As it turns out, the acrylic yarn feels gross, splits, and doesn’t show any kind of pattern. After I switched to cotton yarn; and made three small dishcloths in different patterns, I tried the acrylic yarn again. It is soft. And I like the color. I still think it feels yukky and is difficult to manipulate. I knitted about ten rows of a ribbed scarf pattern before I made the final decision to chuck the yarn. So, into the donate pile it goes.

I got the circular knitting needles that I ordered for my birthday, from Knitpicks. They are every bit as wonderful as Marne, and the ladies from the knitting group have said. Saturday, one of the other ladies in the knitting group had her set, also pretty new, so I got to preview them and oh and aw. Mine arrived Saturday evening – of course.

DD is completely interested in the knitting, in all things crafty really. But she’s just learning to write. So I don’t want to try to teach her to knit or crochet yet. As she will probably get frustrated and hate it. I am on the lookout for one of those knitting/weaving devices made specifically for children her age who are interested, but need a bit more growing up before they can move on to crochet hooks and knitting needles.

I remember making all kinds of ugly potholders on one of those things when I was a preschooler. God bless my mother for telling me they were so wonderful. Though, she may have been just thankful that I was occupied for hours.

I got the No Sheep for You: Knit Happy with Cotton, Silk, Linen, Hemp, Bamboo & Other Delights
book on Saturday too. It has all these fantastic patterns that are totally over my head, in addition to lots of non-wool fiber information. It has a whole section on hemp yarn, which I find terribly scratchy. But I don’t find cashmere scratchy. And I think alpaca feels nice. Though I haven’t tried to wear it yet.

What? by Jayegirl99

I am going with the long fiber and scale theory of itchiness – that it is the length of the fiber and occurrence of scales that makes something itchy or not, rather than that it came from a plant or animal. I’ll find out anyway. My plan is to buy several random cotton blend, linen, and alpaca blend yarns and see what itches or doesn’t, how it holds a pattern and then try to make something simple.

Aware of my novice knitting status, several people helpfully pointed out this weekend that cashmere comes from a goat. And that alpaca is a completely different sort of animal. Which is really funny, since I wore cashmere for years and thought it came from a special breed of sheep. And I insisted on DH driving a certain way home so he could identify the weird animals near our house – which turned out to be alpacas.

So that’s my plan, to purchase some random yarns this coming weekend. And then try them all out. And definitely, definitely chuck the acrylic yarn.

Related posts:

• Learning to Knit
• Fried Turkey

DSC_3690 by busbeytheelder

Hmmm.

I have eaten the fried turkey before and liked it well enough. But, for some reason it seemed better this year. I do not know why. Maybe I just had it in my head that with all the rave fried turkey reviews, even I would like it better. Or maybe BIL has perfected his turkey frying technique.

Whatever, my turkey enjoyment was atypical.

Typical was my need to pester SIL with 50 zillion questions about yarn. Because I like fabric and fibers. And yarn is a fiber about which I know next to nothing. And there it always is, all furry and interesting on the shelf. And of course she knitted the cute legwarmers for DD so I associate her with yarn. And I keep thinking that I can eventually convince myself that I have the attention span to learn how to knit.

But whenever I get extremely interested in the allure of the yarn and the idea of the needles clacking in a soothing way, I suddenly image loosing my place on a pattern and ending up with some really crooked, unusable piece of cloth. And that is too much doom and anxiety to contemplate. Better to admire the yarn at SILs house.

Also, I find it a paradox that when wool lands on me it itches. And SIL has about a dozen different types of wools and never, ever looks itchy. She keeps explaining which ones are actually hair, and not fur. But since DH is still telling me which weird animal is a mule and which one is a donkey, and I still don’t know. I suspect that unless something cataclysmic happens, I will not get this animal covering worked into my brain. Though I think that I understand that alpaca is from a goat not a sheep.

Right. Aunt D mentioned that there was much violence at Thanksgiving because my niece jumped on me and grabbed my neck. She’s three. Aunt D can make anything sound inflammatory for fun. Really, if the worst act of violence is a very affectionate three year old. And the worst verbal assault concerns too many questions about yarn, I think we’re in pretty good shape.

Happy Thanksgiving All.

Related posts:

• Acrylic Yarn is Yukky
• Knitting and Other Mishaps