I sure do have some nice friends. My sister just got back from Chile for the summer and it is not a bummer to have a yarn connection there. She always brings me yarn when she comes back–that gal really knows the way to my heart. This time around she brought me a huge ball of undyed, handspun, two ply that is worsted weight-ish.
That photo doesn’t show how big it is so here it is next to my head! (That doesn’t necessarily show how big it is either because my head is abnormally small so the proportions are all out of whack. Pretend it’s your own, normal sized head next to the ball.)
She also brought me what looks like a knitting mechanism but the directions are in Spanish. If you’ve ever seen one of these let me know how it works!
It was a lucky week for me, along with Emily coming back two of my neighbors went to Scotland and thoughtfully brought me back some wool! It is from North Ronaldsay and is ridiculously beautiful. Both skeins are natural colored fingering weight and feel almost like alpaca. It seems to have some drape similar to alpaca. They gave me some literature on the sheep too and what is really interesting is that the sheep eat a diet mainly composed of seaweed. Apparently seaweed has very high levels of arsenic and the sheep consume 1000x what a lethal dose would be in a human. I also read that small doses of arsenic are used as medicine for cancer, and that the sheep are being studied to find a cancer cure. Pretty interesting wool!
The last item was an impulse buy from Buckaloo View. I have been reading her blog for a long time and enjoy watching her dye yarn and always creep her sales of bags and now clothing. There was a dress with this same print that I really would have liked but I am on the short side and anything that hits me at about knee length makes me look like I’m going to a middle school dance. I already sort of look like that anyway so I generally avoid knee length garments. But I was excited to see the print on a bag! So I snatched up the large size one for $12 which I thought was super reasonable for a hand made bag. The Scottish yarn has found a happy home there for the time being.
You spin a good yarn, Cassandra! It’s certainly not the worsted I’ve ever read! I like the way you knit everything together!
I feel sheepish that you gave me such nice compliments. I have to say, knitting is the fiber of my being.
The Aero thing looks like a knitting loom. Here are generic knitting loom instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/Loom-Knitting/?ALLSTEPS . That one has pictures of a circular loom, but the instructions are sound, as you loom knit the same way, whether on a circular loom, or on a rectangular one.
Thanks so much! I’ll have to give it a whirl this week.