Oh, for the love of Schaefer

First and foremost, certain people just sigh over everything.  It is what it is (and in the words of infinite wisdom, uttered by my ex-boyfriend Patrick, "What else could it BE?").  Fellow yarners are often like that.  You can bring in a pile of knitted poo (figuratively, of course), and there will always be someone in the knitting group talking about how impressed he or she is with how pretty it turned out.

However, some things are just accepted without dispute.  Schaefer yarn is hand-dyed, good quality, stunning to look at and romantic to knit with.  It is expensive, but you are getting a lot of yardage on the hank, so it only hurts for a minute until you realize that one hank is enough to actually...you know...make something.  For reference, you can get an 85-yard hank of cashmere for about ten to twelve bucks.  The Schaefer "Laurel" that I purchaed (mercenized cotton...sigh) has 400 yards on the hank and costs forty dollars.  85 yards gets you a headband, one wrist warmer, a beer cozy...


So I was trying to decide what to make with this huge ball of Schaefer I purchased.  It really can't be just ANYTHING...I feel like I owe it to the Schaefer Yarn Company to make something stunning, even though "stunning" isn't exactly my middle name.  I wrote out a pattern on a chart, and thought I could just knit it at the Knitting Group last night and ask everyone's opinion.  There happened to be a knitting designer there named Anne Kuo Lukito (her website can be found at http://www.craftydiversions.com).  I was being relatively quiet while she was showing off her samples for the patterns that are about to be carried at Yarntopia, not because I was being rude but more because I was yarning over and cabling and basically knitting a swatch that requires silence.  I finished the swatch, and I was about 84% happy with it.  I thought I would ask the opinions of the experts around me (and not just Anne...keep in mind there are about 550 years' worth of knitting experience in this room).

The poll was taken, and while I was still slightly on the fence, Anne asked me, "What are you making?"

"Some cabley, lacy, little-black-dress sort of a shruggy thing."  Probably not my most articulate moment, but obviously I hadn't written the pattern yet.

"Lacier," she said.  Exactly!  It's Schaefer!  The lacier, the better!

Here is my new and improved gauge swatch...be on the lookout for the pattern in the next couple of weeks.