I was reading Anne’s post today, saw her progress on her Man Lace shawl for her hubby, a start on a new Casino shawl—gorgeous yarn, by the way—a nice selection of sweaters drying on the floor, and a little comment about having some red yarn that would be perfect for a cardigan.

That little note, almost a sideline, about the red yarn got me to thinking… and digging in my stash. Yes, I have two very different red yarns that are almost exactly the same color. I don’t know how these yarns will look on your monitor, but here at home they’re both a rich, bluey red. Love, love, love them.

The yarn in balls is some that I got as a birthday present for myself years and years ago. See the swatches? It took some doing, and a lot of time searching and swatching (most of which were torn out with disgust), but I finally found a pattern called Freya and knit up most of what I had into a lovely red cardigan—which is still embarrassingly in need of the buttons being sewn on—from Elsebeth Lavold’s book, Viking Patterns for Knitting. Yes, I have the buttons. They have little Viking ships on them, and are totally cool. I’m just a bad button-sewer-on-er. Anyway, this lovely merino wool is from France, it knits up on size four to six needles at a gauge of twenty-two stitches and twenty-eight rows to a ten centimeter square, and there are one hundred three yards per ball. I have six full fifty-gram balls of it, and one mostly full (forty-four grams). It’s wonderfully soft and warm, and the cardigan, button-less though it is, is a delight to wear.

I’ve been looking, half-heartedly for the most part, but looking all the same, for a nice shell pattern to make up with the remaining yarn.

As a side note, yes, I know, and I’m saying this here in hopes that after making this public announcement, I’ll be able to force myself to do it… but funny as it sounds, I hate hand work! I have two whole cardigan sweaters that need to have buttons attached, and two sweaters with missing buttons that need to have those re-attached, and the other buttons reinforced. There. Four sweaters worth of buttons to do. Doesn’t sound all that horrible. Right? Please tell me it doesn’t. Please tell me that if I just sit down to do it, it’ll be done, and I’ll have pleasantly attached buttons, and very completed items, and sweaters that are a pleasure to wear as I’ll be able to button them up when I’m cold…

Anyway, on to the other yarn. I have one of the four skeins on my lap right now, and I can feel its softness through the leggings I’m wearing. This stuff is amazing. It’s a fifty-fifty blend of super soft cashmere and wool. It’s glorious. And fine. And I have a hair over two pounds of it. There’s no note on it about gauge or yardage or anything. My Errant Ankles sock is sitting right here, and comparing the yarns, I think the red is just a hair finer. I’d probably say that it’s a light fingering weight yarn. So, small needles. I want to make a sweater set out of this yarn, too. I hope two pounds is enough. I’ve had this so long I know I’ll not be able to get more. Not that I could afford it right now, even if I could find it. Yipes. It wasn’t cheap. I hope I got it on sale. That’s one of the few things that is on the labels. The price. Marked price of these four hanks was $118.18. Yipes. I’m almost positive that I bought this on sale. I can’t imagine me spending that much on yarn, even when I had money to buy things with. Oh, but it’s so soft. It’s just wonderful.

If you have any specific suggestions for patterns for either of these yarns, please let me know. I’d love to go have a look. I would love to knit up a shell from the first yarn, the French stuff, to go with the cardigan that’s already done. Seems a shame not to have done that yet. I should say, from all that swatching that I did, that the French yarn loves cables and stockinette, lace work shows off like a dream. The non-cable stitch patterns I tried were awful.