One-skein projects seem to be my New Thing. I grew up thinking of yarn as Sweaters. Now and then I'd buy a couple of skeins just for a scarf, but mostly I bought 1000+ yards at a time, picturing stacks and stacks of gorgeous cardigans and pullovers. I mostly bought yarn on sale so I could afford to indulge in 10+ skeins at a time -- a big body needs lots of yarn to cover it adequately -- and sometimes ended up scratching my head wondering just exactly what I was thinking, buying so much gray alpaca or so much really hideous lattice ribbon. (Having the Smiley's Yarn sale close by every year, where bags of 10 skeins are all you can buy of the better stuff, wasn't helping.)
It took Ravelry and Rhinebeck to really coax me out of that Sweater mentality, and over into the land of Accessories. It wasn't a difficult transition, really. As an incurable Yarn Magpie, I was completely blown away by the acres of wool at Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool, and I could only afford some of the available yarns in Sweater quantities. Once I realized that, about halfway through my first visit there, I relaxed. I could buy a bigger variety of gorgeous yarns if I bought only a couple of skeins instead of 4 or 6 or 10! Besides, how many Sweaters can one rotund person who dislikes being overly warm wear, realistically?
Creatively Dyed was one of my very first discoveries at Rhinebeck 2008. I bought lots of that yarn, and didn't worry too much about what I would make of it. Sock yarn is so versatile! I imagined hats and scarves mostly. I had never knitted a shawl then...well, that situation has certainly changed.
I've filled my Ravelry queue with all manner of lace shawls, from dead simple to ridiculously elaborate. So far, I've only made smaller ones, kind of starter shawls, testing my patience for lengthy repeats and ever-changing lace charts. Many simpler ones are perfectly suited to sock yarns, like the Demiluna, which is a half-circle rather than the triangle shape of many shawls. So confronted with a beautiful crazy-colored CD yarn I simply HAD to knit...and still refusing to knit socks...I decided to make a small, simple shawl from the skein of Carnival that I had to had to HAD to have. But now that I've scratched the itch and enjoyed using half the skein to make this awesome thing, I have to do the right thing. That's right. I'm going to give it to the young daughter of a friend. It belongs on a sweet young girl. I can't wait!!
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