Waves

I was out wandering around (no, let's be clear, I had a distinct mission - but..I just got sidetracked for 20 minutes) Moncton last Saturday, and I drove past a yarn store that I rarely visit.  Inside, though, they have almost anything you can imagine.  I saw things I couldn't have even imagined.  So i shopped...browsed, really.  I touched everything.  I admired the finished products placed about to give people ideas of what to do with the goods.  Where did I end up?  Where I always end up...the sale and clearance bin.  I found, in that bin, a wool possum blend.  Possum?  I had to get it to try it out, it was very cheap.  Not sure what I will do with it, maybe make a possum hat?

I felt something very soft and squishy.  What was it?  I found yarn made out of sugar cane.  Now, plant fibres are normally not what I am drawn to.  I am typically a wool, or downing fibre kind of knitter and spinner.  I have found myself lately being engaged with them though.  Maybe it's because summer is around the corner?  Now, flax is something I like, and I would love to try spinning 100% linen sometime, to make some thing unique.  I have discovered soybean in blends that I have spun turn out very nicely.  There are some plant fibres that are processed so much that I don't feel comfortable with them.  There are a lot of chemicals involved in turning trees into rayon.  Bamboo also has typically been a heavily processed fibre.  That's why I like flax, hemp and soybean.  So this sugar cane yarn, I am not sure about.  I couldn't find information on how it was processed.  I don't want to contribute to the over use of chemicals in my products. (why i want my own sheep, and grow my own hemp).

Anyway, i brought home some sugar cane yarn just so i can see what it is like.  The yarn is Araucania Ruca.
Right away, I wound one skein into a ball.  It too 8 hours to do it.  The yarn was all tangled on the skein (maybe from being in the clearance bin?) (maybe from people like me touching it all the time?).  I was determined to get it untangled., and I did.  So, after all that, of just doing ONE skein, I had no motivation to do the others.  My plan was to start knitting it, then when I am halfway through one ball I could do the next ball, and alternate balls (the yarn is multi coloured and while they are all the same colourway, these types of hand dyed yarns are never the same, so they should be alternated in the knitting so there is no obvious "blocks" of colour changes). 

I looked through my magazines and found a tunic that I thought I might have enough yarn for.  It is called Waves Tunic by Brooke Nico.  I liked that the magazine said that the tunic was worked from the neck down, so I could make it as long or short as I wanted...I am on a tight meterage with this project, so I thought that was a perfect fit, I just knit until I run out!  As I cast on, I realized, it started from the bottom up.  Ugh.  Oh well, I made a commitment!...I decided to start in the middle and make it short, so I started after the first decrease, and cast on 196, in the small size (I have some small sized people in my house).  Here it is so far:

The yarn is very silky, kind of has a glorious sheen to it and is very drapey.  not so sure about what the finished product will be like, but with the project a quick knit, I won't feel bad if it is a fail.

Happy Waves!