Author: Renee

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Sentimental yarn

Oh wait, it’s supposed to be Sentimental Journey...like the song. If you don’t know it, you’re not old enough. It starts out, “Gonna take a sentimental journey, gonna set my heart at ease, gonna take a sentimental journey to re-new old memories” I hope your singing along. 

Sometimes the yarn isn’t the special part, it’s what you do with it that makes it so. Last post I talked about the scarf I am crocheting while with my dad. It’s almost done.

This is the blanket I gave him for Christmas last year. He hasn’t always shown an interest in the projects I work on, in fact this may have been the first one. I started it during the Thanksgiving weekend. We watched football and a movie or two at our house and I worked on this project. The yarn is acrylic from Red Heart (a big yarn company for those of you who don’t yarn). There are lots of different colors to use and the pattern is interesting to work due to the changes in colors and in the stitches. 

I could see him watching out of the corner of his eye so I took it closer for him to see. His comments ranged from “looks like a lot of work”, to “that will take a long time”, to “what are you going to do with it?” and variations of those three. The last became a frequent query. After the third or maybe fourth time he asked, I responded that it would be a Christmas gift.

Christmas Morning Throw

I hadn’t really decided what to do with the blanket after it was finished but by that point it occurred to me that perhaps it would be for him. We had that particular query/response exchange many times during the weekend but never once did he ask for whom it would be a gift. I would have told him if he had. Maybe he knew that. 

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Memories in every stitch

I’ve written about the different places to which I take my crochet projects. The last few months I have been crocheting a lot with my father. No, he doesn’t crochet. At 94, he is getting less active and sleepier.  We sit together quite a bit when I can head south and be with him. He takes a lot of naps. Crocheting helps me stay quiet while he’s resting but still be present in the moment. At times,  I catch him with his eyes half open watching the motion of my hands, hook and yarn as I work.

The project I have been working on the last several trips has been a good source of conversation. It’s two yarns that change shades and are worked alternately into what will be a really long scarf; pointy on the ends and fat in the middle.  His memory is not so good any more and so we tend to have the same conversations, multiple times every visit.  Because the yarns used for this project change colors/shades and the scarf changes shape, he notices different things every time he looks at what I’m doing. So, new questions along with the ones already asked but still new because the project has changed. And since I’m not the most patient person, this helps me to be more so with him.

I’m only working on this project while I’m with him. It started out that way because it’s a very simple pattern that doesn’t require a huge amount of focus. So, good when you get interrupted frequently; it can be put down at any point and easily continued. And, if I leave him and head to parts north, I don’t have to spend time trying to figure out where I am when I get back south.

He lives about 5 hours away from me. I usually see him about every six weeks but right now it is much more often.  I’m about 60% completed.  I hope to finish it while he’s still with me.  Not sure that will happen.  

He’s asked for whom I’m making it. I’m pretty sure that I will need to keep it as a remembrance of the time we are spending together.  Every stitch of this project really does hold a memory.

There is more to the story of why I’m making this scarf  in this yarn that I will share when it’s done (Teaser!).

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Always room for more yarns

And that means yarn stories…yarns=stories. Get it? So, I now have an instagram account that I have begun using to share more photos than in the posts as well as yarn photos not related at all to any post (at least yet). And as I complete projects down the road that use the yarns I have blogged about, I will post them to Instagram so you can see what these beautiful skeins have become. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy this as well as reading the stories here.  

And because no day is perfect without a bit of purple in it…here’s yours for the day!

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There’s always a story

Step back to August. Remember me talking about the DFW Yarn Crawl? The first weekend of the crawl I was sola (I know, that looks incorrect in english but it is a spanish word and I am female, so there ya go) in my pursuit of yarn. I spent an afternoon visiting the shops closest to home. The last and most distant destination was Holley’s Yarn Shoppe where I met Abby from Twisted Owl Fiber Studio, located in Longview, Texas. I arrived at the store with only about 5 minutes to closing…I almost didn’t go since I didn’t think I’d make it but then I decided that, surely there would be a hoard of people there. And, well, not so many people and the folks looked like they were really ready for a cocktail. Abby was packing up and here I came…I so wanted to dive into the bins of yarn.

Instead, I posed the questions I ask a-lot, which are: “Which of your yarns is your favorite right now? Which of the yarns you have with you are one of a kind? Which yarn will I not be able to get after you leave today?” The last is because I knew Holley’s carried some of her yarns throughout the year.

And this is the yarn with which she sent me home: Show Off: If I want exposure, I’ll get my tits out.  Hmmm. I knew there had to be a story there and indeed there was. Kind of like the yarn equivalent to Top Chef but without the whole getting kicked off the island thing. And, I know, I’m mixing my references but it’s a tv thing and I don’t watch tv so it’s a miracle I even know these things exist. Anyway, I digress.

Abby said that one of her good yarn dyeing buddies made this super awesome batch of yarn. She, Abby, was really taken with the colors and how they all played out and asked her friend about the specifics. Said friend didn’t want to give it up but Abby said she thought she could figure it out on her own and this is the result. Not wanting to rain on her friends parade, she didn’t dye but the one skein. And now it’s mine! Of course I needed something to go with it and also took home a corally color. 

That was great but I have a thing about even numbers and that only gave me two skeins to work with for a project, yet to be determined at that point. So, in October during the Hill Country crawl, I looked for a third color from Abby. No luck. And then. My in-laws (yes, we really do love each other) were in town and we went to Fort Worth to see the exhibit at the Kimbell. We arrived only to find out the museum didn’t open until noon on Fridays…my fault, but really, why would they do that on Friday? So, Google gave me the good news that there was a yarn shop within walking distance. HOW FORTUNATE 🙂

Emily went with me and Jim went with Tom to the Modern for an hour. And, here’s the reason I’m telling you this: I found my third Twisted Owl color at West 7th Wool. And it’s purple (I don’t know why I fight it, I’m so much happier when purple is involved). Yay! I feel so much better now.

And now I do have an idea of what to make with this fun yarn. It may be more challenging than it usually is since the pattern only seems to be available in German. Hmmmmmmm. I can figure it out, I’m sure. I have a dictionary.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful food and family day this Thanksgiving. I am thankful for so many things. 

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Everyone needs some Alpacas

They are the cutest beasties.  And the yarn made from their fleece  is soooo soft. And warm. Did I mention that they are cute?! One of our stops on the DFW yarn crawl last summer was Trinity Ridge Alpacas. The folks were so friendly and turns out it’s a six degree thing ’cause Janet is a nurse and worked at one of the hospitals my Tom frequents. Anyway, we weren’t able to meet up with any beasties while there but we did have fun asking the Hancocks about their experience as alpaca tenders. Sounds like it’s a Lay’s potato chip thing…you can’t stop at just one. 

Just shorn, this gal used to be one of our neighbors in the Hill Country

I have yarn that contains alpaca from other people and places. I’ve noticed it isn’t as itchy on me as merino is. And, as I started reading about alpacas, I learned the fibers hold more warmth than wool. Alpaca fibers are hollow so more air gets trapped than in wool where the fibers have only pockets of trapped air. One reason Alpaca fibers can be less itchy is because there isn’t any lanolin in them. Wool has that. If you see wool yarn that says it is “super wash” that means it has been processed to remove the lanolin. So, less itchy but the process to remove it may involve chemicals.  Also, itchiness can be caused by bigger fibers…microns, my friends, are important as well. The diameter of the fibers are measured in microns (1 micron=1 millionth of a meter). The smaller the diameter, the smoother the fiber.

The yarn I brought home from Trinity Ridge is tagged with the names of the the alpacas whose fleece contributed to the skeins. Janet told me that she has customers who ask specifically for fibre from different alpacas, partly because the coloring is so different on each animal. Mine came from Angel, Mattissa and Pharaoh.

Alpacas are a relative of the llama and of the camel. They have been bred to be used primarily for their fleece while llamas have been bred to be guard and pack animals. They are around 3 ft tall at the shoulder and between 120-180 pounds. Llamas are much bigger and bulkier. Since the alpacas aren’t fighters, they need guard animals to keep them safe from predators. You may see llamas included in the alpaca herd to be used for this purpose.

Tom’s been saying for many years that if he can’t have a pony, he wants a llama….if we were at our ranchette (less than 10 acres so it doesn’t really qualify as a ranch) in the Hill Country more (read permanently) and if we had alpacas that needed protecting, maybe, just maybe he could have that llama.  And a pony too…..but that’s in another life 🙂

Until next week! Stay warm. 


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Yak, yak, yakkity yak!

A couple of years ago when I had just jumped into the yarn world (with both feet), my Sig-O, Tom and our friend Karla, went to Bhutan on a hiking adventure. I very wisely stayed home. Rain, mud, cold. Not my thing. So, they were happy (mostly) and I was very happy!

Because Tom is the fab guy that he is, when they had the opportunity to shop for souvenirs, he looked for yarn to bring me. Yak yarn. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to find any in the local markets. Puzzled him and puzzled me when he told me about the unsuccessful search. Didn’t know anything about yaks but since they are ubiquitous there and the Bhutanese use their fur/fiber/hair (whatever you want to call it) to make clothes and hats, as well as tents and ropes, you’d think yarn would be as easily found as the animal itself. Just check this guy out. Karla took this picture and, wow, he/she is magnificent!

So. Disappointed he didn’t find any but life moved on and I kind of forgot about it. So much other yarn to touch and feel.

Fast forward to the DFW fiber fest of 2017. I was wandering around in a bit of a yarn stupor when I looked at the label on a skein and it said it was made with yak yarn. Holy cow! Or maybe I should have said, “Holy yak”! Neophyte, yes, that’s me. Never occurred to me that maybe yak yarn would be available here. As I’m talking to the man in whose booth I had been gaping, gasping and yes, talking to myself, I got educated a little.

The fibers that the Bhutanese use, mostly, are the tough outer fibers. These produce cloth that is woven to be very dense, durable, odor free,  and warm. So, great for their cold temps, snow and rain but not necessarily good for spinning into yarn.

The yarns we get here, so I was told, are made from the part of the undercoat or down that the Bhutanese usually discard because it isn’t tough enough. Yarn folks (and I use that in the royal way since I have no idea how it started) worked a deal to save these fibers. I believe these fibers are harvested (not sure that’s the right word but you get the idea) at a different time than the rest because they are shed naturally.

And then it became a mini quest. A very mini but on-going quest since it is not that common.  I bought some called Lhasa Wilderness from the Bijou Basin booth where I was getting educated and have been on the lookout for more as I add to my stash.

Really. I hear  “Yak, yak, yak” in my brain,  but only when I’m yarning. I promise. 🙂

You can see all the color ways from both these companies by clicking the links in the text.

So far, I have only come home with yarn from one other dyer. Yarn Carnival has a yarn they call Yak Attack with which I have just started a shawl. Both these yarns are melanges of Yak and other fibers.  

I love finding yarns made using the different fibers. Conjures up all kinds of great stories in my mind as I crochet. I wonder how Curly (remember him from my last post) would get along with a yak?

It’s amazing how small our world really is these days. 

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Making a Difference

One of the sponsors for the yarn crawl last week was The Vineyard Marketplace in San Marcos. It is the store component of True Vineyard Ministries, Inc. My friend Tina and I visited the store on Friday morning. We were amazed at all the wonderful merchandise on display. Granted we were there for the yarn but we also checked off several items on our holiday gift list and extras for ourselves, including jewelry made by women in Ethiopia from recycled artillery shell casings. The women collect them, melt them down, make beads and then make jewelry.  

True Vineyard is a  member of the Fair Trade Federation so everything in their store helps the communities from which they come. Each thing for sale has a story. I really liked that. Those  stories are shared by the folks in the store and also on the shop website when you click to buy!

True Vineyard also employs women in Rwanda to care for a flock of merino sheep and use their fleece to spin and dye into merino wool yarn. This is for many of the women, the first time they have been employed and received a paycheck. When they first started packaging the yarn the women wound it in a football shape; not our usual way of receiving it but very cute. Now most of it comes in the usual skein or cake form. The yarns you see to the right are, on the left, dyed using avocados and, on the right, the legumes from the mimosa tree. The third in my stash now is dyed using madder root. And as I was googling this, I was reminded that madder root has long been used for dyeing things with a reddish, rosy tint….Aveda even has a shampoo for us red-heads to fortify our hair. I might have to go get some!

They work with women in Ethiopia to hand spin the locally grown cotton into yarn. The yarn is then sent to Rwanda where it is plyed and dyed using area plants. My cotton choices (shown at left) were three different skeins of color, all using Cosmos flowers. Amazing the different shades they achieved with the same plant. The cotton yarn is a new adventure so isn’t on the website yet, but the page of wool yarn shows the skein of yarn next to the plant used in the dyeing process. What a great visual; many of the plants they use are familiar but may have different names in Rwanda. 

I’ve found and brought home other yarns that were dyed using local plants. Being a gardener and having accidentally dyed myself when out working, the yarns I’ve brought home make me smile and think of far-away gardens.

Display of the cotton yarn from Ethiopia

There are several short videos on You Tube about the outreach True Vineyard is doing in Rwanda.  Dreams presents many of the women in the program and this next one, that’s titled True Vineyard Ministries 2011 is a montage of the yarn making process.

It was, for me, a powerful experience to be in their store, talk with those working or volunteering there and hear the stories of the women in Rwanda and other parts of the continent that this organization is helping.

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Hill Country Yarn crawl: plan B results

At the end with our buttons attached

To sum up:

  • 14 Yarn shops visited in 2 1/2 days
  • 2 skeins of yarn purchased to complete the needed colors for 2 patterns
  • 6 combinations of yarn acquired for patterns I brought with me
  • 7 sets (pattern+yarn) purchased that were featured for the crawl at the yarn stores we visited
  • 3 combinations of 3 skeins each purchased just because they are wonderful 

And for those of you who have no idea what a skein is…drum roll please…I ended the weekend with 7.75 miles of new yarn in my stash! Yeee Haw.

This post will be a bit of a travel log. I want to share where we went and will link the shops to the posts so you can check them out. We didn’t make many photos; too busy shopping for yarn!

What fun we had and such good luck on the weather. We were able to visit all but one of the shops on our initial list. I even ended up visiting three of them twice sort of by accident.  Alas, it does not appear that we won any prizes for our efforts…and yes, that was a possibility. Oh well. Next year!

Thursday – Day 1 visits:

  • The Knitting Cup (Georgetown) Brought home Chesire Cat in Black Pearl from Frabjous Fibers. So fun just to read the names they use. Have a pattern picked out that should be quite challenging. At least it looks that way. It’s only available in German…
  • A Sheep at the Wheel (Georgetown) They carry the Noti yarn that I fell in love with during the Dallas crawl. I needed one more skein for a project and was able to check that off my list while there. Yay!
  • Nan’s Needleworks (Marble Falls) This was actually my first stop since I went by there on my way down from Dallas (the week before, on the first day of the crawl) to pick up our passports and swag bags. Was afraid they’d run out of the bags if I waited for Tina to come down the next weekend.

Tina met Karla and I at Karla’s build site in Liberty Hill. The first time I visited, it was only a concrete pad. Now the framing is complete and the roof mostly done. Yay! 

Afterwards, Tina and I had a yummy lunch in Georgetown at Blue Corn Harvest bar and grill. Stumbled upon it really. We were looking for a parking spot near the first of our yarn shops and ended up right in front of the restaurant. ‘Twas best really that we didn’t start shopping on empty stomachs.

Our first stop of the crawl

Here we go! Notice the empty bag she is holding. We brought holding bags to transfer our acquisitions into after leaving each store. That way there was always room for more! Each shop had some of the same big names of yarn but most importantly they each offered yarns from different small dyers and spinners. Some from the  Texas area and some from other parts of the country.

Friday – Day 2 visits:

  • Ply! Yarn (Wimberly) Opened early for the crawl. Lovely space. New owner this year.  
  • Vineyard Marketplace (San Marcos) Soo many things to look at. Home to Handspun Hope yarns from Rwanda. We ended up buying gifts for ourselves and others that had nothing to do with yarn.
  • Hill Country Weavers (Austin) A labyrinth of yarns! Easy to lose oneself here for a good bit of time
  • Gauge (Austin) Very nice folks, gave us a good back road to avoid the traffic. I’ve just started the project they featured during the crawl (see point 4 at the beginning of post).
  • The Sated Sheep (Dripping Springs) Soo many small dyers represented here. Loved to see them all and their website has lots of information if you forget the story about what you took home.

Our drive from Fredericksburg to Wimberly took us on scenic country roads. Great way to start the day. Ply! is located just next to the main shopping square. Next we went to San Marcos and the Vineyard Marketplace. They were a sponsor for the event, so we didn’t get a spiffy button to add to our bag; even better, they gave us a needle/hook envelope as our door prize (more on them in the next post). From there we visited the two places in Austin, broke for lunch in between those two and headed to Dripping Springs. All told we drove (well, Tina drove and I navigated) about 200 miles on Friday. And worked around the ACL (Austin City Limits music festival) traffic.

Karla’s pic of her beer flight at the brewery

We ended the day with Karla at  Altstadt, the new brewery that just opened outside of Fredericksburg. We were even able to sit outside…no rain and coolish temps.

Saturday – Day 3 visits:

  • Yarnivore (San Antonio) The yarn I took home with me here was dyed by a young lady who is a visual artist. The colors of the yarns she dyes are taken from her artworks. The painting is shown on the label of the yarn that was inspired by it and you can buy cards and prints of the art as well.
  • Un-raveled (San Antonio) I’m looking forward to working the shawl pattern using the yarn they were featuring.
  • The Yarn Barn (San Antonio) They featured Lone Star Arts for the crawl. Some of my favorite yarn.
  • Inskein (San Antonio) I brought home their featured project as well. The designer for this, Shannon Sanchez, has more on Ravelry that look fun to work, including some Star Trek inspired patterns.
  • The Loom Room (Comfort) All kinds of weaving looms and supplies. Fascinating. And the art and craft items in front fun to browse through. Need to remember this for gift giving occasions.
  • The Tinsmith’s Wife (Comfort)

Our adventure on Saturday didn’t require as much drive time (160 miles). We opted to visit the 4 stores in San Antonio and the two in Comfort. Wise decision as we would have run out of time if we had tried to go further east. The only rain that found us was during our lunch break.

The yarn and it’s art that came home with me

The artist and dyer I mentioned above is The Knitting Artist. Her website shows her paintings, installations and yarn sculptures but not her yarn.  I brought home her yarn inspired by her painting “Sleeping Moon Ice” along with a card showing the work.

The Loom Room in Comfort sits in the back of Comfort Crockery a store that has a great collection of artists’ wares. Even for those who aren’t weavers there were interesting things. I brought home a kit to make cute little dryer balls. They do have some yarn included in the weaving supplies but for the cornucopia of yarn/thread choices you really need to go across the street to the Tinsmith’s Wife. Huge. Several rooms. They have supplies for all kinds of needle and hook addicts (of the yarn persuasion).

Tina as we enter our last stop of the crawl. Still smiling!

We ended our crawl there, turned in our passports that we mostly remembered to get stamped at each store, petted the resident cat, filled our bags with the last of our crawl purchases and went around the corner to celebrate a successful and fun weekend at Hill Country Distillers. A cool drink and some spirits to take home with us for later.

Stay tuned for more!

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Plan B

I must post this before I take part in the Hill Country Yarn Crawl. It has been going on since the 5th but I have been waiting for Tina, my yarn partner-in-mischief to join me. We have a plan that should take us to 14 of the 18 yarn shops. Did I mention we’ll be doing most of that in two days? It is an ambitious plan. We shall see how distracted we get. And sandwiched in there somewhere is a stop by Liberty Hill where our friend Karla is building a house. Hmmmm.

My quest on this crawl is to find yarns for three patterns I have printed out to take with and to fill in a couple more where I need one more skein of a different color. I have spent several hours today searching for patterns to assign to part of my stash. I now have six more projects bagged and tagged. And that gives me permission to buy more yarn. Yay!

This is why I always have multiple projects in progress. And in the event that I get snowed in…in Texas…I’ll have plenty to keep me occupied. Whoop!

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Best Laid Plans

The DFW yarn crawl happened to me in August. My cohort was out of town for the beginning of it so I stayed pretty close to home for the first weekend. The following weekend we headed north just a ways to McKinney and were able to hit the local store there (McKinney Knittery) and also a yarn convergence inside Tupps brewery. What could be better? I can always go with: “The beer made me buy it”. Works, don’t you think?

My plan was this: 1. Go armed with a few patterns for which I wanted to find yarn. 2. If I found yarn I simply must buy, only buy worsted weight since fingering makes up far too much of my stash. Sounds like a good plan, yes? I went with four patterns. 

We stopped first at the Knittery. Pattern yarn found. Check. Worsted weight. Check.  Whew!

Tenacious, Magical, Revive and Audacious

Then on to the brewery. And that’s where the plan started to falter. Well ok, actually got totally abandoned. At the first booth. But the yarns. Oh. My. So just take a look at this picture. Fingering. All four skeins. But wow, the colors; all four are merino super wash and soooo very soft.  

This next pic is of the display table.

Noti Yarns is a one woman business. She hand paints her yarn. This is one of the woman I mentioned in an earlier post who got started doing this because she couldn’t find what she wanted. In her case, she was wanting to combine variegated with solids and couldn’t find matching colors in the palette she had chosen. And it happened more than once. So, she embarked on the journey that has led her to hand painting these fabulous color combinations. And I love the names she has chosen for her yarns. I could say that might sound like buying the wine for the label on the bottle but with that you never know what’s inside. With yarn it just adds charm.

I chatted with several other wonderful people. The next couple of posts will be devoted to them.

Happy yarning!

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