All That Yarn Around Abby Scroni

Abby Scroni surrounded by yarn.

I posted this picture at the end of my last entry and promised to tell you what I made of the yarn.

First, let me tell you about how I came into possession of this collection of yarn.

I am participating in a yarn exchange with three friends:  Karla, Karen, and Sue.

The idea is that we each contribute yarn to each other and make socks using the Blender Method.  For a detailed description of the Blender Sock Method please check out Blender Socks on Ravelry.

In short, the Blender Method is a way of combining colors to make the transition between seem natural.  this is done by alternating rows of different yarns in a specified sequence.

We met at a local coffee shop and were suppose to bring four balls of yarn, each of about 100 yards.  Being overachievers and conscious of others opinions, we brought 12 + balls each to the table.  There was no lack of yarn that day.

We each worried about what the others would think.  Would they like our yarns?  What is they didn't like what we each chose to bring?

Such angst was needless.

We were all excited to see and touch the yarn, to talk and explore color and technique, that it didn't matter what we brought.  We found joy in talking with someone who knitted and loved yarn.

Only three of us could meet, as Karen is participating via long distance.  We bundled up our contributions to her and waited for her contributions to us to arrive.  No one wanted to start knitting until they had all their yarn at hand.

Now as for my yarn choices which you can see surrounding Abby Scroni....

I tend to gravitate towards purples, greens and blues.  And I can honestly say that I do not pick solid colors.  I like multi-colored yarn; the more colors, the merrier.

The yarns I chose are not on my usual color palette.

From Sue, I picked the big cake of yarn you see to right of Abby.  It has an autumnal feel, with its reddish browns and beige.  It has a sparkly thread running through it and that is what grabbed my attention at first.  Also from Sue comes the orange and black yarn (to the left of Abby) that is in my high school colors.  Go Bobcats!

From Karla, I just held out my hand and closed my eyes.  "Just put something in my hand," I said.  She placed two mini-skeins in a lovely cashmere blend turquoise.

Karen, our long distant knitter, package up our yarn in little baggies and sent me the blazing orange/red/yellow yarn that's directly in front of Abby.  It's a lace weight yarn, thinner than than fingering weight normally used for socks.  Also, that bluesy ball of yarn sitting behind the orange and black.  This was regular fingering weight.

And believe it or not, all those colors, along with a beige I had in my stash, appeared in my first pair of Blender Socks.

This is more of a sampler sock.
I am working on a second pair of Blender Socks that are different from this one.

Let's get a little technical about this sock.  If this sounds boring to you, just go on about your day.  You really need to learn how to knit.

I started with a star toe in Karen's bluesy yarn.  This was blendered with Sue sparkly autumnal yarn.  Then Sue's orange and black was followed by more of the autumnal mix.  Then for the modified eye of partridge heel I used Karen's bluesy yarn again.  Then the orange and black was blendered in on the leg.  The beige part is an owl cable motif.  On top of that is the turquoise  in a sort of broken ribbing followed by the flaming frill of the yarn we have come to call Flame Thrower.

As any knitter will tell you, that it not a technical explanation of my sock.  And yes, there is a matched mate to it.  If you want something approaching a pattern, please let me know.  I will gladly share with you what I can.

This post is getting long so I will wait until next time to tell you about the trials and tribulations of knitting these socks.

The Story of Abby Scroni

This past Christmas I received a gift of original artwork from my cousin Rhonda.

This figure is about 6" tall and stands on a base of floral foam covered by ribbon.  the head is a hand painted plastic lemon from the dollar store.  The eyes were purchase while the nose and lips are molded from clay.  The pigtails are fake hair extensions from the dollar store.

The main feature, Rhonda's inspiration for the piece sits on top of the lemon.  It's the "hair" on top of the head.

Before I tell you what it is, here's a little yarn, the back story.

Rhonda lives on a ranch in Northern California, in the area where the Happy Cows of California live.  She enjoys it and, at times, seems to have been born in the wrong century.  She has the pioneering spirit of our great grandmother who chopped wood well into her 80's and was well known for chopping the heads off of snakes with a hoe.

Anyway, Rhonda enjoys helping out on the ranch.  She willing holds the heads of calves when they need tended to.  This includes castration.

The ranchers in that area have been known to take the scrotal sack, dry and cure it for use as a cover on a gear shift knob of their tractor and trucks.

Rhonda took some home and stretched them over some handy pine cones to dry.  She thought they looked cute and could envision facial features on the pine cones.

She named them "Scroni's" and laughingly says they will be the next pet rock craze.

Her first batch became play toys for the ranch dogs one day while she was away at work.

The latest batch, she hauled home to Pennsylvania and created gifts for her family.  Unfortunately, Pennsylvanian pine cones are not the same shape as Californian ones.  The closest she could come in shape was plastic lemons from the dollar store.

Oh my!  Look at this collection of yarn.
 Stay tuned to find out what I made from it.

While showing my original Scroni figure to one of my uncles, he made the commented that it looked like a certain forensic scientist on a tv show.

Thus the name Abby Scroni.

Be sure to look for Abby Scroni in my photographs of my knitting.  She will be posing frequently this year.