Lorna's Laces Delirium

I only bought one bag! Really, only one bag - I displayed such restraint. Really I did - what? Don't you believe me?? OK, OK, more on that later.

Let me go back to the beginning...

This morning my knitting guild went on a little field trip to Lorna's Laces, right here in Chicago. They are a small, hand-dyeing yarn studio. As you can see above they are located in a rather industrial part of Chicago - those are the L tracks right above us. Walking to their studio felt like we were sneaking into a secret club. But oh, was it worth it.

This is Pearl (no, not Purl as you might think) the house Great Dane. What a lucky dog to be able to spend her days surrounded by all that lovely, soft, hand-dyed wool! As soon as I took my camera out she scooted away and almost hid from me. I guess she's a little camera shy.

We were given a dyeing demonstration and amazingly it is all done by hand about five hanks at a time per dye lot. Here are some recently dyed hanks hanging to dry.

Ohhhhhhhh, the yarn. We were able to go through their mill ends and shop to our hearts content. It was all lumped on tables such as this one but talk about thrill of the hunt! There was another group there too and you could almost feel the tension when we walked in - eeekkk! Competition for the yarn! Grrrrrr - step away from the yarn .....

We all had a lot of fun feeling the yarn and sorting through the piles looking for matching skeins. I was on a hunt for a skein or two of Black Purl and after about 15 minutes BINGO! I found one! That is the good news, and I guess that's the bad news too - couldn't find a second skein - darn.

HEY! Who slipped that picture in here?? OK, so the Everlasting Bagstopper market bag can hold a lot of yarn, as you can see above. To be exact, 19 skeins of sock yarn and 9 skeins of DK organic merino - part of Lorna's "Green Line". This name is a cute double meaning - the Green Line is also the name of one of the L train lines. I love that subtle reference to their Chicago connection.

Here is a closer picture of the Green Line yarn - I snagged 5 skeins of Verve and 4 skeins of a beautiful brown/olive/purple colorway. This organic wool is so ridiculously soft - I can't believe it is wool! And you can even feel the lanolin in the yarn - it's hard to describe but it feels like an extra bit of smoothness in the yarn.

I've already started to plan how I am going to use my haul - two pairs of ragg style hiker socks and a Clapotis to start - can't wait to get knittin'!