Wollmeise

How dealing yarn is like dealing crack.

Monday, April 12th, 2010 | blah blah blah, stash acquisition, yarn, yarn snobbery | 4 Comments

Hi, My name is Stacy and I have an addiction. It’s been getting progressively worse over the past few years, but I feel like I have fallen off the wagon hard this time.

My drug of choice? Wollmeise.

I haven’t quite achieved snob status just yet. I mean, come on, I haven’t even knit with the stuff yet! But I see it coming…oh yes, it’s coming…

I have to say I have enablers…those little devil’s on my shoulder pushing me in one direction or another. This one’s name is kataish.

First let me say, this girl is amazing. She can knit and draw and is generally an all-around craft goddess. She is also my biggest crack dealer.

Last week I decided to put the call out on Twitter asking where she scores her Wollmeise. Now, for those of you out there still into acrylic, or maybe those of you that don’t knit or cro (GASPS), Wollmeise is a highly coveted yarn. I know of two places that sell it, The Wollmeise website (in Germany) and The Loopy Ewe. I also know that the chances of scoring said yarn on those sites is pretty darn low. Unless you are one hell of a sniper up at insane o’clock, you probably won’t get any.

So, I put the call out and Kata responds. She says she will PM me on Ravelry. So I sign in and I wait….and wait….and wait. Surely it couldn’t take that long to shoot me a PM? Then it comes…what is now the longest personal message I have received on Ravelry to date. She goes into your standard methods of getting the stuff. Waiting for updates, sniping…ya know, the usual. Then I see this:

“Now, onto the ways you can REALISTICALLY score WM ;)”

She launches into how you can get it from other people. Swaps, trades, commission knitting…oh my! My head was spinning. Now, I know I have WAY TOO MANY projects right now. How the heck could I knit anything for trade? I barely have the time to do everything I am doing now (luckily I don’t sleep much and it helps that I know how to walk and knit at the same time).

So I told her what I was looking for and she hooked me up with a friend that worked out a deal for me. Nice right? See…it’s all about who you know.

Woohoo! Its much prettier that my crappy phone camera akkows it to be.

Woohoo! It's much prettier that my crappy phone camera allows it to be.

And just think, After I am done with whatever project I decide to use this for, I can use the scraps in my Insanity Blanket. Bonus!

Tags: kataish, Wollmeise

Sock Yarn Love, Part 2

Monday, December 1st, 2008 | blah blah blah, fiber, spinning, yarn | 2 Comments

Saturday was a little crazy. I don’t think I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to go to Wildfiber. Seriously, click on that link…..I dare you.

So I ended up leaving the house and going to pick up my friend Angelique. We were going to run up to the local grocery store and meet up with Krista and then get on the road. We were a little late (my fault), but it was cool because she was up there having breakfast with her boyfriend while she waited for us.

So we loaded up in the caravan and drove to Santa Monica.

Ok. Let me just say, I almost passed out upon entering this store. There is SO MUCH YARN! They have roving too, although I wasn’t really there for that. My intention was to get myself some orange Koigu (which was a color my LYS didn’t get in their shipment) so I could make those “Little Pumpkin”socks. I made a beeline to the Koigu wall, and there before me was the orange I was looking for, but then there was noro sock yarn, and araucania….and ….Oh. My. Guh! ::Head exploded::

Sensory overload! I had a really hard time, but I had decided long ago I wanted to try as many different brands of sock yarn as I could get my hands on, so I got a selection. Here is my haul:

The Haul.

I picked up some Noro Silk Garden Sock, Araucania Ranco Multy, Wollmeise, and my orange Koigu. These are all yarns I have never tried before. I am going to have the awesomest sock collection ever! I also got the little spinning wheel pin when I was in line waiting to check out.

The Wollmeise was a must buy, and probably the most expensive yarn I had purchased. When I picked it up I told the girls that the colorway was “Baba Jaga”. My mom bought the kids books a few years back of different Russian fairy tales and one of the books was the story of Baba Yaga.

So that is it…..now it is time for me to officially start the yarn diet!!

Oh wait, one more thing! Before I left for the shop today I did get a package. I had signed up to do the Uniquely Yours Ravelry Spin-Along. The theme is Christmas. I need to have it spun, with pictures posted by Christmas. Yay for more spinning!