I know three little balls of yarn doesn’t look like much to be thankful for, but I was overjoyed to see these arrive in my mailbox this weekend. They are all that stand between me and my first finished sweater! (knock on wood)
Here’s the story: I’ve been knitting consistently for about a year now. Finally, my husband started wondering: when are you going to make something for me? We looked through my small collection of knitting books and he picked out the Men’s Zipped Raglan from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. (of course, it is not one of the “last minute” patterns.) I started the sweater in April or May. I was trucking along nicely, working on it and a few other projects. I was almost to the shoulders when I realized… I’m going to run out of yarn. I had gone down a couple of needle sizes to make the stitches smaller (which involves lots of fun math — but that’s another post) and it never occurred to me that smaller stitches = more yarn. Well, now I know.
I had originally bought the yarn from elann.com, but in the meantime they sold out of the color I needed. I checked eBay and my local yarn shops, but they didn’t have it either. Finally I just started calling shops listed on the manufacturer’s website. The owner of Wildflower Yarns in Manhattan, KS found out that Yarn Theory in Bedford, VA had the yarn I needed and arranged to have to shipped to me. I’ve never been to either of these shops, but I can guarantee they have excellent service. They reallly went out of their way for someone they had never even heard of.
So now I have a sweater to knit. And the moral of the story is: Never talk to muffin trees.