Last night’s knit circle was quite fun. Though I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the shootin’ stockings, I did show off the photos I’d taken in while on holiday. I was gifted with a hug bag of raw wool yarn, and a nearly-finished sweater and needles to finish the project. So excellent! I don't know if I'll finish the sweater as-is or frog it to make something else. It's thick and heavy, and I tend to run hot. The yarn is lovely, however - nubbly and the colour of antique ivory.
About that holiday: Tucson has very few yarn stores despite the size of the city. In fact, there are four total in the phone book– two locations of Purls, one bead and yarn store (which is mostly beads) and one that looked like someone’s house. My mother was suspicious of the house. She loves garage sales with the passion of a thrifty farmer’s daughter, but yarn? Hand-dyed? In someone’s house? And so far out from town! Probably poor quality and expensive.
(Need I mention that my mother is not a knitter? She crafts and sews and cooks and decorates and gardens, but fiber arts are no longer her realm.)
In hot pursuit of absolutely local yarn, I struck a deal: I’d go out to garage sales (and haul myself out of bed at six a.m. on a Saturday) in exchange for a knitter’s field trip. So it was that I found myself on the northwest side of Tucson, knocking on the door of Kathy Withers' house.
Did I say house? I mean farmhouse, for Kathy does everything for her fiber from soup to nuts. Take a look:
http://www.uniquedesignsbykathy.com/
The buildings on the lower right-hand corner of the picture are the house and shop. Everything else is farm – sheep pens, pasture, chicken coop, a large rabbit hutch, sheds and Holly the dairy goat’s little house. There’s a flock of guard geese and an aggressive male llama named Philip, and a half-wild farmcat named Charcoal. Heaven!
I ran back to the car and got my parents so we could take a guided tour of the place.
I fed Marble the lamb his daily bottle:
and gave the llama girls their oats (Emmy is the white one):
and conversed with Holly, the very pregnant dairy goat: ( I know about the pictures - they'll come later! I can only do so much at work).
The shop was filled with piles and piles of fiber in all states of doneness. I spent a happy hour or so browsing, and my dad marveled at the displays of handicraft. Look! You put the fiber in and the machine combs it for you! And then you put it in the wheel and yarn comes out! Can you do that? Um, no, Dad – I don’t have an electronic drum carder or a spinning wheel, or a farm. But yes! I will use my drop spindle to make yarn from the roving I bought. Then I’ll overdye them, and after that there will be something for you. Promise. And you too, Mom. Even my picky and formerly suspicious mother had fun and found something she liked. Good times were had by all.
I'm off now, in search of the elusive winter 2007 knit 1 magazine. My next project is the fishnet stockings (I've dyed the yarn already), but the pattern is AWOL. Wish me luck.
