Tai

Introducing my newest stash addition... Tai, from Filatura di Crossa in the Tapestry colorway (color #59).

Tai is a 55% cotton, 25% polyamide, 15% viscose blend. It doesn't look like much the way I've shown it in the picture above, and I have to admit, that if I'd just seen it in a store, all by itself, I probably would have looked at it (I'm a crow and it's a shiny yarn, after all) but I wouldn't have had a problem walking away from it since it retails for about $9 US a skein and I would have had no idea what to do with it and no idea how it knit up.

But that, of course, is the beauty of store models. Even seeing this pattern in the Filatura Spring/Summer 2003 book didn't sell me on the yarn. In fact, I passed right over the pattern. It was the store model at Ruhama's in Milwaukee that got my attention and made me want to do something with this yarn. In fact, if the stuff hadn't been $9 a skein in the store, I would have bought it right there and then, but I was already buying the Porto Cervo in Jeans for the Peasant Top and another $72 just didn't seem all that reasonable at the time.

So I put the Tai on my "if I find a good deal" list and started looking around eBay and other places. Nada. Nothing. Oh well, I figured, I've got lots of yarn and lots of projects.

And then Elann put the Tai Oddballs up for $4.95 US a skein -- for $45 I could now have the top (and a little back up yarn since the Filatura patterns don't seem to have the world's best yarn estimations) and not feel bad about the cost. Elann still has more of this lovely yarn, although the selection is slimming.

The yarn arrived just in time for me to swatch it at my Thursday night kitting get-together, and I started the project in earnest last night on my Denise needles. (As an aside... conceptually I like the Denise needles a lot, but I am finding that since I am a pretty tight knitter, that the yarns I use have a tendency to snag just a little bit over the joining areas, so I haven't been able to use them for as many projects as I would like. I don't think I am going to give up buying AddiTurbos just yet, spring cord or not).

I got about 5" done last night while reading through the Knitting Bloggers ring. Tai knits up pretty well without having to have too much attentione paid to it. You do have to be a little carefuld, however, because of the thick and thin areas in the yarn, you end up with loops of different widths. It can be easy to lose a narrow loop next to a wide one.

This yarn has a lovely soft metallic iridescence that I didn't notice until I started knitting with it. The picture above is a closeup of the larger knitted piece. It's simple stockinette. I love the way that the thick and thin areas seem to almost alternate so that you get a almost ribbing like texture from the fabric. This project is knit on size 10s, so it knits up fast. I'm hoping maybe I can finish the back this weekend...