Little Shawl.  While it isn't lace, just simple garter stitch, it is a shawl and since my new office is, by popular vote, a few degrees colder than chilly, the need is great.  It is up first.  Besides, it is fantastic lunch time knitting.  

On the way home from work today, I had the overwhelming  urge to dive into the yarn closet and dig for something.  So I did.

There just isn't anything I like so well as diving into yarn and just go shopping.  I never really thought of it that way till a friend laughingly said she knew I had a lot of yarn, she just didn't realize it was my own store! Since she said that, I do think just the tiniest bit different about the size of the stash and how I approach it when I am looking for something.  I do have a little of almost everything, after all.  

I didn't want to just pick yarn out willy nilly.  I wanted it to be a purposeful dig.  So, with the shawl settled and well begun, I decided it was time for colourwork.  

I had two possible projects.  One that lovely icy blue and white Cascade 220 for a vest and the other, yarn for mittens.  Since part one of the focus is supposed to be on smaller projects, I went for mittens.  

There are so many lovely colourwork mitten patterns.  My bookshelf has some mitten stunners and there are hundreds of patterns available through Ravelry.  There are those wonderful fun Spillyjane patterns (beer mittens, bug mittens...sigh) so many, many more. 

I pulled out the box of Pallette, Knitpicks versatile and formerly inexpensive fingering weight.  It used to be a really great buy, but now, if I have to pay that price, then I am going to spend the smallest bit more and get a more firmly spun yarn.  It still is a good deal, just not one that speaks to me so much anymore.

Anyway out comes the yarn and the choice is 2 colours or many?  Two to start, I think.  I came across a rich deep bown, Bittersweet. Then I saw Mist, a taupe that changed colours depending what I put next to it.  When I held it next to the Bittersweet, the Bittersweet changed colours!

So there you have it. Bittersweet and Mist.  I had visions of fogs and forest and deep woods.  Deep in the Forest Mittens - A Bittersweet Mist  

just begun, the very best place to be, next to almost done.

Yummy Christmas Yarns

I did get some yarn for Christmas.  Apparently if you don't tell them anything else, they give up and get yarn!

So here goes.

The top skeins are a personal favourite, Tove by Sandnesgarn The bottom are two large skeins of Noro Wadaiko.  Though he swears he did not plan it, I think the two different kinds of yarns could be used to make something funky and fun. The colours sure work.  That wonderful tropical turquoise with the bright multi coloured skein and that rich black brown coordinates wonderfully with the more  sophisticated brown,black, cream gray skein.  They are stunning and I love them.

Next up,  

Sulka.  Lovely, buttery, yummy Sulka, which is going to make a wonderful cowl.  I am pretty sure which one I will make, but you know how it is, till it goes on the needle, it is all fair game.

And last of all is a little bit of surprise.  My mom and dad gave me some money for Christmas.  Mum really shouldn't, but her biggest joy is giving something so we accept it.  I wanted something special from it, but then, as I was going through my winter knitting bag, I found a real treat.  An usused stash cash certificate from River City Yarns.  Combined I had enough for something really delicious.

The ladies at the store do it right.  They launched an exclusive line of yarns last year, starting with Epic, 2 simple colours of solid performance yarn.  This fall, they went just a little farther, to somewhere between heaven and hell (hell because I only have one right now and heaven...well you have to feel it to understand).  Eden is immoral and beyond delicious.  

I thought I would come home with Eden in this red that surely has come from an Angels hand but they were out.  So I had to search for something else. 

Yeah, it was hard (not really) but I came up with something I loved for a long time.   I wouldn't normally buy this kind of yarn.  It is a little rich for me (so is Eden, but I was helpless to resist Eden).  I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on it unless it was special money.  Just like this.  

So, mes amis,   I am now the very proud owner of 3 skeins of pure silk, Art Yarns red silk.  

I might not have made it to Eden, but surely this devilishly good stuff is a fair substitute.  I am in heaven over it.

And then because it's a long drive home and there is plenty of time for free thinking, I remembered this.  

I have a skein of Rumple, a silk boucle from Handmaiden that I wanted to make a scarf for my mom with, but she was vehemently not interested. The colours are a pretty fair match. Together or apart?  The Silk Collection at Chez Needles!   Hmm, I am going to have to think about this.   

There are special things on my horizon.  What a lovely way to start the year.

A great way to open up a new year.

I started the New Year by working on a project that I started after Christmas.  And by doing so I may have found yet another desert island yarn.  

I'm making a simple garter stitch shawl increasing 4 stitches one row and 2 on the next.  This give you that glorious wearable horseshoe shaping. Briggs and Little Sport.

It appears just the smallest bit washed out here, but it is the richest deepest of charcoals.  

I really enjoyed working with the Regal but this?  This takes it to a whole other level.  Desert island yarn.

OK, I admit it.  I would never be able to get by on a desert island.  I mean really.  One yarn?  Forever?  How could I pick between Sandnesgarn Tove, Custom Woolen Mills Mule Spinner 2 ply, the Laceweight Einband?  How could one choose between them?  

I think I have a have new desert island.  My new desert island is going to have a yarn store specialising in delicious, slightly crunchy, old fashioned yarns.  

Or else a really really great mail delivery system and a truly speedy internet connection..