Thursday, September 16, 2010

Winding

I like to share my love for my hobby with people at work. They marvel at the things I do with colored string and animal fuzz and wormspit. I share the yarn I get from my dyer friends because I love the stuff they make and others should see it. The colors are far from bland and delicious.

Today I brought a skein of StitchJones' Titanium Sock done up in Shock Treatment in a nummy rich purple. I got it last night at knit night at Whole Foods for the Conspiracy KAL the PDX Knitbloggers are doing. I wasn't sure about the color when I selected it because the picture of the dyejob made it very violety purple, which is fine. This is more on the reddish side of purple. If you had the Crayola 64 count crayons it's between violet-red and mulberry. Gawrjuss stuff.

So why is there no pic of it? I didn't have my camera with me. But I had this skein of yarn wanting to be touched. "Unwind me," it murmured to me. Because my left shoulder's been cranky lately from overuse, I thought, OK I'll start wind it up into a ball instead of knit during break.

I don't have a ball winder at the office or a skeinholder. It was going to be all by hand. No problem. I opened up the skein, gave it a few good snaps to straighten out the yarn, and laid it open on the table at break. The first tangle hit about 1/3 of the way through. No problem, I thought, I'll just carefully work the ball through the tangle, give the skein another snap, then continue. Nope. It tangled further. Then it was the end of break. I carefully folded up the remaining skein, tangle and all, and put it away.

I worked on it during second break but didn't finish. There was too much of a tangle to be handled in 15 minutes. But I didn't want to take it home still unwound. I don't have much surface space for unwinding yarn or good light. The good light was at the office.

At the end of the day, I took out the skein and laid it on my desk. Plenty of space there and good light. I untangled patiently. It's really pretty purple. I read a little of blogs when I had a tangle worked out and could slowly unwind from the skein. Those were the keys: slow speed and patient untangling. I finally finished winding up the ball....

....two hours later.

No regrets. It truly is a pretty purple.

7 comments:

yarmando said...

Have you ever done a yarn cocoon? I like them better than balls (although they're not quite as good for sock yarn).

PNWBookGirl said...

Yarmando - must tell us what a yarn cocoon is and how you make one!

Bobbie Wallace said...

Yes, please! Inquiring minds want to know! :)

FiberQat said...

Per Don the yarn cocoon instructions are in Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop.

Sharon said...

sorry you had such a devil of a time with the skein!

I'm so glad you liked the color. when I opened a new jar of the same dye color I use to make that colorway, it was completely different from what it has always been! I used it with trepidation, thinking it was probably an off batch - I have noticed this variance with acid dyes. Anyway, I'm glad to know you're pleased with how it came out, & can't wait to see all these beautiful projects!

Entre Nous said...

I simply cannot wait for the pic, LOVE purple.

Jennie said...

Totally thought you were going to write, "I came back to it and some kind soul had finished the winding for me."

Sounds like an out-of-this-world purple. Isn't StitchJones the yarn I got when I met up with you at Portland last time?