Periwinkle Sheep Yarn

Karin Maag-Tanchak is the fiber artist behind The Periwinkle Sheep. For a while she had a lovely yarn shop by the same name in Albany, New York. I wasn't the only person sorry to see it close. She hand dyes yarn in lovely colors. I bought at least one skein of her sock yarn. I still haven't knitting it, so I can't say how it wears, but I do know it's very soft.

This week I was very surprised to learn that I was one of the winners of her Perwinkle Sheep Whim drawing. I won the Periwinkle Sheep Silver Lining fingering yarn. The previous Friday I had attended the Heritage Spinners' Christmas party, where at times I sat next to Karin. She told me to enter the drawing.



I usually do not have any luck with raffles, drawings or grab bags. This Christmas party was no exception. My number was 2 and the gift I chose was a bag of two tone Romney fleece and a hand felt kit for pumpkins. I don't spin, I have no overwhelming desire to have felt pumpkins and orange and avocado are not colors in my wardrobe. It was the type of drawing where the person drawing after you could choose a gift that had already been chosen by someone. I tried very hard to interest people in what I had. I was only successful at giving away the Romney roving. However, a young woman seated near me chose hand-knit catnip mice and neither she nor her mother had cats. She very nicely gave me the mice for my cats. And somehow a friend arranged it so that I traded the pumpkin kit for a skein of Periwinkle Sky Sparkle, a lovely denim blue.

I could not see using that pretty sparkly yarn on socks. The Periwinkle Sheep sells yarn at the Troy Market, so the next morning I went to the market to the stall. I decided to buy two different purple sock yarns to complement the Silver Lining Wink. I thought the colors would help the lighter blue and the sparkle stand out. Somehow it follows that I would win one more skein. When it rains, it pours. However, the Silver Lining Wink looks lovely with the other colors and I envision knitting a shawl in graduated stripes out of the yarn. I'll also have fun planning what to to with the left over yarn.