Thursday, February 28, 2008

Marr Haven and Tags

So, I come back to my blog and what do I find? I've been tagged by two different people for 7 random facts. Truthfully, I should be posting the rules, but



1. I'm lazy



2. I don't know 7 people that I could tag without feeling weird



3. See 1.





OK, a quick 7 facts about me, then back to your regularly scheduled blog post.



1. I like tragic plays, paticularly tragic Greek plays, but I hate Romeo and Juliet with a passion. It's just stupid the way that it ends, and my most-hated line is when someone tells Juliet when she's a little (young) girl and she bumps her head that she will fall 'on her back' when she has more wit. Yup, let's give it up for oh-so-funny and sexist advice given to a 4 year old.



2. I have lived in WV for most of my life, but I was born in Buffalo, NY.



3. I hate flat places, they make me queasy



4. When I was six years old, I wanted to be a ballerina (?) I don't know why.



5. I had surgery when I was very very young to remove a harmless blob of tissue from my neck, and I still have a scar there.



6. I write poetry, but I frequently mock other poets, because I am evil. Yes, I was the person who was rolling on the floor, giggling, at the last writers group meeting that you went to. No, I can't help it.



7. I am a night owl, and this started when I began to read and I stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning to finish Bobbsey Twin mysteries or Hardy Boys.





OK, Marr Haven yarn. I have a very bad habit of really wanting a yarn, and drooling over it, and then when I go to my LYS, I spend money on yarn I can buy there, because I'm so impatient that ordering online is annoying for me---and this is for yarn that I can't get at my LYS. If I could, I would. So when I kept drooling over their naturally colored merino wool, I finally buckled down and order 2 skeins. 420 yards of squishy goodness is on its way through the mail.

I have much, much more to tell you about yarn and serendipity and another yarn store, but I'm very tired right now, so you'll just have to wait.

Monday, February 11, 2008

I Made

a tough decision.

I ripped out the Hemlock.

Let's just say that I hated this pattern. Muchly. At least, this time. Technically, after I finish my Irish Hiking Scarf, I can just buy the other skein and restart Hemlock. Right now, I'm not feeling the love, and so Irish is growing cable by cable. I love cables, by the way. Gretel was cabled. Irish is cabled. And now, I want to do a greasy sweater.

Now, you're saying, WTH does that mean?

Sometimes, I get these ideas in my head. For example, I found my way to the library this Friday, and I plunked down with some of the few knitting books that the library had. To make you understand something, their copies were all the old editions, and they had a copy of Magnificent Mittens, by Charlotte S-C-Whatsherface. Made me want to stuff it into my backpack and sell it on Ebay, but I restrained myself---the poor library probably doesn't have the funding to replace anything, except for those intellectual bestsellers that they have 27 copies of.

Well, snuggling into the gigantic beanbag provided, I started to flip through The Knitters Almanac, but I have to tell you a little story. Once, there was a beginning knitter, and she picked up Elizabeth Zimmermann's books at Borders, and she put them back on the shelf, because the sweaters inside were dowdy and the writer was condescending. The end. I told you it was a little story.

Anyway, (did you guess who the beginning knitter was, yet?) I flipped through the book, and I read, and read, and I really enjoyed it, sans a snotty remark she made about women not understanding the math of her Pi shawl. Um, lady, the math isn't that complicated, get over yourself. I took one look at your stupid numbers and knew what was going on. Big fraggin' whoop. I had never seen this book in Borders or Barnes and Noble, and I immeaditely liked it much better than I had her other books. And, surprisingly, when I reread Knitting without Tears, I liked that better too, but not as much as the Almanac.

Oh, you guessed that the beginning sweater was me? OK, you're right. Anyway, so EZ is going on and on and on about wool, and coincidentally, I had been looking at http://www.marrhaven.com/.

They have naturally colored wool, and I have heard that it is very soft, her sheep are treated right, and it's $8 for 210 yards of a non-chemically scoured merino wool. Sounds good to me. Moving on, so EZ is nattering about wool, and sweaters, blah, blah, blah (I swear that woman must have been a PITA in real life, she just meanders---what you say, just like me?) and I started to get this urge. I need to knit a sweater. A sweater with naturally colored wool, with lanolin in it. I needed to knit an aran sweater with naturally colored wool with lanolin in it, and I need to do it now.

So that is my current obsession. I haven't heard much about Marr Haven yarn, aside from the myraids of women knitting soakers from it. Yeah, that's right, knit something so it can wick away 'moisture' from your kid's diapers. Yup, that's what I want to do with merino. Yes, sirree, nothing like knitting something to get pee all over it, oh yeah.* You can even get extra lanolin to revitalize your soakers/knitters/pants. (I wonder if it also comes with a drug that makes it fun to knit this stuff)

I'm thinking that maybe I could order 1-2 skeins of it, and knit a scarf or a hat out of it, just to test it out, and if I like it straight off, frog my swatch and order enough for a sweater. A nice, lanoliny Aran sweater. Slurp. I'm currently ignoring my sweater out of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, because I don't like DK yarn right now, and I'm out of love with the gold-orange color I picked. I am silly.*

*Yes, soaker-knitting mums, I know that soakers aren't meant to be used as diapers, but when you talk about moisture and wicking qualities, and stuff, I've gotta think that pee is getting on this stuff.

*I am silly for insulting both the immortal and untouchable Zimmermann, even though she wrote something sexist that I didn't like, AND for bringing the wrath of soaker-knitting mums on my head. What can I say. If you want to look at thousands of baby items, go to yarnpirate.com, that's all she's writing about lately anyway.