Yesterday I stopped by one of my local fabric stores, which also sells yarn, because I needed some thread and a couple of fat quarters for my quilt guild meeting this week. I reminded myself that I was on a budget and needed nothing else, particularly any more yarn since I have barely put a dent in the yarn I bought last summer, and especially since I'd bought some Noro just two weeks earlier to make myself some mittens. (Which, by the way, are currently sitting in my sink in some ridiculously hot water in an attempt to shrink them. Apparently I cannot be trusted to measure my own hand.)
This particular store has two entrances; I usually use the front because I generally walk there, since it is not far from my apartment. Yesterday I was running errands and this was my last stop, so I had my car, and I had to park at the back of the lot, which was totally iced over and necessitated using the back entrance. This meant that I had to walk past the yarn section. I tried not to look, but you know how these things go, right? I had to pet a few skeins of Noro, cursing their twiggy-ness while coveting the colors. And I had to gaze lovingly at all the fabulous Auracania they had in stock, right? I mean, it's only natural.
I was fine until I saw the sock yarn display. Because this has been the winter of Snowpocalypse, I've been wearing my handknit wool socks almost every day. My sister even broke out the pair I made her a few years ago, and my nephew and oldest niece keep stealing them from her when they go play in the snow, because the socks are warm and cozy. (And just like that, I'm no longer crazy for dropping $20-$25 on a skein of yarn.)
The store had some new sock yarn stock in, and I quickly became enamored with a skein of hand dyed sock yarn from Pagewood Farms, a company I'd never heard of (according to their blog, they were recently on the Martha Stewart Show). It was lovely; really, really lovely; there were several shades I liked but the Prism colorway struck my fancy best. And, well. You know what happened next.
As I was knitting along last night, watching NCIS reruns during a winter THUNDERSTORM with lightening so bright I thought a police car with flashing blue lights was outside my window, I suddenly remembered I had another sock project floating around. I unearthed it from the heap that is my yarn basket, only to discover that one sock was completely finished except for the kitchener stitching of the toe.
This yarn is from Silver Moon farm, which I bought last May at the Massachusetts sheep and wool festival (I wrote about it here.) I loved the yarn on the skein, but I never would have expected to wind up with camouflage socks from it:
Also in my basket? A half-knit sock using Noro sock yarn, and a half-knit sock using (*gulp*) my precious skein of Madelinetosh. I stopped looking after that. I don't think I want to know what else might be down in there.
(*Both socks are knit using the pattern/instructions found in Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I find that with hand painted yarn, a plain old sock shows of the colors best.)
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