Inexplicable

I can't explain why I keep failing to buy anything from Miss Babs in Vlad's, but it happened again this year.  There's history here.

The first year that Miss Babs came to Stitches Midwest I saw a worsted weight Blue-faced Leicester yarn called Northumbria Aran in a color called Vlad's (Yes, as in Vlad Dracula.  It must have been the first of the big vampire-craze years).  It wasn't eye-searing or stop sign-ish, or washed-out or anemic. Put simply, it was, I thought, the best red I had ever seen.  I was determined, before that Market closed on the last day, I was going to get that yarn. Except I didn't. I got cold feet, or pre-emptive assumptive buyer's remorse, or something.

I regretted it for a whole year.  The next time Miss Babs came to Stitches, I went into the Market with the rock-hard determination that I would get me sweater quantities of that yarn. Except I didn't, again. That might have been the year someone got there ahead of me.  Yarn delayed is yarn denied, so I came up with a clever plan. I would order it from the website. I ordered Navy instead.  It's a wonderful yarn and a beautiful shade of blue.  Admittedly I haven't knit anything out of it yet.

Back to Stitches the following year.  I had given up the plan to buy vast quantities of the Northumbria Aran, but I was sure, sure, I would buy something in Vlad's, probably in Yowza! Whatta Skein!  That was the year almost every booth had a Color Affection Shawl on display.  The designer had used red in one of the pattern samples.  This was going to be easy.  So what did I end up with?  Yummy 3-ply in Denim, Wheaten and Deep Sea Jellyfish. It is my most favorite winter scarf.

This year?  Failed again, despite setting my sights a little lower.  I wasn't looking for sweater or afghan quantities of Vlad's in any weight this year.  This year I decided to finally treat myself to a replacement of the Knitspot  Les Abeilles Shawl I knit with one skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk in Ruby.  The one that it seems I alluded to only once and that briefly, and which came out approximately the size of a folded cowboy bandana. So yes, pretty much unwearable. I came to Stitches with a really unshakable plan to get two skeins of Vlad's in a wool/silk fingering weight so I could make the largest Les Abeilles that Anne Hanson had included in the pattern (800 yards).

I came away with two skeins of red Shiruku, a lovely 50/50 merino/silk fingering weight, just not in Vlad's.  It's called Scarlet Letter (so not my favorite 19th Century American Novel).  

And not for Les Abeilles. For that I bought two skeins of Seda Sock (also merino/silk fingering) in Petals from Grinning Gargoyle.

Maybe next year?