OH MY, is this an easy one. If you look through my stash, or my completed projects, or even just this blog, you’ll see that I’m in a passionate love affair with madelinetosh. It’s not perfect, I’m not blind to the less-good parts, but I’m so smitten by the colors, the fiber, the sheer pleasure of working with the yarns, I’m willing to overlook the other bits. You know, like you do with anyone you love. Sure, they can be snippy before they’ve had their coffee, but they’re so good to you when you’re in trouble, so a bit of snippiness? Small potatoes.

Over time I’m sure our relationship will deepen, my love will continue to grow. She’ll grow and change, I’ll grow and change, but when love is this real, you just know that somehow you’ll grow and change together. Here we are at our current stage of love and adoration:

I’m on my 2nd journey with the yarn club, and that’s such a great experience. A package shows up and I have no idea what will be inside, except I know it will be amazing. Here’s what I got with the last shipment:

tosh merino light, colorway: filigree

Amy, the incredible color artist behind this brand, has such a way with color; each skein is flavored with delicate hues surrounding its primary color. The yellows have bits of gold, and sunshine, and daffodil. The pine greens have bits of near-black, and teal, and pine. And don’t get me started on the reds. She also has a great flair for naming her yarns, and for working in abstraction; I can’t think of any specifics right now, but she’ll name something like Emily Dickinson, something like that. Now what color(s) would that be? I can tell you it’s different from Proust. I enjoy that.

For true love, you have to be able and willing to acknowledge that all is not perfect, even if it’s perfect enough. It can be hard to find the yarn you want, and it’s in such demand you have to act fast or it’s gone. There is a great deal of variability in each colorway because she dyes it in small batches; while this is wonderful and not a problem if you’re knitting something small, it can make it very difficult to knit larger projects, like sweaters. {Note of warning to any new readers of my blog: look at all the skeins together, in good light, before beginning a sweater. I got down to the sleeves on a cardigan only to find that my 2 remaining skeins were a kind of harsh blue black, while all the others were soft shades of charcoal, dark to lighter gray. SCREWED. Luckily, I found a couple of ravelers who were willing to share their stashes with me, and luckier still, their skeins matched my charcoal skeins.} Also, madelinetosh offers a nice range of bases, but protect your heart and don’t fall too hard in love with any of them because you might get hurt. Madelinetosh pastoral, a gorgeous silk and merino blend, just disappeared, much to the anguish of ravelers in the madelinetosh lovers forum. A couple of my favorite projects were knit with pastoral, and I wanted to knit more more more. Alas.

But then again, perhaps this is a good reminder of the transitory nature of life. Don’t cling, don’t hold tight, that is the way of suffering. Let go – let it pass through you, acknowledge, appreciate, and let it go. See? Madelinetosh even helps put life into perspective.

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