Designer Yarns

Ed took me exploring in a specialty yarn shop today. The Middleford Yarn and Stitcery Shoppe in Medford. Oh the pallet of color in there. And the textures and the variety of fibers singly or in blends of two or more--linen, bamboo, silk, wool, alpaca, cashmere, rayon, nylon, cotton, even milk!! Hand spun, hand painted, hand dyed among the choices. From chunky to lace in size.

Most of it seemed to be imported from somewhere. The one I brought home to experiment with was from Japan. It is a lace weight and a blend of Rayon 60%, Nylon 25%, wool 10% and cashmere 5%.. I am looking for a light weight yarn to make a spring weight shawl for my MIL for her bday in April. I would like to get started on it as soon as the baby afghan is completed so in the meantime I need to decide on the yarn and on the pattern/stitch I'll be using.

After we got home I played with the Noro for over an hour. I tried several things in terms of stitch size and spacing. I took the picture below of the last thing I tired which was groupings of three quadruple stitches. This won't stay in. I just needed to get a feel for what it would be like working with it and for the size of the stitch I might need to get the lacy look I have in mind. There are several stitches in that card set Ed got me for Xmas that might work for the effect I am after. I want something with a lot of open air between clusters of stitches or maybe something like a lattice. Like chicken wire or a chain-link fence.



This is the spendiest yarn or thread I've worked with at $16 for 450 meters. I need to be sure I love working with it before I start a large project with it. Before I settle on this one though I would like to try a couple different ones.

If I don't go with the Noro for the shawl I'll probably make a scarf with this single skein as I've already decided it won't work for the bookmarks. It isn't uniform enough in size which causes distortions in the stitches that can look arty in a large project but make something as small as a bookmark look lopsided or distorted.