Progress Notes: Succumbing to Temptation

So I saw this little classified ad:


"One Box-o-Yarn! Smoke free, all different colors and types of yarn. Some full skeins, some scraps, all 100% useful! Everything is neatly wound, into skeins or balls, no huge mess of 37 different yarns all mushed together."

and sent Ricardo off to a neighboring town to check it out for me, knowing I have little money left in the fund, but not being able to resist. Wouldn't you have done the same?

It's fun, this treasure hunting for all that stray yarn floating around in the world, just waiting for someone to come along and make something out of it. The anticipation is most of it--wondering if the next box will hold some lovely cashmere or alpaca---or even cotton.

I shop mostly online for everything, since I had to give up driving a few years ago. The yarn shopping was getting obsessive, even though I rarely bought anything. I'd spend hours trying to make up an order, trying to take advantage of the free shipping. First, I'd see something great on sale, but then I'd try to find something else to make up an order, looking at patterns for different yarns, trying to think of ideas of what to make. Then I'd see the final shopping cart and get sticker shock and abandon the whole idea. And I always wanted things from two different vendors, and really couldn't justify two orders. I spent hours not buying anything. It was window shopping at its worst, and a terrible waste of time.


I sat for an hour today, crocheting a baby sweater, trying to guess what Ricardo would come home with. Yes, he bought the box. No, it didn't contain anything too spectacular. But it was a lot of fun going through, nonetheless. First, it was very tangled, despite what the ad promised. I worked on the tangles while we watched "Foyle's War," then spread everything out. Second-hand yarn reveals so much about history. There was a lovely skein of "Beehive Baby Yarn," which was 100% virgin wool. Today, it's all acrylic. And the box held about seven or eight full or partial balls of rug yarn, which the one remaining ballband stated was a cotton and rayon blend. Today, I believe that, too, is all synthetic. There were also many full or partial skeins of worsted weight yarns in some really nice colors, some grey wool roving type of thick yarn, and one ball of red sportweight, of unknown fibre.

I have no idea what to do with the rug yarn. Any ideas out there? I'm eager to try this yarn for something.

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Finally, many thanks and best wishes to people who have left me such wonderful compliments on the things I"m making. I'm very flattered. I'm certainly no artist. It's just that I've been making things for decades, I guess, and have all the basics conquered, so it's easy to use those basics to create new things. I'm sure many of you do the same.

A good weekend to all, and hugs! I'm off to eat grilled cheese and tomato soup prepared by my husband. Food cooked by someone else always tastes great.