September is here...

...and once again i have an itch to see snow and strap on my board. In fact, the itch started before September did, in a rather typical fashion for me, that is no doubt amplified by the fact that i spent most of my last winter in warm Savannah, GA (it also doesn't help that the leaves are starting to change early this year). So i've been browsing the usual places for new gloves for when i hit the snow. i have horrible luck with gloves, and seem doomed to always lose one glove right away, or discover that i have paid too much for a product that is going to start falling apart the first time i wear it, or even more annoying is the tendency for my hands/gloves to get wet and freezing long before the rest of my body is. Snowboarding requires one to put her hands in the snow a lot, far more than when skiing. Every time one sits down, gets up, turns too sharp, grabs, scrapes the excess snow off the top and out of the bindings, straps in, you're probably going to get snow on your hands and/or gloves/mittens. Even so called "waterproof" materials allow far too much moisture to accumulate in the place where i get cold first... my hands.

So i don't want to pay $50 for some nice gloves that i'll probably just lose and/or won't keep me dry and warm. And because i'm crafty i'd much rather be able to knit something at a fraction of the price. Browsing at all the handmade things at Etsy got me thinking... even wool yarn gets wet, right? Maybe i've found a solution.

The Knitter's Reviwe wrote Yarn Profile: Dalegarn Hauk four and a half years ago... and it looks promising. Not only is it wool, it's teflon coated so it repels water. Other water-repelling options seem to be tencel, yarn spun from ecospun (fiber made from soda bottles), jellycord, or fuax cashmere (though i'm not sure how warm all of these choices would be). i think that as soon as i find a job i'm going to have to buy some of this Hauk and knit myself some gloves or mittens. Yarndex features some Gryffindor colors, as well as some choices that would match my board nicely (it's even an affordable price). i'm excited that i discovered this! Thanks to Knit Lit and the power of Google!