On Thursday afternoons I attend a knitting group which meets at a tea shop in Brooklin, north of Whitby at Campkin's of Wellingborough. It is a nice group of ladies who meet from 1pm 'til 3 and share knitting ideas and techniques. Of course, we show off our recently finished and current projects. Yesterday I was asked if I would knit a scarf for a local yarn shop from New Zealand possum lace weight yarn using one of the patterns from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. I'm quite intrigued about the Possom yarn. It seems possums were brought to New Zealand from Australia in 1837 to start a fur industry, however there are no natural predators. As a result, there are currently 70 million of the pesky critters - that's 20 for every man, woman and child - in the country. At the height of the fur trade, trappers killed 20 million possums in a year. But that did not make much of a dent in possum numbers.
Evidently, possum yarn is very soft and warm and looks and feels like cashmere. It won't pill or wrinkle and is anti-static. It's scale-free so it feels smooth and soft on the skin. It is the one of the two furs in the animal world that will not freeze; the other one being polar bear fur. In New Zealand it is spun with merino yarn to make a exceptionally good quality yarn of very good value.
One of the gals from the embroidery guild got some photos of the heart squares we've been working on. We could stitch any heart pattern using specific DMC floss colours and were given the square of fabric (so they'd all be the same). Here are a few of them:
They will make a very fine quilt, indeed.
bravo for all the projects on Ravelry! I have to make the time to post ONE!!!! perhaps that will be a goal for the long weekend, inspired by you! Thanks!
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