You didn't think the tour was over, did you? You didn't think that just because I momentarily diverted the train to discuss things like babies that I had forgotten?
Because I have a memory like an elephant.
Which is to say, I tend to remember the annoying things that you would rather I forget. The mailman here at the studio once complained that the glare from the sun was giving him a headache. I said, "So, what I'm hearing you say is that you dislike the warm sunshine and prefer dull, cloudy, lifeless days?"
He joked, "Yes, of course, that's exactly what I'm saying. The sun depresses me."
So of course, I've never let him forget that. Today, it's a bright, sunny, snowless day in February, and when I see Bob, I'll be sure to console him about how depressing this weather is. He loves it when I do this, and I feel confident that everyone else in my life does as well.
It's either that, or they curse the day I was born. I'm still sorting that one out.
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The first colorway I drew is one of my mostest favorites.
I've spent time extolling the virtues of green in this post. And I say this with all love and respect, but the honest truth is that if you don't like green, you need to change your attitude.
That's like saying, "Yeah, Mother Nature, mmmm, I think I could do better myself. But nice try."
Let's all take a moment to be thankful for green.
Thank you, green chlorophyll that allows human life to exist, for doing such enormously important work, without which our planet would be lost.
All the "living green plants are needed for life on earth" stuff aside, green reduces the production of stress hormones in humans. Green is renewing and rejuvenating, calming, and neutral.
Green is a neutral color. All greens go together. Greens go with everything else. It's true. (Unless, of course, you think you are smarter than Mother Nature, who puts green with absolutely everything.)
I especially love this colorway because of the multiple shades of vibrant, chlorophyll-rich greens. It's called Out to Pasture, and the concept behind it is fluffy white sheep (with pink noses and ears) on the pastoral hillsides of Maryland, where Pulling at Strings is located.
Maryland also has one of the best fiber festivals in the country, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.
I miss going to it every year. It was very influential in my early Yarnista days.
Ah, Maryland. I do miss your verdant pastures.
Want to grab some Out to Pasture for yourself? You can order from anywhere in the world on the Pulling at Strings website. They even have spinning fiber and gradient sets of this colorway instock. Which I think you may have to fight me for.
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I live in a City by the Lake. And I sometimes forget that there are Other Cities on Other Big Lakes.
Like, oh, Chicago. Toronto.
That's all. Just those other two. I'm pretty sure the rest of the areas surrounding the Great Lakes is undeveloped and uninhabited.
This colorway was created for Windy Knitty, a beautiful store I visited last September in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood.
Windy Knitty has just a very small selection of yarn. You might need a magnifying glass to see anything at all.
(Totally kidding. Do not email me. Definitely a joke. They have a vast selection of yarn, as you can see below. This is not even the whole store.)
The portion of Lake Michigan that surrounds Chicago is often much greener than Lake Superior. (Hey Toronto, what color is Lake Ontario?) These are some of the pictures we worked from when creating this colorway.
We put a few shades of watery green and blue in, and then added the grays and blacks to signify the skyline itself.
Here it is on a few different yarns -- Adorn (in the back) Wexford (on top), and Springvale Bulky (front). It looks slightly different on every yarn.
I love how this colorway blends the natural elements with the architecture of the city, and I love how accessible it is: everyone, young, old, male, female, canine, feline, can love and wear it.
If you want to get some for yourself, you can stop by Windy Knitty at 5653 North Clark St in Chicago. You could also drop them an email at info@windyknitty.com, or call them at 773-800-9276. What a fun stash enhancement.
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When I was in 4th grade, a bunch of Miss America contestants visited my school. Miss Maine came to my class, and she told us all about how cold it is in Maine, and how lots of potatoes are grown there. We Minnesota children were unimpressed with her tales of eyelashes freezing together, because that had all happened to us about twenty times already.
But when she handed out lapel pins in the shape of a potato (that said Maine on them, naturally), our eyes lit up.
I asked for two and wore them as earrings. I suffered for the rest of the day as those potato pins, with their giant, pointy posts, burned my sensitive earlobes.
As Miss Maine walked past my desk, I asked if I could sit with her at lunch. She said, "We'll see," and smiled at me. When lunch rolled around, she said, "That girl in the back already asked if she could sit next to me, but I have room for one more on the other side." I was quite pleased with myself as I walked to the cafeteria to pick up my pizza, surrounded by the cloud of Miss Maine's perfume. I did not care that the boy picked to sit on the other side of her, Eric, was someone I didn't like. I intended to monopolize the lunchtime conversation anyway.
It turns out that I did not have much in common with Miss Maine, and we ate our lunches quietly. And thus began my lifelong aversion to small talk.
When I was in 5th grade, an Egyptologist came to my class to show us a slide show of mummies, pyramids, hieroglyphics, and all the other stuff the rest of the world still finds fascinating about Egypt thousands of years later.
The thing about Miss Maine has absolutely nothing to do with the Egyptologist, by the way.
I am just a really talented writer who knows how to carefully craft a story, so I put those two things together to show you how it's done.
You're welcome.
Here's the part that it is related to the Egyptologist.
The colorway Luxor. Luxor is a city on the Nile, near the Valley of the Kings, and is considered one of the world's most spiffy archaeological sites.
I'm bringing spiffy back.
I made this colorway for Darn Knit Anyway in Stillwater, MN, one of the funnest yarn shops ever. (DKA, I want you to put that on your signage: WE'RE THE FUNNEST.)
(Always listen to the Yarnista. She will never lead you astray.)
I will never forget when Aimee from DKA first called and left me a voicemail. I was still living in Washington, DC, and on the other end of the line was a person with an adorable Minnesota accent using the words "darn it anyway."
She is adorable. I would totally make a pest of myself stopping in all the time if I lived closer.
This is the 2011 Yarnover event -- can you see Luxor hanging from the peg right behind Aimee's head?
I named the colorway Luxor because I couldn't get away from this imagery:
The color of the pyramids, that ancient limestone and alabaster, the shimmering Nile river, the cloudless sky in the 115 F heat, and the rusty tones often used in drawings inside tombs and paintings on sarcophagi.
Sometimes you just shouldn't mess with thousands of years of history.
Small town Minnesota, meet Ancient Egypt.
Yarnista, shut up now.
I will, after one more thing. If you want to get your hands on some Luxor, you can contact Darn Knit Anyway at 651-342-1386, or you can email them at info@darnknitanyway.com. But if you can stop in, you should definitely do that. (You can click here to see how adorable this store is.)
More stops on the tour coming up in a jiffy! Jiffy is also on the upswing, in case you weren't in the loop. As are "oopsy-daisy" and "jolly good."