My Mink Scarf

or wrap.  Or shawl.  It is seven feet long, so I'm not sure what it qualifies as, but I love it because it is just so soft.....

And that is because it is made from 100% mink yarn that I bought at Stitches South last spring.  I bought a skein for me and one for older daughter, and then over Christmas, I took the one I bought for her back.

What else could I do???  One skein wasn't enough.

This is from the pattern on Ravelry called 100 grammi.  I had started out trying lace with the yarn and was not enjoying it, and I believe my daughter had done the same.  She had frogged hers and so it was all ready for me to use.  (I did replace it with a new skein from the shop.)

For the first time I used a method to join yarns that is especially good for light weights of yarn and lacy projects.  I don't remember who found it and spread the word about it, but it is brilliant:



No more ends to weave in and that is a great help when there really is no place to weave them into.

I loved the simplicity of the pattern and the outcome so much that now I'm looking through my stash to find some suitable yarn to make another one.  But not a seven-foot long one.

Mink Yarn, Nose Jobs and Bras

Knitting friends and I went to Stitches South yesterday and spent EIGHT hours wandering around, looking at yarn and knitting/crocheting-related, uh, stuff, accessories.

The find of the day was this yarn which is, be still my heart, 100% MINK!  Yes, mink!!!  It is s.o.f.t.  and then soft some more.  When I was paying for it, I asked the vendor if she was sure that this was the 100% mink, and not the mink/cashmere blend, because, well, THAT wouldn't be 100% MINK. Cashmere-pah.

I've done research this morning and found that the mink yarn is made from the fur that comprises the undercoat of the mink animal.  That's why it doesn't look like a mink coat.  And depending on whom you listen to, the mink like being combed/brushed occasionally to relieve them of the undercoat, or the mink are sedated in order to be brushed.  Also I have learned that mink yarn is fragile, and really should be knit up with a fine yarn---silk or ....cashmere.

I could have bought the mink/cashmere blend and saved myself a little work...

And lest you think that a yarn convention must be a snore, full of boring, little old ladies,we met these two interesting? women.

One (a vendor) asked YarnGurl if "that is your real nose."  Well, yes, she answered.  Then followed a ten-minute monolog about her life.  She is having a nose job.  She would have had one earlier in her life, but she just wasn't "superficial" then, but now she is.  There was a lot more, but we were rescued by Sallyknit who came looking for us.

While we were eating lunch, a woman in her 60s or 70s at the next table opened her shirt so that her friend could take a picture of her bra.  She explained that she never wears one, but had that day, and she wanted photographic proof that she does own one and does occasionally wear one, when she didn't want to look as if she "was swaddling a bunch of puppies in my shirt."

Alrighty then.