Yarns to Love
Knitting Season Is Here: Ditch Work
Dear Kay,
It’s here! The most wonderful season-busting, weather-defying, completely joyous time of the year: knitting season. Doesn’t matter if it was 88 today. Does not matter. Once Labor Day is past, I am in for the duration. It’s time to root around for the wooliest, sheepiest, yarniest yarns I can find.
Sometimes you start with a pattern, sometimes with a yarn. I’m feeling much more curious about these brilliant yarns right now than what they’ll end up being.
First up: I have somehow replenished the naturals that I thought I’d killed off with that Eight Yarns/One Sweater pullover last year. The leftovers have spawned, and I welcome them like a new crop of mushrooms.
Each skein has a backstory, which I can’t begin to capture properly here.
Left: Bent Limb Farm, 80/20 alpaca/wool. From Reading, Pennsylvania. The excellent tag reads: “Bent Limb Farm LLC began as an alpaca farm in 2009 and quickly diversified, though the fiber arts remain out primary focus. The writings of Joel Salatin and other progressive farmers have heavily influenced our farm’s theory and practices. We also follow Temple Grandin’s philosophy that we bear the responsibility of providing the best, most humane life possible for each animal.” How about THAT? Joel Salatin’s website takes you on a heck of a ride through 21st-century farming/food/sustainability thought.
Center: Bauer Family Farm handspun 100% alpaca. From Dauphin, Pennsylvania. Heavy, gorgeous twine.
Right: Snoqualmie Valley Yarn No. 3, Blue-Faced Leicester and Clun Forest sheep. From the Snoqualmie Valley, Washington. This skein showed up as a wonderful surprise from the good folks at Tolt Yarn and Wool. It is the most honest-looking yarn I’ve ever seen. Noble, really. I don’t think it would ever do me wrong.
Below left: Upton Yarns, 3-ply Romney/Cotswold. Sarah Upton calls this shade Northern Forest. I call it PineGreenyYellowGoodHeavens. Indigo and weld at work in this remarkable shade of green. Having a hard time getting the pattern chosen that will let this yarn be its wonderful self.
Sarah’s yarn from Maine may end up living with some sheep from the Hebrides, below right. That’s Daughter of a Shepherd, Hebridean/Zwartbles. Kay has written before about this gorgeous stuff.
Meanwhile, in Nature
On a watering expedition in the back yard, I found a calling card from the barred owl today. What a spectacular bit of engineering it is, curved ten different ways, light as a . . . wow. I found again that video showing how much noise an owl makes in flight. Spoiler alert—oh, just go see.
It’s knitting season, can you believe it? I’ve never been so delirious about it all.
Love,
Ann
I love knitting season too except that it quickly evolves to “I won’t get this done in time for the holidays” season.
Season???? You mean there’s a period when it isn’t time to knit??? I must have missed that memo.
I get jealous of all the lovely animal yarns people post, as someone who gets itchy just sitting in a yarn shop, I can only dream of what those yarns feel like. Still, it’s a good excuse to indulge my love of silk…
Yay!
DANG. That owl!
I love owls! And yes, every season is knitting season, but now I get to move on from socks!
Isn’t every season knitting season? Just as I shop for new clothes in the fall, I want my new fall sweaters all ready for me when the first leaf turns gold (yesterday?). That said, I think the array of yarn that is surrounding my knitting “spot” has grown daily during the last week!
Thanks so much for the link to that video. Absolutely amazing.
Thanks for sharing the Owl video; I loved it. But how? why? was its flight so silent ??
I, too, did not realize that there is a Knitting season ! Down here in Florida we knit year round !
The owl’s feathers and wing shape dampen down sound waves. The feathers edges (see how rounded and soft in picture) in particular have that effect. The owl’s prey (rodents and other small animals) does not hear the owl coming.
Thanks ! Very interesting.
Speaking of Joel Salatin, his farm truck will park in front of my house tomorrow for the about-monthly Richmond delivery from Polyface Farm. The street is wide and mostly carless so I offered when they needed a new stop. Meanwhile, having taken up chicken keeping, I only order the intermittent sausage, but I’m proud to have a part in his good works.
Inspirational! Over the summer I looked at my stash and realized I had quite a few skeins of great rare/heritage/endangered breed yarn from the US and UK. I may or may not have rounded out the collection a little bit in the past month or so. I think this fall will mark the beginning of an experiment to use these yarns and learn about the sheep and the character of their wool. Like you said Ann, it’s about the yarn (and supporting farmers) and not so much the finished product. But I do need some new hats and mittens! Thanks for the kick in the pants!
Such a beautiful post! I just organized the quick-access yarn box that lives in the family room, with WIPs back in their baggies and clearly prioritized stacking of said baggies, and a week of chilly weather has passed. Bring it on!
Anytime of the year is knitting season for me. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, September is our hottest month. Temp’s in triple digits are expected later this week. Fall weather won’t appear for another 6 weeks or more. However, the difference here is it always turns cool in the evenings when the fog rolls in. Fingering weight yarns are the best in our area of the country. I am always envious when I read of Autumn and we knitters’ anticipation and excitement for ‘knitting season’. Because by September, when I am ‘done’ with summer, I still have our warmest 6 weeks to contend with first. And then…….it finally rains. And continues to rain until the end of February when summer starts again. (Ok I am kind of stretching a little on that last sentence. ) Enjoy knitting season.
You said it for me! September: hot. October: probably still hot. Just hoping for rain this winter . . . please, summer, don’t return until May.
Lovely yarns — and not a bit of chartreuse in the lot!
I just listened to the bird flight video – AWESOME. I am reading McCullough’s “The Wright Brothers”, an excellent book. He noted that early on in their experiments they spent many hours watching birds in flight. They would have really appreciated the sound studies, I think. Re knitting: because of obsessively watching the Olympics I knit 8 pairs of socks in August but now Labor Day is past I will get serious about things. I bought the pattern for the striped tunic you all showed the other day and ordered the yarn. Stash be d—– I had to have that! Sometimes you see something like that and “Kismet” you simply must set caution to the wind and do it!
I’m laughing that 8 pairs of socks in one month was not “serious.” Please send us a pic of that gorgeous Clam tunic!
At the moment, all my yarn that’s stored in plastic bins is stacked up on my porch. I have to assume there is more yarn in other places…project bags, bottom drawers, etc., but maybe 95% is on the porch. I had a whacky notion about going through it all, updating my rav stash page, and making a printout or a map or something, so I would know exactly what I have, and where it is, so I can continue with my one-woman KnitFromStashathon. It’s actually been going pretty well. But the total yarn volume (TYV) never seems to go down. How can that be? I mean really, HOW?
I knew the day would come when I would regret not taking Physics.
Wouldn’t you rather be knitting?
I feel your pain!
I just organized (prioritized, re-bagged and ziplocked/binned) 6 projects and 7 other projects worth of yarn, and left the lid of the bin askew. Came home from work an hour late, and our two-year-old dog had reorganized for me! She opened the baggies, decorated the dining room and made me completely forget what I planned to finish first.
Time to go shopping?
Thank you for the barn owl video — it was remarkable. I have barn owls near my house that make an impressive amount of noise calling to each other at night every once in awhile, but I never actually knew what they looked like. Based on the noise they make, I was sure they would be bigger!
I just opened a yarn store in Gastonia NC and I hope everyone realizes it is knitting season. This is my fourth yarn store since 2000 after an absence of 10 years. Talk about stashes. Had to open the store just to get rid of some of the yarn. Have all kinds of yarn so if nearby stop in and see me. We are at 501 w. Garrison Blvd. Coffee is always on and all are welcomed to stay and knit with me. Happy knitting to all.