Interesting

Sorry about the turned picture, where is that new camera anyway!

Nothing makes me happier than knitting, knitting books, knitting magazines, knitting videos and of course shoes. Some days just looking at yarn in my stash is the only thing that gets me through the day. I love yarn. I love to see that colors and feel the unbelievable textures. I love the smell of yarn and I have to say I embarrass myself in yarn stores smelling every skein of yarn I can. Today I thought that I would buy myself a treat for my weekend in Orlando for a swim meet with my son. I bought Crazy Aunt Purl's Home Is Where The Wine Is. I love Laurie Perry and her blog CrazyAuntPurl. She has me in stitches, literally. I can't wait to dive into this book and laugh, and laugh, which at a swim meet might look a bit odd. I also purchased The Knitter's Book of Wool by Clara Parkes. I have a deep fascination with all yarn producing animals. This book looks fascinating. I am also looking forward to the release of Sheepgal's upcoming book. When I got home from the store I looked on my front porch and another present to me, from me, had arrived. Knitting Daily series 200 and 400. 300 was unavailable. Now I can watch more knitting as I knit or work on my loom. This was turning out to be a fantastic day.
I am sure you caught the ,"was" part of that sentence.

I finished my drop stitch shawl. It is so beautiful and silver. The texture is so smooth. I can really see this as a special occasion shawl. I was finishing the very last pieces of fringe when my buddy Joy came over for a bit of knitting help. Joy is new to knitting and has taken it on like wild fire. While she was here our other friend Amy came by with her daughters. While we were all chatting and I was fixing a knitting problem for Joy something very interesting happened. Amy knocked over my glass of water and some of it got on my shawl. Usually that would not ever be an issue but what that small bit of water did to the shawl is amazing.

If you can see the top right of the photo above the fringe in of normal diameter, the fringe on the bottom has puffed up and lost the integrity of the yarn. This yarn in water completely changes the shape, and drape, and it puffs up like a crazy noodle on steroids. It isn't shinny anymore just puffy, almost with a net like appearance.

I tried to get a better picture, but of course I don't know how to use my new camera yet so this is the best I've got. The yarn on the right, normal diameter, the yarn on the left, water influenced yarn on steroids.

Some of the water got on the knitted part of the shawl. I don't think it is enough to make a difference, but the fringe had to be removed. I could be really upset as this has been a major project of mine for several weeks, but I'm not. This is the way it is with knitting. The process can be more important than the end product. I find it fascinating that this yarn changed so much. I looked on the label and it did have the "no washing" picture on it. I learned a valuable lesson here, no washing really means no water at all, period. Can you imagine if I had this shawl on and it started raining? I would look like Cinderella after the stroke of midnight, changing back into my rags.