Thursday 12 November 2015

I had this yarn

River City Yarns, my lys, had a magnificent wrap that came from an old pattern freebie from Estelle yarns.  Estelle doesn't have that freebie printed any longer and that is kind of sad.  It really was magnificent.  It was knit in one direction only and each row started with 6 or 8 inches left for a fringe and at the end of each row you cut off 6 or 8 inches and left it for a fringe.  It was made of 5 or 8 different yarns with different characteristics.   Whoever knit that lovely thing was a master at putting things together.  (I think I know who knit it and yes, she is a master at this)

I think of that wrap often.

Some time ago, during one of my many adventures through my stash and leftover bits and bobs, I found this ball of yarn.
 It was one of my first purchases from the old Red Bird Knits and one of my first lessons in how colour on a monitor can be very different than colour in real life.  It is lovely stuff dyed by Fleece Artist, IIRC.

And then in the big jar with all the special leftovers, I found this pair.

 The back is a tiny ball of Elsbeth Lavold Angora and a nice large fluffy ball of Fleece Artist Peter Rabbit.  The Peter Rabbit is a very similar colourway as that first ball of yarn.  And that was when it hit me.

Wrap from store?  Probably not, but scarf made in the same way?  Oh yes!

So then I started looking through for other things that would work together.  These soft tones, neutrals and delicate blues and blue grays.  Over time I assembled bits as I came across them, eventually ending up with these.




 At the bottom are the two balls that started it all, and then clockwise, a ball of handspun from NomadAli with Findlay Family Fibre Works, a local to Edmonton spinner and fibre artist, who gave my old Babe spinning wheel a home.  This is the most recent addition to the mix.  Then a full skein of Schulana Angora Fashion from the Angora fest of a while ago, a ball of a blue, softly spun  unkown name wool from Lang.  I got it in a bag of demo balls that my boss from the yarn store had received over the years.  My tones were all blues, and this ball is the perfect soft blue addition. Then a ball of natural Alpaca from a local Edmonton grower with that small ball of EL Angora tucked just underneath.  In the very centre is another ball of creamy Alpaca from that same Edmonton grower. All the yarns are fingering weights and up.

It led to this.



I am usually very careful to list projects on my Ravelry project page.  Those pages put up by all those nice people have helped me so many times over the past years.  What a resource and I am determined to do my part.  But this little project has never been listed.  To me that means I must have started knitting it in the sad winter of 2013 before I moved.

I am working from my memory of that wrap.  Sections of a colour using only occasional garter stitch and stockinette, changing the sequence at random.

Not all the yarn above will be used. If I used the entire ball of that soft blue for this scarf, it would overwhelm the delicate goodness of the rest of it.  It is an accent though and I do love how it plays against the delicacy of the rest.

Yarn play.  That is what this is. the challenge and the joy of putting pretty things together.

And a very nice change from the blob.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This sounds like an exciting project. Enjoy! GD

Sel and Poivre said...

This is a beautiful notion for sure but I am quite intrigued by the blob too! Isn't it great that knitting can encompass such extremes.