A Magical Yarn Adventure!

**Warning: This post drips with yarn dorkiness and OCD**

I have been searching for supplies to knit Baby Love the Big Bad Baby Blanket, as featured in Stitch n Bitch. The pattern calls for lots and lots of fingering-weight merino wool yarn. I began my search to discover that such yarn was EXPENSIVE. Like, re-mortgage our house expensive. But it wouldn't do to knit Baby Love something like this with Lions Pride or something crappy. I had to find an alternative.

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law has a magical friend who owns a yarn store. Only it's not just any yarn store. It's called Yarnia! And in Yarnia you get to make your own yarn. Unfortunately, Yarnia is in Portland, OR, or I would go there every day and knit instead of work. But the Portland location did not preclude me from a virtual conversation and yarn purchase!

On Thursday, I started telling Lindsey about my wants and needs and then she made helpful suggestions. Like what if we also used bamboo? And since Jordie was coming home for Passover anyway, what if we just used him as a courier and didn't pay shipping (directly, anyway...)? I quickly set about placing an order for 1.25 pounds of beautifully blended blue and green bamboo/merino wool yarn, at less than half the cost I'd been finding for those tiny bulbs of fancy yarn elsewhere. And it all comes on one cone so there won't be ends and no weaving in of yarn stubs as I work on the blanket!

When I landed in the airport in Philly, I almost forgot to hug Jordie. I just reached into his bag and grabbed my loot, which seemed more important at the time. I became instantly anti-social and cast on 126 stitches with the long metal needles I smuggled through security. I even managed to knit 20 rows of seed stitch while Jordie and Corey took care of the rental car. This is less a testament to my fast knitting than to the ineptitude of Dollar Rental.

By the end of the weekend, I had ten inches of beautiful, drapey awesome blanket...littered with mistakes. Though it broke my heart to do so, I had to rip out over 8 inches. I decided that I would stare at those errors (Corey pretended he couldn't see them and that they weren't real) for decades and that Baby Love deserved a truly perfect blanket, what with the yarn made from scratch and all.

I had a technique revelation during the reknitting process. Since I knit English style, I've had to change how I hold my needles. I used to stick the right needle in my armpit and go to town. Now, my bulge is in the way almost as much as my engorged pregnant boobs. The needle pretty much points straight out toward the right...

But this weekend I found a new home for the back end of the needle: in that hidey-hole between my hip and my baby belly, where I usually stash dark chocolate. I just wedge the needle in there and I am all set. Much more comfortable and efficient that way, I think.

Stay tuned for more details about the BBBB. This is probably the beginning of a long adventure involving wardrobes and fauns and yarn fibres.