Bits and pieces

I had a really fun yarn shop experience the other day. I decided to stop in to my most local shop (I am lucky as I have a few to choose from) after work last week to see if they carried the Berroco Chinchilla that the Whidbey bear pattern called for.

I wandered in and the lady whom I know to be the owner greeted me enthusiastically. She and another lady were sitting at a high-top table knitting and gabbing. (I believe the other lady works there too...what a sweet job! Not only do you get to play with yarn, you also get to knit!) Anyway, she asked if I needed anything and I just said that I'd like to look around, and she welcomed me to do so. So I wandered around and tried to find their Berroco stash (while stopping to pet a few other skeins along the way, of course). I did find their Berroco but no Chinchilla. Then the store owner wandered over so I asked about the yarn.

She said that she did not carry it and unfortunately would not be able to special order any as I only needed two skeins. I understood this and so we set about finding a suitable replacement.

She suggested a few different ones and then came across this stuff called Gedifra Serano (if you scroll down to the bottom of that page there's a photo of the detail--click for big too). It was so delightfully soft it was just calling out to be made into a bear.



Thing was, it's not exactly the same style of yarn...it doesn't have uniform fuzzies...it has a core yarn which then has really soft little bits coming off it, like an eyelash but in a less hairy way and very very soft. Then, every few inches is a little soft tuft of furry stuff. Here is what it looks like as a strand:





Anyway, then the nice LYS owner asked me if I had time and would I like to sit and knit a swatch with it to see if I liked it? I said yes that would be great, so she loaned me some needles and told me to have a seat. So I did! Let me just tell you...I am a shy person who normally will wander into a store, do my looking or shopping, and quietly leave. Even though I would love to create a rapport with people at a LYS, I am normally too shy to do so. But this lady was so friendly and nice that she brought out the less shy side of me. That's what I need, someone friendly and I'm much more comfortable and less shy.

(Speaking of being shy...one day I was at my local Barnes and Noble bookstore and while perusing the knitting books, I noticed a group of knitters in one of the sitting areas! I peeked at them out of the corner of my eye...and a part of me wished I was outgoing enough to just walk up and say hi. But that is SO not me. I made a mental note of what day it was and decided to try and look it up or inquire elsewhere...was it just a casual group get together or a guild meeting or what? I never found anything out but someday I hope to.)

So anyway, back to the LYS...I sat on the stool and chatted with the ladies while I made a big enough swatch of the yarn that I could tell this was going to make a fabulous bear. Not cheap yarn, really, but as I only needed two balls of it I decided that was fine. Plus by this point I really wanted to buy the yarn from her and not the internet.

I took it home and dug right in, and here's the completed bear front, on the stockinette side:



And this is the "back" or the reverse stockinette side:



Once I am done with all the bear parts, I will need to decide which side I want to be on the outside. Since it is stockinette, as I expected most of the fluff and fuzz is ending up on the back side. But seeing as there is no right or wrong as far as front and back go, I will just need to decide which I like better. At first I thought I might want to use the back on the outside, but I'm not really sure yet. That answer will come to me eventually. :)

So far the bear is fun to knit although it isn't exactly what I'd call relaxing, since it's a little hard to see what you're doing, what with all the fuzz. But the pattern is very well-written and clear.

Since I needed a little break from the bear knitting, I finished Pink Flamingo sock #1. I love it! It's definitely a tight sock, but it fits.



So...that's it from here for now. I hope to get back to the bear knitting next, so hopefully I'll have more bear parts to show soon.