I loved this yarn the minute Kaity dyed it. It wasn’t supposed to look like this – when she dyed it (back when we were still learning) , it was much darker, bright, and vivid, but when she rinsed it most of the color came out, and she was not pleased. I was VERY pleased. And I was blessed when she gave it to me :o)
Immediately, two things came to mind, Monet and Hanami.
Years ago when my mom, sister, and I took one our a girl trips, this one to Manhattan, one of the places we knew we wanted to visit was the Guggenheim Museum. When we got there I was thrilled to see they were having a Monet exhibit. I’ll always remember standing there, drinking in the paintings. It was one of those moments where you can’t believe you’re really looking at something, that it’s real, that it’s even more beautiful than you imagined. I remember not wanting to leave, because when knew when I walked away I would never see it again. I’ve been blessed to travel a lot of places and see a lot of things, but I’ll always remember not wanting to leave the Monet paintings.
The other thing that immediately came to mind was that this was the perfect yarn for my Hanami shawl. It just said cherry trees and cherry blossoms to me. The more I read about the tradition of Hanami, and looked at pictures of cherry trees in blossom – the more it became apparent that this was the perfect yarn.
I’m SO glad I didn’t give up on this shawl after the first few trials. I’m so in love with it. And, it’s already full of memories.