Perfection es Cereza

I'm a shy person. I always have been. Talking to people I don't know is not a strength of mine. One time in high school AP Psych, we had to do a survey project and I had what was very close to a nervous breakdown at the Brickyard at NC State. In recent years I've gotten better at this, partially due to living on my own, partially because my last two jobs have been in customer service. The idea of interacting with new people, however, still sends chills down my spine.

This is why I'm always surprised when I go to yarn stores. It's not a hugely common occurrence for me. My lack of personal transportation combined with a student's income and access to Wi-Fi means that most of my yarn purchases are online. When I do get the chance to go to someone's LYS (I don't have one), I'm always surprised at how easy conversation is.

Knitting has this magical way of making everyone around it more approachable. It sets a baseline for conversation for every knitter. You walk into a yarn store and everyone there is willing to talk about the softness of cashmere, the pros and cons of DPNs, which stitch markers are the least obtrusive. Or, perhaps, what your LYS is.

I noticed this yesterday when I went to a local-ish yarn store about fifteen minutes from where I'm vacationing. Heidi & Lana is an adorable little yarn shop in Sebring, Ohio. It has a large wool selection and quite a few worsted and bulky weights that I had my eye on. I didn't see a lot of lighter weight and no lace, but I didn't have a ton of time to browse, as I had to get back to the cottage to go my first cousin once removed's birthday (my dad's sister is twenty years older than him -- relations can get confusing).

As I was checking out, the owner Margaret asked if I was visiting, presumably because this is the kind of town where, if you're a knitter, you shop there. I said that I was from out of town and that I liked to visit local yarn stores when traveling. She asked me where I was from and when I said central North Carolina, she recommended a LYS that I had never heard of in Cary: Warm 'n Fuzzy.

This nearly made me laugh out loud. Only in knitting circles would you be able to walk into a tiny store in one of the most rural towns in Ohio and be directed to a different tiny store over 500 miles away on your doorstep. I love this community.

Excuse the fuzziness, I'm back to my camera.

I bought three skeins of Kraemer Perfection Worsted, one in Dew Drop, two in Quartz. Perfection is an acrylic/merino blend that is theoretically machine washable -- though I will probably wash a swatch first to test that. It's very soft. I tend to like merino/acrylic blends because the sleekness of the acrylic takes some of the scratchiness out of the merino. Usually the latter doesn't bother me, but my itch sense flares up sometimes so it's nice to know I have the yarn to deal with it.

I have no idea what I will be making with the three balls, I just know that the colors are very complimentary. The Dew Drop is a little less deep then in that picture. The color palette of the two reminds me of beaches -- sand and sea. Which is hilarious because they're wool.

While Heidi & Lana was in the most rural of rural, The Designing Woman was in Fairlawn, a suburb of the city of Akron. My non-knitter cousin-in-law had mentioned that she knew of a yarn store near her house and so my mother was kind enough to let me sidetrack the family for twenty minutes so I could go scouting out the premises.

Heidi & Lana was a gorgeous little store, but its variety was somewhat lacking. The Designing Woman had more variety than I could explore in the twenty minutes we were there. It had Rowan, Cascade, Lopi, fair-trade from South America, glitzy yarn from France, buttons, needles, hooks. I suspected wizardry as the shop seemed too small on the outside to hold all of the yarn inside. And that wasn't counting fabric and buttons, which the shop also sold.

The owner, Suzanne was very sweet and nice, despite having major surgery recently, and answered all my questions about all the different kinds of yarn she carried. We talked a bit about how I learned to knit, how her daughter had been the knitter of the family before she learned, what patterns we were both interested in.

Finally, after staying ten minutes past closing (which was unintentional, but which I still feel bad about), I managed to settle on one skein of Malabrigo Mechita in Cereza, which is 100% very soft Peruvian merino. The deepness of the red doesn't quite come across in this picture, but it's beautiful. I think I will very much enjoy knitting with it. It also solves my Red Problem*: I love red and I look great in it (I think -- think -- I'm a summer palette, but since I don't completely know what that means, don't take my word), but I've never knitted anything red except for some socks I gave my cousin, who is a Boston fan.

Since the Malabrigo solves my Red Problem, I know exactly what it's for, unlike the Kraemer. But that's a surprise for when I start working on it. And I still have to buy beads, so you'll just have to wait.

*No, not that Red Problem. That Red Problem won't be solved for about forty years.

PS: The Designing Woman also had knitting books and magazines of all shapes. Specifically Windswept: Collection One by Marie Wallin, which reminded me that I have a story to tell you all. But that is for another post.