Getting the Mail

When I was small, getting a card in the mail from someone was a pretty serious pleasure.   As I got older, mail became a place to get the bills. The charm of getting the mail was gone.  Till I took up knitting.

Since I took up knitting, mail is a lot more fun.  Since I moved to a very small town outside of the city mail is even more fun (the post office is two blocks away instead of being way out of my daily path, and 20 minutes away from home).  Today it was really big fun.

A friend that I met through the yarn store introduced me to Isager Yarns.  She showed me a yarn she had just bought and I was pretty sure I needed some.  Later, she showed me her finished project and I knew I had to have some of the yarn and the pattern book it had come from.  For years, Isager Spinni Wool 1 was what I always promised myself would be my someday yarn.  I promised myself that when I sold the house, I would have some.  

I had also watched the book, A Fine Line by Grace Anna Farrow which is where the pattern for my friend's finished project came from.  I watched as it disappeared from the radar when the print run sold out.  At that time, you couldn't buy the patterns individually as I recall and I was heartbroken.  I still checked out the shawls from the book on Ravelry, to dream.  They are such lovely things.  And then one day, magic.  The book was available as an ebook, and I bought it right away. 

I stalked the yarn at Jimmy Beans for a very long time, but it looks like Jimmy Beans doesn't have The Isager Wool 1 anymore.  Or at least it did not the day I went shopping.  I went straight to the source.  Which is, more or less, in the US.  And got everything I wanted and perhaps, a little more.

    

I love getting my mail.

I still am not 100% sure which shawl I am going to knit with this.  Some of the shawls use more than one skein of a colour, so I may have to order a bit more once I decide. I debated for a very long time, and couldn't settle projects, so I decided to order for the range of colours.  That was a much easier choice.  I love each and every one of them. Possibly together and possibly not!  But no contest.  Off the deep end in love with the colours.  

I'm off the deep end in love with the yarn itself too.  It is a sticky grabby yarn.  This yarn is not going to run unless you want it to.  If you drop a stitch it is going to be right there waiting for you to pick up when you get back to it.  It would be what some people call rough feeling in the skein, but I say, you go right on ahead, thinking it is too rough.  That means there will be more for me.  It is substantial.  When I say that, I don't mean bulky.  More that when you squeeze the yarn in the skein, you can feel it's presence.  Yet, I know from my friends project that when you knit it and it is washed and blocked, it is lighter than air, and a thing of such delicate beauty that it is hard to imagine.  

I am very sure that many other wonderful projects have been knitted in this yarn besides the ones in A Fine Line, but to me, the yarn and book were to each other, the ultimate that could ever be found in a knitter's craft.  

Simple shapes, ethereal yarn and a thing of great beauty.   I love getting the mail.