For anyone who is a Who-fan, October 7 is a much anticipated date. The first episode of Dr. Who, with the newest doctor Jodie Whittaker, will be on BBC. I so hope we can get reception in the Hill Country of Texas. We have almost the worst cell/internet reception at our place there. We do have it set to record in Dallas so all will not be lost if we can’t see it on the 7th, but oh my, the anticipation….
What does that have to do with yarn you are wondering? Well. Last summer I was in Asheville, North Carolina and found a yarn shop to visit. No surprise there. Purl’s Yarn Emporium is located in the downtown area where we wandered for most of a day. I knew I was in a great place when I walked in. There was a gentleman giving a crochet lesson (well, I don’t really remember whether it was crocheting or knitting but since I crochet, we’ll just go with that) to a youngster in the store and various folk camped out with their projects on comfy chairs and sofas.
Then I started looking at the yarn. There was an entire display devoted to Dr. Who. Yarns they dyed in themselves to match the colors worn by the individual doctors. All the colors to make Tom Baker’s scarf (he was the fourth Doctor from 1974-1981). They even had yarn in TARDIS blue. That’s what I brought home. Here’s a photo of what’s left. You can really see the colors. It’s a very pretty and soft yarn – 75% super wash wool and 25% nylon.
I made this great cowl from it and gifted it to my friend Tina. I found it at Yarn & Chai and it’s called the Shiplap cowl. I’ve made a few things that Rebecca designed so I’ll be mentioning her again I’m sure. Here are a couple of pics of it.
I wanted to end with a pithy quote from one of the doctors. Sadly, there are way too many from which to choose.
Allons-y!
Here is a link to my Ravelry page if you would like more information on the project.
We were in Iceland in August with a group of friends (none of which are yarn-aholics). Most of our activities revolved around the great outdoors. August is the summer in Iceland but it is still cold; just not really cold enough for snowmobiling and glacier hiking. It’s still doable of course but to truly get the best experience you should go in winter. Have fun. I won’t be there. August was still a bit too cold for this gal from Texas. We had fun though. I wore lots of crocheted scarves and cowls! It’s possible they made up 1/2 my suitcase contents. Hee, hee! Lots of great food, cocktails, friendly people. Good times!
And of course, for me anyway, a trip to the local yarn store. It was located in completely the opposite direction from where our path took us into the city center. Nice to explore a different area and it is very close to the botanical gardens and a nice small museum dedicated to one of the major sculptors of Iceland, Ásmundur Sveinsson.
The store, Storkurinn, has a great selection of yarn from all over the world. And the woman who helped me was so nice, very helpful and speaks way more English than I speak Icelandic. And they had a nice comfy sofa for my husband Tom to sit on while he waited for me. Yay.
The Icelandic yarn they focus on is different than what I had seen at the stores selling “Icelandic” products in the city center. I came home with yarn from three dyers. I didn’t meet these folks but found out a bit about them from the lady at the shop and then went to their websites for more information.
Gudrún Bjarnadóttir at Hespa gathers plants and uses them to dye her fiber. I brought home a box/kit with six 25g cakes of yarn. There is a pattern included in the box but it’s for knitting, so I’ll find something else.
I also purchased a separate 50g skein. The plants used for the dyes are listed on the packaging. Being an avid gardener, I was excited to find this. These are single ply and feel much softer than the lopi yarns I saw elsewhere.
The yarn I found dyed by Hélene Mágnussun is made using the first shearing of the icelandic lambs that she then sends to Italy to be spun into lace weight yarn. The colors are inspired by the countryside of Iceland. Her website also lists several knitting tours of the country that sound pretty fun.
The last two skeins of yarn I brought home, I purchased mainly because they were a thicker weight and the sample piece they had made was oh so soft…not angora or alpaca soft mind you but soft for icelandic wool. In looking up information on it, I found out a couple of things. Leader sheep are those that, yep you guessed it, lead the herd around. I didn’t manage to find out why that makes their fleece more special but here are a couple of links that I found about the folks who actually handled the yarn I bought; Uppspuni who spun and dyed it, Forystufé a leadersheep research center and Icelandic Lamb is a company that promotes all things lamb.
The icelandic sheep has been bred to be very tough but they don’t spend the entire winter out there in the snow and ice. They spend much of the year roaming at will anywhere their herd takes them, mingling with each other, eating what sheep eat and enjoying nature. At a given time of year (I’m not positive but I think it has something to do with temperature and forecast), all the sheep are rounded up into corrals no matter where they are and who their humans are. The humans then travel to all the different corrals (sheepfolds in farmspeak) and collect those that belong to them. They are sheltered at their respective farms during the most brutal part of the year and then turned out again to roam when temperatures increase (and, I would guess, after shearing). One of our guides told us that it’s a huge family event, the gathering of the sheep; one that brings people back to the homestead to help and reconnect.
Here’s a photo I made of some yarn I found this summer when I was in Idaho. The local yarn store, Knit-n-Crochet worked with a dyer from Ohio, Destination Yarn to create a color way reminiscent of the Coeur d’Alene lake that is available in a couple of different fiber combinations. The one I brought home is called First Class Single and is fingering weight, 70% merino, 30% silk. Oh so soft. It was tough to choose between the 3 fiber compositions on offer.The other two are blends as well: First Class MCN is wool, cashmere and nylon and Postcard is wool and nylon. I do not see these on the DY website so it appears to be uniquely available at the C d’A store.
When I began my crochet adventure, I used only very inexpensive yarns so that I could learn the stitches, play with patterns, and take online classes without making a huge investment. Because, well, I wasn’t sure if I would stick with it or if this initial fascination was just overactive curiosity looking for a distraction. So, one hook, four balls of cotton yarn, a darning needle, and a pair of scissors.
Fast forward to today….multiple hooks in just about every size, double ended hooks, tunisian hooks, interchangeable hooks, lots of stitch markers, patterns saved in multiple files, on Ravelry, even printed ones in books, binders and project bags. And the yarn…more than I should have…and it keeps accumulating. Almost like the weeds in my garden but nicer.
I truly am crocheting as fast as my hands and aging body parts will let me but I seem to be stashing more than I can use in a timely fashion. Does that sound familiar to anyone?!
But I digress.
I have now a growing collection of yarns from my travels and from local shops and events. My husband has become accustomed to finding a comfy chair to sit in while I wander through the local yarn store, whether in Spain or Reykjavik. He even tried to find yak yarn for me when he was hiking in Bhutan.
My yarn stash keeps growing. It’s a bit like kudzu really, but in a good way. I am meeting some amazing people in the yarn world. So many people, when asked why they got in to dyeing fiber have told me that they couldn’t find the fiber in the colors they wanted. So they took a class to learn how to dye their own and that morphed into a business.
I enjoy talking to these folks and bringing home some of their yarn is a nice souvenir of our conversation and of the places I have traveled. That’s what I want to share on my blog. The stories. The yarn. The people.
