So once I got those towels unrolled...

...look what came out:

What a motley assortment!  Whatever could it all mean?  And what is it all doing on my laundry rack?

One of these things was very much expected.  It is, of course, the scarf claimed by Jana when she won my Second Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest!  It is a long scarf crocheted of Araucanía handspun and kettle dyed wool from Chile.  It was going to be crocheted of something else, but when I was at the local yarn basement, two skeins of the delicious stuff, and then a third simply leapt into my hands, and I couldn't possibly put it back.  It would have been rude.  And we have already discussed how rude it is to put back things which leap into your hands or your shopping cart.  It is not kind to reject inanimate objects.

Another of these things, or so I am told, has been sent to warm the neck of a neighborhood eccentric in North Carolina who dreamed of something exactly like it.  In the photo above, it looks like it's made of fire engine red wool.  In the snippet at left, it looks like it's tomato soup red.  Actually it's neither.  Actually it's a pure, true gummy bear red.  I don't think that's what Brown Sheep Company named this color, but I went to the store and bought some gummy bears to be sure.  (This was after I'd put the scarf in the mail, but I know I'm right.  I know it.)   Regardless of what kind of red this really is, I know it will be warmer because it is red.  And as a neighborhood eccentric myself, I am very much in favor of warming the necks of other eccentrics.

Now what on earth could that last item be?  Have you ever seen anything like it?  It's a bag, yes, a drawstring bag, flat and empty in the top picture, but filled at right with a beer bottle just to demonstrate capacity.  I'm not sure whatever possessed me to make such a thing, and I also have this immense urge to mail it to Canada.  (The only thing keeping me from doing that is lack of a destination address -- ahem.)

The slender pink satin ribbons are such a delicate pink that it's hard to tell they are pink in this photograph, but pink they are.  The yarn is a combo of Cascade 220 in black (8555) and white (740) Nature Spun by Brown Sheep Company.  X definitely marks the spot here, over and over again, but which spot exactly is something I will leave up to the future owner.

So just as I was packing these items up for mailing -- the ones that I could mail already, that is, not the poor, homeless mystery bag waiting to discover its own future address -- the oddest thing happened.  An Alphabitch destashed all over my studio!

Doesn't that sound perfectly awful?  But you know what's really sad?  I've been cackling over the idea of writing that sentence all day.  It's very true that I have a very small life.

In fact, everybody should be so lucky.  Check out my booty (not that booty; honestly):

First, eight glorious skeins of handspun recycled silk in every brilliant color all at once from Nepal.  The photo seriously fails to do it justice.

It's like a party in a plastic bag.  Amazing stuff, brilliant jewel colors, like the world's richest confetti only put into a form you can weave into fabric.

And that would have been a perfectly splendid gift for anyone.  Really. 

But wait.  There's more.

Next came two ziploc baggies (and no, the drug imagery is not lost on me) filled with Indiecita alpaca fleece in a joyful assortment of earth and flower colors.  Again, my photography fails to render the beauty of this fine, impossibly soft, deliciously brilliant stuff.

So beautiful!  And all by itself it is a gift to delight in.  So luxurious.  So cheerful!

Please remember that it came to me as part of a completely spontaneous gift that I did absolutely nothing to deserve.  Please bear in mind while you envy me that I know how completely undeserving I am.

But wait.  There's more.

And this is a funny one.  Remember how I said that Jana's scarf was almost made of something else?  Guess what it was almost made of.  Guess.

You give up?

Ha.  It was almost made of Lamb's Pride.  Just like this.

Not exactly like this, because the stuff I was looking at was a range-of-blues colorway, mostly light blue since Jana had requested light blue, and it was worsted weight, not bulky.  It was 85% wool and 15% mohair.  I was thinking of picking up two or three skeins when I was forced -- forced! -- into choosing the Araucanía instead.

But I really liked the feel of that Lamb's Pride.  I remembered how soft it felt and thought I would just have to find another project in which to use it.  And look, now I have some, right here in my studio.  And I love these colors a lot.

Oh, Alphabitch, I salute your instincts!  I love it all so much!  And I cannot thank you enough.  Goodness gracious, what a completely nice thing to do.

Of course, now you have room for more.  (This is how addicts think.)  So I know I'm doing you a mitzvah.  (Heavy rationalization, we addicts use, all the time.)  So that's all right then.

Um, I think my fibre stash just belched.

Comments

[Bipolarlawyercook]

Very pretty, but especially the pirate bag. If I was in the habit of giving people wine as gifts, I would need about 4 dozen of those.

[Sara]

Well, it's supposed to be goth-princessy, but it does have a piratical flavor, doesn't it?

And also, although this size will accommodate a beer bottle (not what it was designed for), I'd make 'em longer to hold wine bottles. I think, though, that if you were going to give these full of booze they should have rum bottles inside, not wine. That might be a little cliché, though.

[alphabitch]

The recycled silk stuff is made out of surplus sari fabric, shredded and spun into yarn by some women's collective somewhere in Nepal. The colors are in fact incredible. Very jewel-like, and lots of silver and gold shot through it. It's kind of a pain to work with, but totally worth it. Whether you're knitting or crocheting with it, I advise a fairly snug stitch, but not too tight or it breaks in your hands. Because it's quite heavy and stretches a fair amount.

I love love love that Indecita stuff. I usually knit (or crochet) two strands together, mainly because I am impatient. Two strands are also more visible than one. Once knit up it's surprisingly sturdy and resilient. You can sometimes find 100% alpaca by Indecita in a worsted weight, but I got a great deal on this stuff years ago. I'd only ever seen it in natural brown-grey-black-cream colors, but when I saw this I went nuts. I'm using some of it now, single-stranded in my first attempt at a lace project, inspired by these great stitch markers I bought at a certain Etsy shop. I thought those earthy coppery colors along with the green would look very pretty against your hair.

I bought a bunch of the Lamb's Pride at a yard sale or someplace; I happened to be looking for something with which I could complete a sweater I started but none of it matched, in color or texture, and I ended up having to un-knit the whole thing.

BTW: I keep all my stashes in zippered plastic bags -- yarn, fabric, buttons, sparkly rhinestone thingys, paintbrushes. What did you think I meant?

Also: I am NOT ALLOWED to buy any new yarn until everything in the stash is gone, so yes, it is indeed a mitzvah, accepting it.

I can't wait to get the scarf in the mail; I will photograph it with the jammies. Maybe I'll get some gummy bears also, but only if someone else will eat them.

[Sara]

I love it, love it, love it all! I think I am going to make something throw-like out of the alpaca. I think I'm going to use all the colors at once, sort of in waves. I don't know if that can be imagined without shrieks of horror, but I really do think they all look beautiful together, like a lovely garden. I dig that garden theme a lot (not quite intentional pun).

Once upon a time, in first grade, we made these Easter Bunny decorations out of gigantic (to us) construction paper cut-outs shaped like bunnies and tiny colored tissue paper squares that we wrapped around the end of a pencil, dipped in paste, and then affixed to the construction paper one at a time to make something colorful but textured all over in little tufts.

I misunderstood the project. All the good little children restrainedly selected two colors of tissue paper, one to make outlines and one to fill in. I selected all the colors, with no outlines, no features, just wanting to make a big multi-colored bunny -- and being totally unable to select merely two colors. The other children told me I was doing it "wrong." I shrugged and kept doing what I was doing. I had no idea what they were talking about. But then the teacher saw me and made me stop. She wouldn't let me finish my bunny, not my way, not any way. I had to suffer the sadness and disgrace of an incomplete bunny.

In a way, I never got over that. I have been starved for colors all my life, and I think it's one of the reasons I became an artist, just so I could play with colors, all the colors.

That silk? It's just another lovely bit of balm over the ancient bunny-shaped wound.

As for the ziploc baggies, well, it wasn't so much that you intended to make a drug reference in packing them that way; I merely meant to point out the pathetic and quite immediate way I made that connection on my own. However, I am not the only crafter I know to understand that yarn is a drug. ;)

[alphabitch]

!!!!!!!!!

Guess what was leaning up against the door when I got home? Well, in addition to the flea dope/heartworm medication that arrived for Ruby?

Two packages in one day! I haven't had that much excitement in, like, forever. I opened the package from www.flea-dope.com first, and applied some of it to poor Ruby, who disliked it. Fortunately the package also included an enormous dog biscuit, which she liked better than the flea dope. Then I prepared her dinner: 3 scoops of kibble and one scoop of homemade dog chow and 1/2 scoop of cottage cheese. Meanwhile she grabbed the other package and tossed it in the air. I got it from her before she punctured it.

Then I fed her and carefully opened the second envelope and removed the dreamiest red scarf ever. You are right that your photos do not do the color justice. It's the most beautiful clear red-red-red ever. Not too orange, not too blue, just plain red. And so neatly and smoothly crocheted, and very soft and drapey. And absolutely the perfect size. My yarn surplus has obviously gone to a good home.

Unfortunately my camera is at work; I will bring it home tomorrow and take a picture this weekend. It's exactly the color of my red slip-on sneaker clogs, and very close to the color of the pockets and trim on my jammies. I will get some gummi bears as well; I think you are right about that color. I'm sure Ruby will be happy to eat them.

[Sara]

Yay! I'm so glad you got it and that you're pleased.

I can't wait to see you in your full Neighborhood Eccentric regalia. Hurray for cozy eccentricity!

And I must say, that's a very clever strategy, ordering the medicine with a giant treat in the same package.

[Jana]

My friend, you have outdone yourself. I just can't wait!

[elizabeth]

Okay, I am official excited, I am going to send that address post-haste - what an act of a true friend! Whoo-Hoo - now I can leave my....um.....theraputic devices in plain sight in this handy holder. Well, except that home care worker who came tonight and goes over all my stuff because her daughter is a goth and she has to check out everything I have. Not only that, it matches the scarf, which I will have to wear to bed and pose with the bag for a post victory pic (I did sort of almost kinda win a contest, even thought I didn't, right?)

[Sara]

Jana, I hope you love it when you see it in the "flesh." It's not quite what you asked for; for example, I'm not completely sure it will go with those earrings. However, longer and thinner than Alphabitch's, more suitable for use in a wintry Boston landscape should you ever indeed find yourself in those conditions, it turned out as kind of a hippie Harry Potter scarf, and that seems pretty you. :)

Elizabeth, yes you did "kinda win"! You were a finalist! Not everyone who played made it to the big blue bowl.

I eagerly await receipt of your address. I hope your -ahem- therapeutic and no doubt educational devices will be very cozy in their new container.

I trust the home care worker with the goth daughter is not the same one who thinks Linda is a nice friend who comes over to make you a sandwich once in awhile? ha ha ha ha ha

[Jana]

Hippie Harry Potter scarf. Yah. How could I go wrong with something of that description? :) Waiting for the postman...waiting...waiting...

[Jana]

It came today! In a festive bright red envelope (hooray!).

Catgirl is home sock with a fever today and she appropriated the scarf even before I could properly run my fingers over it. But I can't begrudge her that--not when she's feeling so miserable right now...

[Jana]

of course she's home sick and not home sock. Must've been a freudian-yarn brain slippage there.

[Sara]

Ha! I did not think anyone had socked her.

I am very glad it is already making someone cozy. :)

[Vinny the Moving Man]

You should mail the pirate one to Johnny Depp. I am sure he would love it being his movie thepirates from the caribean was huge.

[Ron Sullivan]

Pirate beer huggie! Pirate beer huggie!

Oh, good for those other purposes too, I'm sure.

[Jana]

Ok, so I got to wear my new scarf for the first time today (yay!). And while I had imagined wearing the scarf in the morning as I lounged in my (blue) jammies and read my morning email as I sipped on a latte, alas it did not happen. Instead, I was up at the crack of dawn to go to the University cashier to discover how/why my Winter fee payment had been 'reallocated' to paying for something else altogether. Three hours and 4 lines later, the scarf was still keeping me warm even as I learned of the $500+ that would not be returning to my wallet. Sigh.

But then I headed over to Trader Joes (on red bike, keeping warm by blue scarf) and bought some chocolate along with foodstuffs for the week and for holiday baking. Things were definitely looking up by that point.

Now the scarf is keeping me cozy as I read email/blog. It's the perfect length to wrap around my neck and drape around my shoulders with the fringe dangling a bit as I type to tantalize the so-sleepy kitties that are perched on the arms of the couch.

I love wool. It has such a clean fur smell, similar to the scent of the soft silky spots between EllyCat's ears. :)

[Sara]

Sorry, folks; again, got caught up in life offline, and these got away from me. :)

Vinny -- Johnny Depp does not deserve the hand-crocheted and embroidered goth personal items bag. He was not a finalist in my Second Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest.

Ron -- You know, it would be guaranteed to keep your beer warm, and I know some people do prefer it that way...

Jana -- I am very, very happy you and the kitties and CatGirl and whoever else in your household might get around to it are enjoying the scarf. :) I am glad it is keeping you warm through trials and tribulations already (though I am sorry about the trials and tribulations) as well as entertaining the fuzzies. That's a successful scarf! Thanks for playing my silly game thus giving me the opportunity to make it for you (and play with the beautiful yarn).

How does it look with those earrings?

[Jana]

I haven't tried it with the earrings yet (I've been so lazy I haven't changed my earrings at all in the past 2 weeks). Will try it soon, tho!!

Did you happen to see this pic on my blog? :)

[Sara]

I just did! It looks great on you, and it makes me very happy to hear that you are enjoying it.

Do you think "hippie Harry Potter" is an apt description? hee hee

[Jana]

Yes, I love your description! And no matter what it's called it just feels wonderful. Picture me--crazy one-legged lady on a 3-wheeled red bike, cycling down the roads around here with the scarf flying out behind me. :)

Said picture is made even more interesting when you visualize the
funky black velvet jacket that I wear nearly everywhere and my garb of late has been a long brownish linen skirt with black leggings underneath (so I can bicycle w/o fear of scaring bystanders who might get a flash up my skirt).

Happy Hippie Harry Potter scarf, indeed!