This is a beautiful example of Laine’s newsletter content we just had to share with you…
Stories from the Stash
A few weeks back I wrote briefly about how my knitting has always somehow reflected my life situation. Lately I’ve been going through my stash, and it’s interesting how my journey as a knitter is also so clearly visible through the yarns I’ve purchased at any given time. I can still remember where I’ve bought each skein, and many of them carry memories of yarn shows and knitting festivals, of my dear knitting friends. I’ve never counted how many skeins of yarn I have as I’ve no need to know – nowadays I’m happy when I have enough yarn to be able to cast on something new as soon as inspiration strikes without a trip to the yarn shop.
Eight years ago, when I started to knit more actively, I went for commercial yarns only because I didn’t know anything else existed. I don’t have much yarn left from those early years, I’ve either knitted or gifted them away (my Mom has gone into crocheting blankets recently and I give almost all my scraps to her). At first my stash wasn’t that big, I bought yarn mostly when I needed it for a specific project (or when there was too good of a discount to miss), but you can guess what happened when Jonna opened her yarn shop in our hometown, Tampere. She introduced me to a whole new world of beautiful indie-dyed yarn and a whole range of new fibres and brands. When I started working for Jonna in that same yarn shop some time later, things escalated quickly. Yep, the yarn kept on coming.
For the past few years I’ve noticed that I most often go for rustic, honest wool yarns. There’s nothing wrong with plump, soft merino yarns, and there are plenty of those in my stash as well, but at the moment woolly wools seem to be my thing. They’re versatile and durable, and combined together with for example silk-mohair you can get a totally different feel and texture. Hélène Magnússon‘s Hryggir sweater, pictured above, is knitted using two of her own yarns, one strand of Gilitrutt and one strand of Love Story Einband, both 100% Icelandic new wool. They’re lightweight but still unbelievably warm, and the finished sweater will last a lifetime. When you put a lot of time in creating such a beautiful garment, it’s always comforting to know that you’ll be able to go back to it season after season.
Happy knitting,
Tiia from Laine
P.S. Hélène is generously gifting the winner of our issue 6 KAL a sweater quantity of the above yarns to knit the Hryggir sweater, remember to share all your finished issue 6 projects here!