Is anyone else amazed that the holidays are upon us already? They always sneak up on me, and I start panic-knitting. I need a pair of brother-in-law socks, I need a pair of mittens for my neighbor who blows my leaves, I should make this or that for Maxwell-the-Great (nephew), and doesn’t Ruby deserve a new sweater instead of a hand-me-down from Jackson? And my beautiful great-niece loves this cardy that I made for her grandmother – shouldn’t she have another?
Then I settle down and run my knitting desires (high) divided by expectations of the giftee (low) divided by amount of time left to knit things (close to zero) algorithm and come up with: cash or Amazon gift card, plus a silent promise to do something more personal next year. (But my BIL will get his socks!)
The shop is just stuffed with yarn top-to-bottom, front-to-back, and nothing makes me happier! We finally received our first shipment from Lamana, a European company with a lovely line in yarn and and even better series of design collections. I was conservative in what I ordered because I didn’t know how to process a direct shipment from overseas (many of our European yarn come through a distributor so all that is handled upstream from me.) Everything went smoothly until the package reached US customs. Due to something not explained in full (but I suspect that it was because tariffs changed almost daily and no one knew what to do or that all the customs people were re-assigned to snatching people off the streets or somebody was protecting us from all the dangerous yarn – thanks, US Customs and Border Protection!), the shipment was held up, then the package was lost somewhere in a warehouse in Philly. Lamana replaced it and the yarn (called Merida) finally got here, a dozen rich colors of fingering weight yarn in 50-gram balls:
The yarn is a merino/silk/nylon blend that is perfect for socks, especially if you want to try a fancier stitch, like:
I love how the cables flow into the heel.
Or even:
Toe-up, interesting gusset (NB. I’m never going to make these!)
Merida is also great if you want to add a different color for the toe or heel, or even do a two-color sock, like:
Toe-up, gusset on the bottom of the foot. Don’t know how this would be to walk on, but looks like fun!
Wow!!
Such great inspiration, but really, I love knitting socks because they can come anywhere with me, which means I do a simple top-down ribbed sock 99% of the time, and this works for all the fun self-striping sock yarns we carry. But it’s good to break out of the box now and then, right? Even if halfway through the cuff, you’re cursing yourself for a starting something so complicated!
Anyway, I’ve been selfish-knitting, making fingerless mitts and a scarf to go with a new jacket I got this year, and now I’ve started a new sweater, a design called Nova from Lamana that is not too complicated and allows me to use Patagonia, one of my very favorite DK-weight wools. Check out their designs on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/lamana. You’ll see what I mean: very wearable, very knit-able.
Ruby dressed up for Halloween! I tried to punk up her hair, but it just kept smoothing out. (I didn’t have any gel):
We’re open this week regular hours. Next week, we’ll be open Wednesday 11 – 6 as usual, then closed for the holiday through Tuesday Dec. 2. Have a lovely Thanksgiving!!
