Worthwhile Extravagance

While Guacamole-fest preparing to do a little home dying was fun, the most exciting yarn adventure of the summer was selecting, ordering, picking up and knitting a batch of hand dyed, untreated Blue Faced Leicester from Georgian Bay Fibre Co. ...

• My order was dyed with my project in mind after I had a chance to talk with the dyer Carla herself at the farmer's market in town near the cottage.
• When I picked it up a week later it was beautifully packaged, with a post card tucked inside outlining and illustrating the inky blue colour way's inspiration - the stormy waters of Georgian Bay, in whose waves I played endlessly as a child.
• Impossibly gorgeous, heavy, rich and glossy yarn put up in beefy 200 yard skeins.
• All this and I'm supporting a new local business and a keen young entrepreneur.

Extravagant yarn purchases are not my usual practice. I recently realized that between shopping carefully at LYS's and the Guild Frolic, re-knitting yarn from hand knits I no longer wear, renovating old pieces and using remnant yarn over the last couple of years, I've spent, an average of $30.00 per sweater.

Now those knits were in the wake of heavily investing in the Shepherd and Shearer program but that was so enjoyable, felt so good, yielded blissful knitting and an heirloom quality FO My Beloved wears constantly in the winter.

So jumping in with both feet to invest in something special again seemed reasonable enough and

boy this yarn is special.

As with The Shepherd and Shearer, every stitch has been laden with pleasure at the features of this wonderfully aromatic yarn and how they're playing out into the garment. Similarly too, despite being keen to see My Beloved wearing it, I'm sorry to see the end of this project's knitting phase.

All the pieces are currently blocking under a fan in the hopes they'll dry quickly. I'd like to take them to the cottage tonight, seam them tomorrow and get going on the button band/collar.

Its about 200 stitches around, 2x2 rib for 6" all while wrestling the entirety of the garment as I go. Not my favourite kind of knitting but I'll have the wonder of the yarn for distraction as well as tracking/helping Darling Daughter with her project.

In 10 days of knitting she's made it to the point where shaping for the neck begins, having established steeks for the armholes 4" earlier. By tomorrow she'll be undertaking her first attempt at a few short rows and doing a bit more shaping and then it'll be on to securing and cutting the steeks!

All kinds of knitting fun to look forward to this weekend. Hope you have a great one too!