Earth Hour

We participated on Saturday night, if you could call it that when all our lights were out but we were still watching a DVD on T-Man’s computer! It had to go back to Blockbuster the next day so we had to finish watching “I Am Legend” which was pretty good as these things go if you don’t look too carefully for the holes in the plot. But then I love Will Smith. He so reminds me of my son, though he is a lot more athletic than The Ninja! (Ninjas apparently don’t move unless they absolutely have to.) But cute, silly and a good dad are all traits they both share. Will also shares a birthday with T-Man. Your trivia for the day.

It was a gorgeous day yesterday if still somewhat cold in the shade. I went along to our Ravelry meet-up and had a lovely time visiting as usual. We had a new member show up this time with some of her wares, Kirsten of Yummy Yarn. She has some very pretty handspun yarns and hand-dyed rovings in Corriedale and Blue-Faced Leicester. After the meet we walked up to Three Bags Full because Kirsten was bringing in some of her wool to the shop and I was still looking for something for the Unmentionables. I finally found some lovely soft Sublime organic cotton DK in a pale rose pink that struck me as a much better choice for underwear than superwash wool.

I’ll use the 8 balls of Smart on something else for Princess KiKi, perhaps a cardigan sweater. So far I’ve knit about half of one leg of the bloomers and it’s coming out pretty close to gauge.

I decided to make the largest size (5/6) even though the intended recipient isn’t even 4 yet. The waistband eyelets can carry elastic and/or a tie so if it’s a bit big it can be cinched in until she grows into them. I hope she’ll want to get as much wear out of these for as long as possible because the yarn was pretty expensive at 7 balls for $7.99 each. Not a throwaway garment this one. The cotton isn’t bad to knit with because it’s a very soft construction: 3 Z-twist singles plied S and then 4 of those S-plied again to make the final yarn. Not only is the cotton organic but the dye method is reported to be low-impact though not naturally dyed. The colours are very soft and muted so not much dye is used. Generally I’m liking this yarn a lot so far. Haven’t tried washing it yet though the label says “machine wash, dry flat, reshape whilst wet”. Yes it really says whilst. British, you know. Spun in Germany for Sirdar.

I also got another skein of Louet Gems superfine/fingering merino. But I needed to take it back and trade since I really needed pure white and I got cream. I want it to dye with another skein I have left and they don’t match. I don’t care which it is but I need two skeins the same if I want to make something like socks. That’ll teach me to check first. Or not. I needed to take some guild bookmarks over anyway and it was another lovely day for a walk. Happily Sivia was in the shop and we had a lovely chat while she stocked shelves with lovely hand-dyed yarns.

Now I had better get something useful done for the rest of the day!