Unexpectedly

Earlier this week, I saw a sweater I liked over at WEBS.  (It’s odd how the urge to loiter around on yarn sites never really goes away, you’d think I would have some immunity by now) I’ve been on the prowl for some summer knitted stuff.   I love knitting sweaters and hats and mittens, but they are of limited use in the really hot days of the summer, and I like the idea of being able to wear something knitterly all year round without suffering heatstroke.   So there I was, cruising around, looking at all sorts of stuff- and I saw this. Kiama.  I promptly developed all sorts of visions of myself wearing that, and in these visions I am very, very cool (both literally, and figuratively)  and also sort of tallish.

The only snag was the yarn, which was very pretty, but also unlikely.   It’s a crazy yarn called Origami, and it’s several strands of fibres-I-really-hate™strung together with a binder, which means that I also sort of hate the construction of it.  It’s 58% acrylic, 16% linen, 15% nylon and 11% cotton.  This means, essentially, that if you add the nylon and acrylic together, that it is 74% fibres that I am deeply suspicious of, and only the remaining 26% are natural fibres, and they aren’t even ones I enjoy knitting – usually.  I know that being suspicious of "plastic" yarns is going to make some of you think I’m a yarn snob, but I don’t think I am.  I just like what I like, and if you told me that most of the wool you’d ever knitted bugged the hell out of you, I’d tell you what I tell myself about man-made fibres.  That there’s a whole lot of sorts of them and you shouldn’t give up on it or make a decision about all wool, because it’s all really different.  That there’s a big difference between Shetland and Merino, and that just because you don’t like one doesn’t mean that all wool sucks, just like if I think that Red Heart super saver yarn isn’t okay,  that doesn’t mean that all acrylic yarns are going to be the same way.

This is what I told myself as I looked at that pretty, pretty yarn and tried to imagine knitting with it.  I remembered last summer I knit Flow with Seduce, a yarn I should have hated too, and I remembered that Berroco usually has nice stuff,  and so I dropped Kathy Elkins a line and asked her.  She reminded me that I knit Flow with Seduce and I liked that, and that Berroco usually has nice stuff.  (Kathy knows me pretty well, I think.)  So.. I bit.  I gave her my card number over the phone, asked her what colour she thought was best, and whammo.  Three days later this bad boy was here at Port Ludlow and on my needles and dudes.  It as pretty as it looked online.

I cast on, and I haven’t been able to stop knitting.  I LOVE THIS YARN.  I love it fierce and unreasonable. It is made of things I don’t like, and yet  I love how it’s a little stiff and crisp, I love how it looks in the skein and in the ball, and I love how it feels knit up.  I keep smoothing it out and admiring it, I keep spreading it out and touching it- patting and smooshing. 

It’s a really cool thing- unusual and interesting, firm but soft, sort of like the most upscale string you’ve ever seen, and I think that it was a good lesson in remembering to embrace all yarns without getting all uppity about it. There’s acrylic and then there’s acrylic…and just because a fibre is on my list of suspects is no reason not to give it a fair chance.

Except that Super Saver.  I’m sure about that.