Around Christmas-time, a new tag cropped up on Instagram: #getyouryarnwishesgranted. The idea behind this was to post a wish of your own - for wool, yarn, or other related items - and hope that another IGer would just happen to have it lying around in their stash, unused and looking for a new home. To date, the tag has been used well over a thousand times, and is a real testimony to the generosity of the site's users.
I love preparing and giving gifts as much as receiving them - particularly the wrapping and decorating part - so I was very happy to grant wishes to two lovely ladies: Stephanie, who requested chunky yarn; and Natasha, who needed more fibre for her handspun logcabin blanket.
My wish was for a coloured sock blank - a piece of knitted or crocheted fabric, which is then dyed, and you unravel as you knit. This way, the sock colours are exactly as you intended (and generally it takes away the fuss of going from hank to yarn cake to work-in-progress for us lazybones out there). Yesterday, I received a lovely little parcel from Elle, with a crocheted blank she'd dyed herself with Kool-Aid - it still smells fruity, yum!
To my further surprise, the blank is double stranded, which means that for once, I'll manage to make socks with a matching pattern... I spent a lazy evening unravelling the blank, separating the strands, and winding them into two bright little yarn balls, all ready to be cast on.
Though I'm not keen on bright colours, the ones on this blank work surprisingly well together and I'm really excited to start knitting them up - once I'm done with the 874363859 other projects that are screaming to be finished, of course...
