Okay I finished typing this post and realized it went from cheerful to depressing. Just a heads up.

The Calypso Crop Top test knit continues. I have finished the fun color work portion and am now looking at stocking stitch with shaping going forward. Well there is a fun breast pocket which I love the look of but may not knit. It does have a wee bit of color on it tho so …..

I posted this photo on Instagram even tho my Instagram account is almost all food and tagged it appropriately If you look at the other examples I am one of 2 that didn’t go with a grayish background so I am worried it looks too colorful. Did I did mention ordering some black and gray for the red portion last week? Either way I like it and I think the red will not pop as much in the entire garment. Plus the picture looks brighter than in real life.

This raises the question of stash and buying yarn in general during these businesses being closed times. I wanted to use the Vovo yarn because it was one of the yarns the designer used. In fact the wide green background stripe is the same color she used in her wide stripe. I didn’t want to use the gray background because my last sweater was gray & because it looked warm on all the websites that had pictures of the yarn. I did not want a beige-y gray sweater. Black was unavailable everywhere at the time of ordering.

Regardless there I was buying yarn and going to various stores that sold it online, blowing up pictures, trying to figure out if the color leaned warm or cool etc which is hard. The first yarn I picked was the doubt inducing Red. The yarns are sold by color # not by name as best as I can tell because site one, The Yarn Scout, listed it as Blood Red and it looks like a rich burgundy. The second color, which is my background color is listed as Burgundy and does not begin to look as purple as it is in real life. The second website, Yarn to Cable, just has the colors and again the suspect red looks like a deep rich almost rusty red and the background looks a wee smidge more purple taking it from red into the burgundy to oxblood range. It also, conveniently enough has them pictured side by side but one looks slightly more blackened than the other on my monitor. The third site I checked out, Knotty Lamb, lists the colors as Deep Red and Burgundy again. I did not in any way expect this reddish purple I am using for the background nor did I expect this red to be so red.

I did luck out with the yarn having such a lovely handle and generally being stellar. I further lucked out in actually liking all the colors I picked and I believe they work together. I bought enough of both the “Blood/Deep Red” and the “Burgundy” to use as background because I just wanted a cool red for background. BUT I certainly can see the benefits of shopping from stash especially when you are buying yarns you have never seen in real life before. Which leads me to:

My last living at home kid moved out this weekend. I am so sad. Really, really sad about it. I mean I am of course happy for him to be getting his first apartment and moving on etc. but I feel a bit lost. I spent the last 25 years thinking of me as a mama and now I don’t have somebody to mother at home anymore. Yes I know I am still going to be mom but it is just oddly disquieting. This fits into my yarny life because I will be rearranging the apartment to make my office/yarn room/guest bedroom into a guest bedroom and the kiddos room into a office/yarn room. I am thinking of getting a Kallax system with purple bins like fellow YOP-er HighlandHeffalump. There is an Ikea a few miles from my home so that might be happening soon. And then my stash may be sorted and within reach. I haven’t been able to say that for 14 years which is when I separated from the kiddos’ father.

Also in the sadness front, I am oversharing, this week marked the 15th anniversary of my fathers death. So yeah back to being kinda glum. Here is hoping the project of organizing gives me something to focus on instead of dwelling on family changes. Given my current state my signature feels slightly forced and faux cheerful but honestly I wish you all

yarny day and knitterly evenings~ elka