Sunday Sale Surprises

I loves me some good alliteration, and since today is Sunday and the sale was a surprise, I couldn’t help but post under this title. kNew England Knitter sent me the email last night that an LYS was having a 25% off sale. Now, I’ll admit to having my own set of issues with the Unnamed LYS; however, 25% off ALL YARN?! Even I don’t have enough principles to turn that down. Plus, this store has Malabrigo at a pretty reasonable price, and as you my faithful readers know, I have been turned into a true believer. I’ve just been waiting to get some of this on sale. I really want to go back and get more now, too. I’m a little tempted.

So, I shuffled my happy little patootie down to the LYS expecting nothing less than my general go in to buy something, leave frustrated experience. I walked over to where the Malabrigo lives and…NOTHING! Fear not, however, I persevered. The Malabrigo was not on the shelf but had been subjected to a plastic tub and some hanging up on a metal bar. Poor sad yarn sitting all squooshy like in the plastic laundry tub. I wanted to save it. It was like looking at a cardboard box full of puppies. You know they need good homes, but your town (or stash storage in this case) only allows 2 or 3 per household and you’ve already hit your max limit. (And yes, the Max limit here has been reached as far as dogs are concerned, pun fully intended) So, I scooped up some just to give it some love.

Going in, I knew that I wanted at least one skein with which to make some fingerless gloves. I’d had my eye on both Fetching and Dashing, but really wasn’t sure. I fell head over heels in love with Vaa colorway

In person, it’s a really deep green with hints of blue colorway. It’s perfect for making something cabled to give it that “Irish” look. I’m currently still in love with all things Ireland. Can’t help myself.

Then I tried to find something else that I loved equally. Now, I openly admit that I was a woman on a mission. I wanted me some Malabrigo, and darnit, nothing was going to stop me. I looked and I hemmed and hawed. There was a beautiful light blue. There was a lovely seafoam green. After Vaa though, nothing was going to make me quite as happy (and there was only one skein of that in the whole store). There was a lovely brick/clay red color. Alas, that’s not my favorite. I looked around. I kept, however, coming back to this one:

What, you ask, prompted me to buy a colorway that consists of baby poo green and barf orange-yellow? Well, I kept thinking, in my memories of Ireland, about this:

and this:

See the similarities? I do. The non-yarn pictures are Connemara, Galway, Ireland. When DH and I went to Ireland over the summer, Connemara was the area that captured our imaginations the most. It’s bog country. They still harvest the bog to be used for fuel. According to a young woman who grew up in Connemara that we talked to in a pub , the area is about twenty years behind the rest of the country. Connemara is the area of Ireland that people think of as being rural, sheep country. Indeed, this is where I nearly creamed a sheep with my car. I know. Beware. However, in my defense, he ran towards the car and then baa’d indignantly at me. But I digress.

The Malabrigo colorway reminded me of Connemara. With that in mind, I had to purchase two skeins. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them, but I did promise DH a hat. Unfortunately, given the handwashing requirements of Malabrigo, I don’t think he’ll be getting a hat out of that for snowblowing. But maybe he will. We shall see.

I also bought a set of Size 7 DPNS, some Trekking XXL in black and gray, and a 32″ Addi Turbo for learning Magic Loop. The LYS owner was really helpful in getting me all situated to learn Magic Loop knitting. My concern being my elbow nerve issue and inability to deal with metal needles. Yes, I realize Addis are metal. However, she said that they’re not too bad for her. I don’t usually trust her, but I’ll give it a go. If I hate it, I hate it.

I got home and decided that I wanted to cast on my brand spanking new fingerless gloves. However, I couldn’t use Fetching because I’d only bought size 7 dpns (they didn’t have 6’s in the store). I decided to look around on Ravelry . Ahh, the joys. That’s where I found Symmetrical Braided Gauntlets. So, I did what any excited knitter with some Malabrigo would do - I cast on for them.

See?

New camera. Sorry for the fuzzy picture. Maybe it’s just the yarn because here’s something extra-special to show you.

See that? Know what the would be? Yeah, that would be where the dpns join. Look! No. Ladders. I rock. The first time being a tight knitter has come in handy. The color in this picture? Totally realistic.

As for the rest of my Sunday, one of my Fantasy Football teams is losing; one is winning. The one that’s losing? The person I’m playing doesn’t care and two of her players are on bye weeks. I could cry over that one. My perfect record in that league is ruined. I only hope my other team makes up for it. If I say, “stupid Peyton stupid Manning stupid Tom stupid Brady stupid” I’m sure other fantasy managers would understand.