Addict

Forward: sorry, Rob, we're back to yarn content here at Beyond.... You might find it amusing, though, that for "Negotiation Management" E'Yoak has to pretend to be Pres. W. this week. I'm secretly hoping he fails this assignment.

I don't generally think of myself as having an addictive personality. The Wollmiese has made me rethink that a little.

Wednesday, I missed the mail delivery on my way to class. I returned to find a form in our letterbox telling me to pick up a package at our Post branch office on the next business day. I really struggled with knowing there was new yarn for me, but no way for me to get it for another 24 hours. It didn't help any that I was out of projects. I'd already knit the bodies of three sock-yarn Sheldons until the point where you have to stuff him before finishing off the head. I will NOT buy fill here. I have a huge bag at home that won't even notice the amount required for these cute little guys. So, I put the stitches on waste yarn and will take them home. I guess they'll be American turtles instead of Austrian Schildkröte. Maybe I can give them dual citizenships since a lot of the yarn was purchased here. My favorite (so far) though is made from Socks That Rock Nodding Violet.

Look! Denial - the first sign of a problem. See how I'm distracting you with discussion of another project, complete with lots of links so maybe you'll get lost in the www and forget all about my new addiction?

Ok, so Thursday came. I double checked the form and realized that I could go to the P.O. right at 8 and still make it to my last German class. I wouldn't have to wait until 2 pm after all. I practiced my request while I walked to the office and paced outside waiting for the place to open. In my defense, four or five other people were waiting to pick up their packages, too. I went in, handed over the form and received my package with no more language skills required than "bitte" and "danke." Pathetic!

Look, my first box in Austria (from Germany):

I carefully cut it open:
And inside there's this gorgeous mulberry paper wrapped around YARN:

I won't show you all the loot because, despite my white balance appearing to be ok, my photos do not come anywhere close to the right colors. You would not understand my swooning to look at my pictures. This stuff was so pretty, though, that I almost skipped class to start winding it into a ball.

I have to say, I'm glad reason got hold of me and sent me to class. We had fun playing a hybrid of Password and Charades. After our break, Jairo (my Venezuelan classmate) got out his guitar and sang us a few songs. He's freakin' AMAZING. Musical talent blows me away every time. Then, we took a bunch of pictures, exchanged email addresses and said our (somewhat tearful) goodbyes. It seems really strange to know that I will probably never see these people again. I will definitely miss them and I suspect I'll be wondering how they are for the rest of my life.

Back to the yarn. My heart was racing as I approached our apt. building (see, I'm a junkie already). I did convince myself to eat lunch before I set up to wind the 1590 meters of lace-weight yarn into a ball. I am thousands of miles from my swift and ball-winder so I was going to be doing this by had, very slowly. (Oh, well, more time to admire the yarn, right?)

A shout-out to Aunt Bob's Little Guy (who is surprisingly not so little anymore) here. The "Toot-toot" is a fabulous tool and Lumpyhead's Mom should never have thrown yours away.

before

So, I put the hank of yarn around the backs of two chairs, put my iPod in the speaker thingee, hit play on the latest episode of Cast-On, and started winding onto the paper towel tube. I decided that for 300 grams of yarn I would want more to hold than the 1/4 inch I expected to have left on a toilet paper tube. I paused to photograph the ball when it was Ostrich egg shaped. The colors in the photo sucked, but it might help me remember how cute it was. I paused to start This American Life. I wound and wound and wound. I listened to three episodes of Quirky Nomads. I finished my 2.5 hours of winding by hand in silence as I cursed the tangled mess of the last 10 loops. Thank you Brenda, Ira and Sage. I could not have done this step without your company.

after (no, the photo does not capture the beauty of the real thing)

For those of you considering the purchase of a swift or ball-winder, but not wanting to shell out for both, I recommend going for a swift. Unwinding a few loops at a time did give me a break from spinning the yarn onto the tube and didn't result in TOO many knots to untie, but the swift would have made winding by hand much easier. A ball-winder without a swift wouldn't increase speed or ease, as far as I can tell anyway.

I've made it through the first repeat of the knitting. The chart has some mistakes and a couple not-great choices so I've improved on the original a bit and am now looking forward to memorizing this thing. I'll post the results in a couple of weeks (I hope). I love the yarn even more now that it's becoming a fabric.