Showing posts with label Stash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stash. Show all posts

13 September 2007

Feathers and Fans

Crazy feather yarn I purchased at Whitefish Bay Farm. The Turkey Feather Yarn was crafted by Fiber Artist Laurie Boyer in Wisconsin and consists of turkey feathers, Salish x English Leicester wool, and cotton thread. I have ten yards and am thinking of some sort of scarf/necklace thing to wear to a charity fashion show next month with a grey wrap dress.



And here is some 100purewool yarn for Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket from The Opinionated Knitter in Pasionaria for my brother-in-law-in-law's new baby girl (that would be my brother's wife's brother's baby). I haven't done one of these yet, but the yarn has been sitting in my stash for a while and needs knitting, and I think the variegated yarn should look lovely in this pattern.



And here is the Zephyr DK (which I consider more of an aran or knitting worsted) at the start of my Slouchy Cardi. First sleeve is complete, and I cast on for the back last night. I've come to the conclusion that for me, now, knitting stockinette back and forth is sometimes easier on my wrists than in the round a la Cobblestone. Knitting in one piece means you have the weight of all the yarn on your needles, even though it's distributed along the circular needle. Some knit-bloggers extol the virtues of top-down raglan knitting, but with Cobblestone I realized that I like knitting the sleeves and then attaching them to the body, rather than knitting the sleeves once the body is complete.



Loving the yarn! The sheen! The texture! I foresee more Zephyr in my future.

As for fandom, the new Knitty is up! Neiman would give me an outlet for the two skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk in Turquoise sitting in the stash. And it's a bottom-up seamless raglan. How apropros! And I haven't done any stranded colorwork yet, so this would be good. The other appealing pattern at first blush is Cinderella. I started a pair of socks recently using the Yankee Knitter family sock pattern (#29 at the bottom of the page) and some nice sock yarn from Laughing Rat Studio. I started out OK but got bored (sorry, sock knitters of the world!). But Cinderella may kindle an interest in socks again. I really like that heraldic pattern and had tagged it in my copy of BW's Second Treasury. Plus these are knit on US4s!

08 August 2007

Flitting

I've been swatching while coming down from the Icarus high.

First up is some Euroflax in, surprise!, blue. Unfortunately, my Bryspun US3 snapped about halfway through. Worn out from Icarus, I guess. I finished the swatch on US4. Clearly, the smaller needle size is better, but it's still a somewhat sheer fabric. Washing and drying it completely in the machine helped the hand. I don't have a US2 at hand, so I can't swatch it on twos, but I'm not sure I'd want to do a lot of stockinette on a two anyway for an entire skirt. Oh, right, I bought the yarn (on sale) to make the lacey skirt from Greetings from Knit Cafe. Jody beat me to it on doing the skirt in linen, and it's very cute. Love the variegated colorway! Anyway, here are the swatches. I think this project is going into a timeout until I can figure things out (get a US2 needle to swatch). Perhaps this will end up as something other than the skirt.



And here we have the love child of Cheryl Niamanth's Wisp and Jared's Scholar Collar in BMFA's Bliss (70% angora/30% wool blend) in the Periwinkle colorway. Sorry they don't have it on the site, except in the Angora Boot Sock kit; I bought the yarn at The Fold. As you can see I blocked the heck out of it (and really need to get my hands on some blocking wires). This is a garter stitch (Scholar Collar influence) cowl, essentially, and I'm going to complete the circle with some ribbon through the yarn-overs on the short edges (Wisp touch).

This yarn is divine, though it does shed. I tried to get a picture of the fluff on my t-shirt, but it's not easy to snap a pic of your tum. Hehe. I used the whole skein (100 yds.), and it only took me a few days of distracted knitting to finish this up on US9s (Bryspun, natch).


And here is my first Koigu. Isn't the colorway (P33231 - fuchsia, ballet, mocha, and lilac) beautiful! I think I may make a Clapotis with it. Someone on the Knitlist mentioned gifting three skeins to a friend, so when I was at Three Bags Full yesterday with a gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, I thought "why not?". I also bought some yummy yarn for a surpirse project, but the intended recipient reads the blog, so it will stay sooper secret until it's been gifted.


So, guys and dolls, that's where I am. It's pouring here, and Miss Isobel is still napping, so I'm catching up on Top Chefs.

05 June 2007

WWYD?

What would you do the day you got out of rehab? Would you call your daughter? Would you apologize to your soon-but-not-soon-enough to be ex-wife? You might. I'd like to think I would. But not that person.

I know this is a knitting blog, but I'm at this point where I can knit but I'm having trouble thinking about anything much. I go to sleep and wake up thinking about ... crap. (Sorry, I like to keep the blog clean, so insert the euphemism of your choice.)

The day I spent paying bills for the house that this man hadn't taken care of, I see on the online bank account that he has just ordered $150 worth of flowers from one of the nicest florists in town (Winston's, for Bostonians). Isobel didn't receive any flowers. Neither did I or his mother. So, that leaves that woman. Or as his mother calls her "his friend". Ugh. Double ugh.

And the realtor we should go with came in with the lowest estimate. I am so sick of all this. I can't wait for it all to be over.

In happier knitting news, I'm almost finished with the raglan rollneck sweater. Just a couple of inches to go on the second sleeve. And I'm so bored!!! All I want to do is knit something else. And the problem with top-down sweaters is that you have to do the sleeves attached to the body, which makes things a little awkward.

So, I started a Little Arrowhead Shawl by Pam Allen from the Summer '06 IK ("Sweet Somethings" towards the bottom of the page) with a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck in the Water "colorway". I'm using US6s, having swatched with US7s and felt it was too open with the sock yarn. The yarn is a treat (my third time knitting a shawl with it), and someday I'll have to make some socks with it!

I also ordered myself some pity yarn from Laughing Rat's etsy shop: some mohair for something and some merino lace for Icarus in a scrumptious Robin's Egg blue color, and sock yarn in lovely Pacific for something else. Her colors are very pretty, and she offers a number of yarn options and roving. I'll let you know what it's like when I have it in hand, probably tomorrow or Friday.

So, stash growth continues. As does the book stash! The woman who used to own my house dropped some knitting books off, and my MIL sent them on to me. I'll have to take a picture. The one that I am very keen on is Cheryl Potter's Handpaint Country. I wouldn't have bought it on my own. I think I have some issues with XRX book design. But there are a few designs in there I will knit, and I'm looking forward to learning more about dying.

11 December 2006

The first rule of Stash Club

The first rule of Stash Club: There is no Stash Club.

When organizing/assessing your stash, make sure your spouse/SO is somewhere else. Not in the next room watching the game and then wondering where you are. Somewhere else. Or just as your cat/dog/toddler will invariably join you in the loo, your SO will come upon you working on the stash and say "Holy bleep, that's a lot of yarn. Why do you keep buying more?"

What can I say?

It's never enough. There is always more. There are so many possibilities out there in the knitting world. Even more if you spin or dye, which I'm sure I'll do eventually.I think we knitters love possibility as much as finished objects. And I think many knitters love the process of knitting.

There has been a long-running conversation on the Knitlist about prices for knitted pieces. But I'm sure some knitters sell their knitted items to get them out of the house and make room for more. If knitting is your therapy and you've already made everything you could use yourself, why not make a profit from your therapy?

But I plan on some stash reduction come the new year. Or, as I like to think of it, 2007: The Year of Knitting for Meee.

I did find a verynearlyalmost FO in the stash. A beautiful little lacy cap from Knitting for Two that just needed the ribbons added, so I did that, and now there's something for my niece in the FO pile. Which is very good, since I seriously sliced my left pinky prepping dinner last night. Ouch! I had to just watch television last night, which made me mopey. Grandma's shawl definitely won't be complete by the weekend. And the SNL we watched was pretty mediocre. What is up with Gwen Stefani?!?

And I finished a mitten for DD from the handpaintedyarns Shells yarn before the injury. Just hope there's enough yarn left for the second. If not, I think I'll frog the scarf, since she doesn't seem that interested in it. Or the too small hat, though I was thinking of giving that to DN or a friend's new baby. We'll see.