A Journey in Finding Yarn Across the Pond

My son, when he saw the Balmoral sweater I had made for his Dad, was so impressed that he immediately batted his hazel eyes and said how much he would enjoy a hand knitted sweater. Of course I said "yes"! Then he dropped the the idle words "of course it will have to be all black so I can wear it at the seminary". What?? I've never made anything black as I tend to choose bright vibrant colors that make me happy while knitting. Oh well, I naively thought, how different could knitting black be?

I had some lovely charcoal prime alpaca in my stash that would have knitted up nicely, except for the shedding factor, so we decided on extra fine merino in solid black. One of my LYS was having a sale and was offering a 40% discount on a special day only for ravelery group members ... AND they had the exact yarn we had decided on ... AND they had 22 skeins on hand. What do they say about the best laid plans? I went online about 30 minutes after they had opened and GASP someone had already bought 10 skeins leaving a measly 12 which definitely wasn't enough for an adult size sweater. I did a ravelry and google search and ended up calling Canada as well as most of the upper East Coast yarn shops that carried Sublime extra fine merino. I managed to locate 16 skeins in Massachusetts and placed my order.

Fast forward to casting on. The first pattern we chose was Geoffroy by Norah Gaughan and while he liked it, it wasn't THE SWEATER. I turned him loose with my patterns (selectively chosen of course) and he decided on Ben by Norah Gaughan as he likes cables. I enjoy knitting my sweaters in the round so first I had to modify the cable pattern so it would work and then I had to actually do a gauge swatch to check needle size (something I'm always reluctant to do) as this was a slightly thinner yarn that required but I thought I had enough yarn to make it work. I cast on, placed my markers for the sides, joined in the round and began the Cabled Seminarian by knitting 3 inches of 2x2 ribbing.

Fast forward to the next day where I am sitting close to tears as my eyes cross trying to distinguish between k's and p's on black. The cable pattern is a 13 stitch repeat + 7 so I finally placed markers to identify the 13 stitch sections and I'm happily knitting away. Tips-when knitting black make sure you have bright light level and plenty of markers at hand. (Also helpful to have on hand is an understanding husband who is learning to ignore my mutterings, complaints, and whimpers) As I reached for the 3rd skein to attach I realized that I probably would not have enough yarn after all. Those darn cables were eating up the yarn as fast as I could knit it.

I did another ravelry search because you just never know there might be a fellow raveler with a need to destash that particular yarn (no there wasn't) as well as called up the shop I had originally bought the 16 skeins from. They did not carry black Sublime anymore and the 2 other shops I called did not have the correct dye lot. However, I found a yarn shop in the UK on ebay.uk which did have my dye lot and have now purchased the additional skeins I think (I hope) I will need.

The moral of this story? BUY ALL THE YARN YOU NEED OR THINK YOU WILL NEED AT THE SAME TIME. Now I will have an excuse to buy massive amounts of yarn because I will be able to say " but honey, remember my search for that black yarn?"