Once more, with feeling

Here’s another attempt to be frugal, even if the yarn — Malabrigo Sock — doesn’t make it look so. It’s from the stash, and it was made into one very pretty sock that somehow didn’t suit me or anyone I knew in the least. The sock went away and the yarn stayed put, giving me the hairy eyeball every time I ignored it in favor of something cheaper or scratchier or less purple.

It is a very bold purple. I admit to a momentary lapse of self-awareness in the yarn store, during which I imagined myself a self-confident young person who dresses in bright colors without a quaver or peek in a reflective surface. It was the yarn fumes — that’s the only way I can explain it — since the colors I wear tend more towards “grey” and “black”, with occasional drifts towards “gray” … but I swear, the purple didn’t look so very purple when it was in the skein. It was only after it was wound up that it took on its present assertiveness.

Has anyone else had this experience? Can anyone explain it? Why do yarns that look so polite and low-key in the skein change as soon as your guard is down? They become back-talking young things who get pierced in odd places, threaten to run away to some nicer family, and I saw one sneaking out of its bedroom to meet a boy in the bushes … I’m all for self-expression, but a few months of getting a nasty look every time I reached past the Assertive Purple Yarn was enough. I caved. Lots of browsing Ravelry, and lots of swatching later, I started on the Wombat-Schalutch.

And here we are. I am en route to become a swaggery young person who confidently mixes plaid and stripes, shaves half her head on a dare, and probably sneaks a smoke out the window when the teacher leaves the room.

Hold me.

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