The Seven Skeins

I am crazy about the following: the designer Kate Davies, Scotland, yarn, new stuff, posh yarn, and, occasionally knitting clubs & schemes. How could I not jump at the Seven Skeins yarn club, concocted by Kate to introduce her own yarn line produced from Scottish wool?

The deal is, you pay up and receive a package containing one each of the seven colors produced. Plus a bag to keep them in, plus patterns, and eventually a print book with the patterns and extra goodies. I paid, I waited, and now the yarn has arrived:

The yarn is called Buachaille, named for two Scottish mountains whose Gaelic name means "herder". Colors, from left to right, come from the Scottish countryside: Between Weathers, Squall, Yaffle [a green Scottish woodpecker], PTARMIGAN!!, Islay [KD's favorite Hebridean island], Haar [Scottish fog], and Highland Coo [the red shaggy Scottish cattle]. I love how the coo skein is twisted in the opposite direction from all the others. That's a contrary redhead for you.

What's the yarn like? It's a loose 2-ply, fingering/sport weight, with a haze of long fibers. Three colors are natural undyed wool and they are as soft as kittens. The dyed skeins are just slightly less cuddly, but they all would feel fine worn next to the skin.

Patterns will start arriving soon, 1 per week. It makes me smile that in thrifty Scottish tradition, the complete set of club patterns will use up every scrap of the 7 skeins, and to that end, Kate recommends that you obtain a scale that weighs to the individual gram, and she provides a spreadsheet-cum-calculator to help you figure out how much of which skein to use for what. Meh, I doubt that I'll want to make all the patterns, and I really don't want to buy another scale, so I'll bumble along as I usually do. And anyway, two of the skeins have a knot in them, so that will mess with what I do.

Well, all wound up and ready to go! Bring on the patterns!

P.S. The first patterns have been published, and meh, indeed, I'll nae be makin' baffies!

Small Incident in a Small Place in a Small World

Every once in a while I get amazed beyond measure by how the internet can connect us, and we can learn about happenings in faraway places. I'm not talking about silly memes that make cats or someone's mistake unforgettable for 15 minutes.  I'm talking about noticing something, picking up a lose thread, and following it around the web to make a full enhanced story.

Perusing the British newspaper, The Independent, I came upon a story about a small but meaningful crime on the tiny Scottish island of Canna. It's here. Go ahead, click on it. The loose thread that caught my eye was the mention of 6 knitted hats. Knitted hats? Canna knitted hats? What's a Canna knitted hat? I had to know more.

The Independent article led me to the Guardian article, which had more beautiful pictures of Canna and more links. The first was the the Aberdeen Press and Journal, which delighted me no end, because I used to be a citizen of Aberdeen and remember the paper fondly. One thing I loved about the more local story was the choice of a photo that showed a large number of Canna-ans posed in front of the shop in presumably happier times. The volunteers that run it? Nearly half the island's population. But nobody was wearing a hat. I still was looking for the hats.

Surely there was a picture somewhere of the hats. Publishing one would be a great way to find the jerk(s) that stole them. And anyway, I still wanted to know if this was a special kind of hat. Googling Canna hat only got me to cannabis-themed hats. But the Facebook link in the Guardian article got me this and this. Canna hats! Turns out they are ribbed bobble hats that just happen to be made by a Canna knitter.

But what a knitter! By searching for the name visible on one of the tags, I found the web site of Canna Creations, where some of Julie Scot's work is there for all to see. So Canna hats are made on Canna by a Canna knitter with local wool she's dyed herself! Wow! And you can find out all this at your desk in about half an hour with your browser.

If I were a Facebooker, I would "like" the Canna shop page and spread the word to all my knitter friends in the hope that the pictures of the Canna hats would become a meme that eventually led to the capture and punishment of the thieves who wrecked such a charming and useful facility in a beautiful remote place.

And now, if we're ever on our way to visit Canna, we know to contact Julie Scot and ask to inspect her wares firsthand.  Here's a half-hour charming '70s-'80s documentary on the island:

And if you've less time, here's a 10-minute slideshow some hikers made of the island: