I'll Show Them to You and You'll See Them Shine

Big happenings in Susan's world!

Well, kind of. The knitting part of it anyway.

First things first:

I finished Boyfriend's Dashings.

*Feel free to insert your applause here*

(I made him hold my book while I took the picture to give him something to do with his hands. I have to read it for a scholarship. And to answer your inevitable questions, yes it's big, yes the print's small, no it's not super interesting, yes I'm going to read it anyway. I read Gone with the Wind just for fun, and I think that might have been longer. If I read that for free, I think I can suck it up and read this for a chance at $10,000 for Dream School.)

They came out pretty good except for the part where I had some serious issues with the yarn (Bernat Cashmere Blends), reiterating my belief that I should spend more money at my LYS, less at Michael's.

Speaking of LYS's....

SUSAN'S FABULOUS LYS ADVENTURE (or local yarn store adventure, for my non-knitting audience, mainly BFF and Rossola).

Boyfriend offered to take me up to my LYS once I was done with his gloves so that I could buy yarn for my Holly sweater. Which is exciting in its own right, to have a boyfriend who volunteers to do that. And, also, it's exciting due to the fact that I get to spend some time in a converted barn filled with all sorts of yarn that I can't afford.

Here is the conversation with the yarn lady that ensued.

Yarn Lady (YL): Hello! How are you today?

Susan (S): I'm good, how are you?

YL: Good. Are you looking for anything in particular?

S: Well, I was hoping to find a cheaper alternative to cashmerino.

(Because YL carries cashmerino, which is what the pattern calls for, however it calls for $85 worth of it. Um... thanks anyway.)

YL: Well, let's look at some of the other aran weight yarns I have.

S: Super!

YL: I have this one over here. This is a really nice yarn, and it's $7 for twice as much yarn as the $8.50 ball of cashmerino.

S: Okay, but how much of that will I need?

(Because $7 sounds nice when you only need one, but...)

YL: You'll need 6 skeins.

(I turned to Boyfriend (B) and made a face as though YL had just kicked me in the stomach.)

S: That's $42!

YL: Yarn's expensive. This is a really nice yarn.

(Granted, I know that I haven't chosen an inexpensive hobby. But damned if I'm going to spend more on yarn to make my first sweater, that I'm more likely than not going to mess up somehow, than I do on a sweater, already made, from a store.)

S: But I only work two days a week blowing up balloons!

B: I'll pay for half of it.
S: No.

B: But I will.

S: No thank you. I don't want you to.

(I already spend enough on my yarn habit without dragging Boyfriend down with me.)

YL: You know what else I have...

Then she pointed up to the very top shelf, where there were about forty skeins of yarn (Plymouth Yarns Encore, 75% acrylic, 25% wool) in all sorts of colors, that sort of looked like they had been thrown up there and forgotten about. And since they were $5 a skein and I only needed 5 of them, they were well within my Party Store Candy Department Specialist's budget.

I realize now that it is unrealistic to go to the yarn store expecting to spend between $20 and $30 for good yarn. I would never ever spend more than $50, but I may have to up my budget for next time. It's just that, for my first sweater, it doesn't make sense to me to spend that much money. I can live with ruining a $24.95 sweater. $42? Not so much.

And, finally, this was the on-the-way-home conversation:

B: Maybe you should just buy a llama and make your own yarn.

S: Yeah, a lot of people do that. I don't think Shelly would like that very much, though.

B: So when you have your own house, then.

S: I'm not sure it's any more cost-efficient to buy, house, feed, and care for a llama then it is to buy yarn.

B: Yeah, but then you get to have a pet llama.

S: Llamas spit. Maybe I'd just get sheep.

B: That's an idea.

S: But I'd have to get a couple, because they live in flocks.

B: Then you'd need a---

S: Farm?

B: No, I was going to say one of those canes with the hooks on them that Moses had.

Song of the Day:
"Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine." - Bob Dylan, "Lay, Lady, Lay"