Monday, March 26, 2007

A Hookup Needed

I kept thinking about this idea all weekend, and mused to myself that I sounded like a druggie......


"I need the good stuff!"

"I need a hookup."


"Hey man, do you
have any of the primo stuff that I can score?"

(Gryphon's hand-dyed silk in 'Foxtrot')

...however in my case what I need is 450-500 yards of worsted-weight yarn in a subtly variegated shade suitable for a leaf-themed scarf.


You see, sitting at home 2 weekends ago I was feeding the Munchkin bites of mushroom & cheese omelette (he out-ate me by about 2 helpings!) and listening to Sunday Edition on NPR when I heard a news story about a local-ish woman whose son had been killed over in Iraq...........and how the first anniversary of his death was coming up on Mother's Day. Sitting there listening to her talk about her loss, and her struggle to not o
nly come to terms with such a impossible thing but to also how she tried to console her remaining two children as they tried to figure out how to live with such a loss absolutely crushed me. Sitting there with my little guy eagerly eating mushrooms and proudly showing me how he could fork up a mouthful with only a little bit of spillage (cutlery skills are high-up on his list of Things I'm Proud Of at the moment!) I sat and listened and just cried. Particularly on hearing how this mom found out the news of her son when some Marines walked up to her while she was gardening outside on a lovely spring day.............and thought how that all too easily could have been me. How maybe possibly if the Munch decides to go against most of what I believe in (being raised a Quaker and therefore quietly and vehemently anti-fighting) and what his father would undoubtedly council - how it could even actually be me someday.



So I tried to think of what to do. I just couldn't get that image out of my mind - that of a woman working in her garden, surrounded by the warm smell of dirt and seeing little fat seedlings pushing out of her garden, having these strange men walk up to her - and having her probably know immediately what it meant the second she saw them.


So - lacking anything else to do - I thought I'd knit her something. I figured that anyone who was working in her garden in May was probably a basic nature-ish person - and so something nature-ish based would be appreciated and possibly even worn. Which made me think of leaves and trees and shoots - - which made me think of the Backyard Leaves scarf by Annie Modsitt in Interweave's Scarf Style book. I looked through my stash, and didn't see anything that would fit - as this is an Important Knitting Project and none of my acrylic-ish beginning knitter yarn that I have steadfasted refused to throw out and so still remains in my stash even came close to being nice & important enough.

(Another hand-dyed silk of Gryphon's - this one her 'Flamenco' colourway)

So what I am doing is asking for any and all recommendations & potential yarn 'hookups' that I can get. I know what they recommend for the scarf, but I think that the Karabella Aurora 8 is only ho-hum when placed against what I **could** knit the scarf out of. See Gryphon's examples for what I mean.......altho' there are loads of folks out there (Jessie, Sundara, Handpainted Yarn, etc.) who could also serve as excellent examples of the kind of truly primo yarn that I'm talking about. (I'm just guessing that Gryphon won't sue me for pirating her images to use in this post without first asking for permission, hence why I went and shamelessly stole images from her Etsy shop!)

;>


3 comments:

Kate A. said...

This won't help at all, because it's roving not yarn, but I've been drooling over these spring-garden colors at Krista's etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5616081

Good luck with your search...

Anonymous said...

That is such a lovely idea (your making me teary). The foxtrot looks pretty good to me! It's late or I would run and get out the book to see the gague and stuff and see if I have other suggestions. It'll jus thave to wait until *yawn* tomorrow...

Gryphon said...

Your yarn is dyed and drying in the sunshine this very moment! Autumn oranges and browns. Two 280-yd skeins? You got it.