Friday, October 7, 2011

A knitting connection and hope for good things

Many of you know that one of my passions is knitting.
There are a number of reasons I like to knit. It is a pleasurable way to spend my time, it helps me wind down, I learn new techniques, I am mentally stimulated, and I get to produce beautiful things. But I also knit for the good company.

About a month and a half ago I was faced with a sad situation. I have been knitting a shawl and ran out of yarn so I couldn't finish the project. I agonized for a few days about what to do. A few friends suggested I turn to Ravelry, the online kntting community, to look for a match. I was not quick to jump on the suggestion. Instead I went back to my yarn shop, looked through the shelves and sulked. There was no more yarn and a new order wasn't going to be placed for some time. I was also worried about finding a good color match so hunting down the corresponding dye lot felt like a daunting task. Again, my knitting friends gently encouraged me with more specific ways in which I could get help from the Ravelry community. So I took their suggestions.

Since I already belong to Ravelry, I started with a yarn search. Then sent a short but cute email to 5 members who had the Corte D'Azul Malabrigo yarn that I was looking to match. Jean from MN was on of the first to reply but sadly the yarn dye lots didn't match. Again I got discouraged. So I went back to my knitting group with my head full of rational excuses why I should just RIP back all the knitting I had done and frog the project all together. I even remember telling my friend Diane that I couldn't see myself wearing the shawl because of it's round shape. Crazy! Yet again my knitting friends kept encouraging me to try again, to not give up. So when I went home. I had a thought. What if I send Jean from MN a little clipping of my yarn and if she determined there is a match then I could go ahead and buy the hank of yarn from her. If there was no match with Jean then I could try with the other knitters from that original search.
So I ran to my computer, sent her an email and she was quick to reply with an enthusiastic "Yes, let's try." The next day I mailed a 4-inch piece of yarn to MN. A few days later Jean emailed me back ataching six pictures of her hank of yarn next to my swatch of yarn and a cheerful message of hope. It was a match! Jean was also kind enough to send me a darling stitch marker with the yarn.

This week I got the yarn in the mail and it is perfect.
Thank you my lovely knitting friends, thank you Jean from MN, and thank you Ravelry!



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