the wonder and glory that is handpainted yarn

My Fire Dancer shawl found a home! Woohoo! Alison, if you happen to be a reader of my blog, I thank you very much for your purchase.  I’m celebrating this small victory by immediately putting another shawl on the needles.  Like Fire Dancer, it’s a pi shawl, which I think might be my new love… but this one is a full circle, done in a hand-painted laceweight.

The handpainted yarn is a recurring theme right now, because I have a lot of it in my stash.  It’s hard to resist buying, honestly.  I mean, the colors! and when you see a yarn that’s either a combination of colors you love, or a surprising mix of colors you never thought of, how can you NOT take it home with you and see what it becomes?

And herein lies the problem, at least for me, because 9 times out of 10, I don’t really LIKE what it becomes!

I am privately referring to these as my WTF socks, because seriously, this yarn was AMAZING in the skein, I swear!

I suppose it’s all part of your evolution as a knitter.  You try different things.  You realize you really prefer making socks on dpns rather than circulars.  You’re completely spastic at colorwork, but your lace is so awesome that it makes expert knitters boggle.  Etc. Well, I’ve realized, after a whole lot of knitting, that no matter how beautiful a skein of handpainted yarn is, I just don’t like the finished color mix at all.  I think a lot of it is because lace knitting is my love, and painted yarn is too busy for much of a pattern.

So, you know, I’ve got all this painted yarn, and I have to do something with it.  I could destash it, but I’d never get out nearly what I’ve paid into it, so I’m mostly using it to do up things to sell.  It’s a challenge because, like I said, I don’t much care for the rainbow stripes anymore, and it makes for a less-enjoyable knitting experience.  But of course, the more of it I get rid of, the more I can buy of the stuff I like!

~ by Casey on 17 June 2009.