Sunday, May 10, 2009

From under the counter

Back in the socialist times, merchandise was just not as readily available as these days. Many things that an american (or even someone living in Western Europe) wouldn't think twice was elusive as the holy grail. Some things you could get at a certain times of a year, I still remember standing in line just before Christmas for bananas or oranges. (Imagine my bewilderment when getting to Miami in the early nineties, I could have many types of bananas any time of the year.)
Of course when trying to acquire things like bricks or socks, or the soap brand FA it always helped if you had the right connections. Having a sister in law in the import company, or a childhood friend in the management of a building supply company was a great advantage. The envy of our class was the girl whose father was a manager of the central supermarket of the city. She had unlimited access to the small sweets called PEZ and the lovely smelling Creme21 soap.

Anyway I was thinking of that because lately...
One of my pet peeves is the unavailability of the good yarns here. Even if there is some in the stores like BURDA that is limited to one or two type of superwash wool and a couple of color cotton. If I want to felt, there is just no way to get feltable wool (unless one is comfortable to order through the net-but then you had to take a chance it getting lost in the mail. It happened to me not once, though I have to admit it is getting better).
A few years ago some of the second hand/thrift stores sold leftover yarns, but even those disappeared except in one or two stores. One of which has a lovely lady for an owner and I managed to became rather friendly with. Though it is not very far away it does fell out of my way. I don't really remember what possessed me to stop by (maybe it was when we held our knitting meetings a couple of corners away).
Firs I only found bits of stuff I liked. Two half skein of sock yarn that could be combined... a lovely light blue tweed that was enough for a mitten/glove. Four skein of a rust colored mohair wool combo. Then some skeins of feltable wool that can be made into a felted clog. Then the famous find of Rowan which became the Tangled Yoke cardigan.
The lady always admired the handknitted stuff I wear, and started to put away things for me like this bunch of Junghans Wolle 100% wool. It is the same wool in a few shades. Obviously it was bought for some specific pattern (I wish I would know which). I still have to figure out what to make from it:

Or this orange one, which is perfect for the wrap sweater I was planning for ages. It is giving me hell now, but that is an other story, and not the fault of the yarn):

And lately things become crazy... Here is just some examples she found (and put away for me):
Just when I hit the red craze for this summer (I bought a red skirt, a pair of red linen pants, and a pair of red shoes) here comes about 500 grams of red cotton:

A gorgeously soft blend of kid mohair and cotton in one of my favourite color. The only trouble that all together there is about 300 meters in this 80 grams. What would it be enough for?

A collection of cotton ribbon yarn in what we call "Benetton green" and light and dark blue. Probably a top down raglan for the summer with stripes at the sleeves and the hem. What do you think?

Or this ball of... I have no idea. It has several strands in different color, natular paprika, blue, most probably form cotton, linen and the like. 200 grams of it. Maybe a summer bag?

Some Junghans Wolle Wool and silk blend. I am thinking of slinky ribs.

Lace weight yarn form one of the norther countries. There is a line on the band: "Under the protektion of Hendes Majestaet Dronning Ingrid". Which country that is (forgive me my ignorance in this matter)? The yarns are lace weight, maybe slightly thicker. Should this become some fair isle west? Or left each color to its own and have them to become lace shawls?

Four skeins of a lovely tweedish heathery teal blue mixture of wool and rayon. A west for winter?

About 700 grams pure wool. What about the Silver Belle I wanted to make for so long?

And what about this olive(?) green yarn? The same wool-rayon mix as the teal one, but this is enough for a fitted sweater of some kind (450 grams). An other tangled yoke? The owl sweater? Or the sunrise circle?

Oh, help me!!! Decisions decision's, decisions... Not to mention that there is so many yarns and so little time to knit. (and I haven't even took a picture form all the lovely white and blue cottons she kept for me...)

Edited to add: Sorry for all the typos here, but I just cannot make the spellcheck work on this post...

4 comments:

jennybms said...

That is seriously far too much yarn for one person to have!

I typed Hendes Majestaet Dronning Ingrid into Google and got lots of websites with dk at the end, so I guess it's Denmark.

Brussels Chronicles said...

Drool. Drool. Drool.

You must post pics of every item you end up making with those yarns !

herr_dr_nuss said...

is there a lot of demand for yarn? if you think there is, fill it. start buying and selling yarn. if someone could make money at it, then someone would be selling it.

ritarenata said...

yammie!!!!!