Knitting with Honey

So, that link I used to have over in the sidebar that said something like "Yarn I Love But Have Never Seen"? I've seen it now. And I love it even more than I thought I would. If it weren't so darned expensive, I would swear to knit with nothing else for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, at $20 a skein, I simply cannot afford to make a promise like that.

Joel and I went to North Carolina a few weeks ago. A college friend of his had eloped last January, and she and her husband had this big "We Got Married" weekend celebration up in the mountains near Boone. (Great town. I could totally dig that vibe, man.) And as any good knitter would do, I googled something like "yarn store, Boone, NC" and came across a couple of different options, one in a town just over the mountain that sold Alchemy Yarns. So when we got up to Boone, I made Joel drive over the mountain in the rain -- we had to call for directions twice -- to find this shop and buy some yarn. I bought two skeins of Synchronicity, a 50/50 silk/wool DKish blend. Amazing stuff. I normally hate knitting with silk. There's something about the feel of it that grates on me, like knitting with synthetic fibers. But like I said, I really don't want to knit with any other yarn, ever. It doesn't feel like silk, it feels like honey.

I immediately went to the new yarn store I love in my old 'hood and begged the owner to start carrying Synchronicity. We'll see.

After carrying the two skeins around for about three weeks, they finally told me what they want to be. The Kata Felicity Scarf from Mindful Knitting (a book that I do eventually plan to review). I've been working on it for a couple of days now, and the yarn is perfect for this pattern. Just the right shine, just the right drape -- the particular stitch pattern combined with the silk makes the yarn look like ropes of jewels (emeralds, since I bought a deep green) that somehow magically hang together in invisible settings.

Despite the premise of the book from which I got the pattern, I am not meditating while making this scarf. I am watching improv comedy. There's a huge tournament happening this weekend at the theater where Joel works, and I almost always knit during the shows. (I've made it my short-term goal, since I apparently am going to be in Atlanta longer than I had intended, to become one of those local celebrities: "The Girl Who Knits At Dad's Garage.") So I've been working this pattern in the dark, which is particularly fun because it's a lace pattern -- lots of yarnover and s1k2togPsso action to keep track of, but a pretty simple repeat -- and I have not made a single mistake in the pattern (knock wood). It looks amazing. And when the lights come on, I stop knitting and work a crossword or talk with friends instead.

I hadn't realized that knitting in the dark was all that unusual (everyone knits at the movies, right?), but last night I met a fellow knitter during intermission. She was working on a sweater and I asked if she was making much progress during the shows, and she said that it was too complicated a stitch pattern to work in the dark. A k1p1 rib. Too complicated. Oh. I had just showed her my lacy scarf. On the one hand, I am terribly proud of my knitting-in-the-dark skillz. On the other hand, I hadn't meant to make her feel like an inferiorly-skilled knitter. Whoops. Hopefully she didn't notice, or overanalyze the situation like I just did.

Anyway, there are two more shows tonight, and then the tournament is over and I'll have to knit my honey/jewel/improv-not-meditiation scarf by the light of day again if I want to finish it and move on to something else. But for now, I'm just enjoying the feel of time slipping through my fingers.