One of my latest acquisitions is 2 skeins of the new Spud & Chloe Fine, which is sort of like sock yarn but is an 80/20 blend of wool/silk, so to me seems destined for shawldom. The color palette in all their yarns is quite beautiful, full of bright clear colors that would make great kid’s items . . . but for my taste the color palette is a bit boring. I wish there were more “off” colors, and if the people at the LYS are right, more colors are coming in shortly. I can’t wait to see them!
The yarn itself is quite nice, I started swatching with it already and it’s got a great hand and incredible stitch definition. I think this one’s going to be a quick favorite!
I took Thursday & Friday off last week so I could hang with my sister and dad who were in town . . . after they’d both left on Friday I took the opportunity to go back to my old store, String! I pretty much never get to go there because it’s in a neighborhood I’m almost never in, so it was nice to be able to make a dedicated trip to the East Side to catch up a bit and check out the new yarns. Of course I couldn’t leave empty-handed now, could I??
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Folks, I think my Koigu problem is only getting worse, not better. Here’s the batch I couldn’t say no to yesterday, and I’m almost 100% sure that one of these colors is already in my stash. And I thought of that before I bought it, and bought it anyway. They’re just so pretty!
I’m definitely making a shawlette for me out of the 410 (the purplish red color on the bottom left), maybe my next design will use this color. It’s a perfect blend for me, dark enough to not wash me out and colorful enough to not be boring to knit with! And as a bonus, it seems to photograph well, which is something I so struggle with when it comes to knitting designs in colors I want to wear. Seems like a winner all around! And yes, that’s the one I’m pretty sure I already own . . .
I’m going to a wedding in Vermont this weekend so that’ll be like 10 hours of car knitting roundtrip, most of it with daylight . . . gotta plan what I’m bringing to knit so I don’t end up bored and/or running out! That would be just awful.
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I just stumbled across this Babette Blanket yarn pack from Yarnzilla and the above photo is so gorgeous, I am seriously considering ordering it! I’ve never bought anything from Yarnzilla before but I see they offer discounts based on price (the way WEBS does), so assuming you’d get the 25% discount, you could buy this pack for only $222.75! That’s a really great price, and just look at those colors! But I can’t tell from the website description whether the discount applies to yarn packs . . . although you would think it does, after all what’s the difference between ordering 22 skeins of koigu or ordering this yarn pack, right?
This is crazy, I do not need another 22 skeins of Koigu! Must. Resist.
They only have 2 kits in stock — can someone else please go buy them before I lose my mind?
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Bad cold plus grumpy mood = need for retail therapy! This color of Koigu KPM had to come home with me . . . such a gorgeous shade of orange sherbert! If only I knew someone having a little girl, I would definitely use this for a baby gift! Oh well, guess I’ll have to knit something for myself then . . .
(color is 1113, btw)
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Hold the presses everyone! This is MAJOR news!
After an entire knitting career where I couldn’t hold a strand of yarn much thinner than fingering weight, as of yesterday afternoon I can knit with laceweight yarn! The picture above is yet another Leila sample (I’m insane, I know!), this time knit with Malabrigo Laceweight on size 3 needles. This lace yarn is the ONLY laceweight yarn in my stash, bought solely because it was so gorgeous I couldn’t NOT buy it. The color (it’s 92 – Little Lovely) spoke to me and said “buy me just to look at me!” and I just couldn’t resist. I even wound one ball, just to see how the colors would play together in the actual knitting, but then I stuck the yarn on a shelf and never intended to try to knit with it, ever.
Fast-forward to yesterday, when I was trying to edit the full-size version of the Leila pattern and I got stuck. After getting really annoyed with myself, I decided there was no way around knitting the full-size version again to double-check the pattern before sending it to the testers . . . but then I realized I had nothing in the stash that was the same gauge as the Fleece Artist Cashlana I had used other than the exact same color Cashlana. And there was no way I was knitting the exact same shawl with the exact same yarn and color! Even in the interest of an error-free pattern, that was too much for me. So I went digging for something else in the “thinner than fingering” category and found these two skeins of laceweight and thought I might as well try it.
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by Ivete on May 12, 2009
in Yarn
That ball sure looks innocent enough, doesn’t it? Well, don’t let it fool you. This little bugger took me 2 HOURS to wind last night! This hank of Fleece Artist yarn, like several of the others I’ve dealt with in the past, looked like a normal hank that should have wound up without a problem. It really did. But when I started winding, it quickly became apparent that it was going to be one of THOSE hanks. You know the type. Every few turns around, you get stuck and need to weave your tiny little ball through the strands to free it again, only to try to get into the winding rhythm again and immediately have to stop. Again.
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Sunday was a gorgeous day so I headed out to the closest Farmer’s Market, which unfortunately is still kind of far away from our apartment. I didn’t find anything I really wanted to buy there, but I did end up going to Knitty City since it’s only a few blocks away from the market, and of course I left with some new yarn! Above are two skeins of Claudia Hand Painted Yarns’ Chunky Merino in the color Hawaii — I just could not resist the colors in this yarn! I’ve never worked with any Claudia yarns before, and didn’t even know she MADE a chunky weight wool, but when I saw this I just had to have it.
This wool is not labeled superwash, and thankfully doesn’t FEEL like superwash either. It’s got a great twist to it and is a very round yarn, so my stitches are coming out beautifully even in stockinette. I’m making a top-down earflap hat, and I’m loving the way the colors are flashing and pooling. Strangely enough, when I tried doing a 2-row jog with this yarn like I do when knitting with just about any handpaint, the colors pooled MORE, not less! So I am just working from the one ball and hoping the transition to ball #2 won’t be so bad — it’s going to happen near the hem, which will be in garter stitch and will therefore help disguise any color change, so I’m pretty confident it should look ok.
What’s that you say? You don’t believe I walked out of a yarn shop with only 2 skeins of yarn?
Well, you’re right!
These beauties also came home with me! This is Punta del Este Mericash Handpainted, which is another yarn I’ve never seen before. I’ve worked with some other Punta del Este yarns and really loved both the yarn and the finished projects, so when I saw this gorgeous color and felt how soft the yarn is, I really couldn’t leave it on the shelf. Had there been more matching skeins, I probably would have bought more! In this picture you can see that the 2nd-from-the-right skein is a little off in color, but these 4 were the best I could do in matching the skeins . . . I expect that a little 2-row-jog action should yield a perfectly acceptable color distribution.
I’m picturing a pullover with a wide neckline and maybe some directional changes to play with the yarn’s color . . . I wonder if the rain we had all day yesterday and so far today is to blame for my winter-ish knitting? You’d think I would be looking forward to hot weather and knitting a cotton something, but all I can think about right now is wrapping up in something wooly cozy and staying indoors out of the rain!
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by Ivete on November 6, 2008
in Yarn
The election is over and I am so proud of this country. My first time voting in New York City went very well (only took about 45 minutes) and I’m proud that my guy won. Here’s hoping we see more brightness in our future!
Zen String Serendipity sock yarn in Dahlia
This yarn’s bright cheeriness makes me think of the election outcome!
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by Ivete on September 4, 2008
in Yarn
The apartment’s coming right along — our couch was delivered today and the cable and internet were hooked up yesterday. The TV/internet is especially good news, because a few days without either led to a lot of voyeuristic behavior I didn’t know I had in me . . . although it started innocently enough when we discovered we could clearly see our neighbor’s giant flat panel TV across the way, it quickly deteriorated into trying to figure out if he was wearing any pants as he did the dishes . . . see for yourself:
Hum, I just noticed you can see a second TV at the bottom of this shot, too! But those people have blinds, the shirtless guy doesn’t have anything up in his windows! If you’re curious it did turn out he was wearing pants, by the way.
Anyway. With hopes of getting everything unpacked, I spent a few hours last night setting up my desk and trying to put the yarn away. Trying being the operative word. This is what I have so far as my office/yarn area in a corner of our bedroom:
What you can’t see in this shot is the 2 giant bins full of yarn that are on the floor with nowhere to go, and the pile of extra yarn that didn’t fit into these cubes or the bins. I guess I need to knit faster.
Since I had to decide where to put each thing, I decided to think it through and put things in logical places; the summer yarn, which I know I won’t be touching until next year, went into the extra bins. The almost-done projects went into the tops of the cubes, with not-as-done ones lower down and not-yet-started-ones at the bottom. I figure if I can see this stuff more easily, I might just work on it! Which would definitely be a step in the right direction . . .
While watching Project Runway last night I finished a super-boring scarf in 1×1 rib for Adam, to replace an identical one that has angora in it that he wears even though it sheds all over him. He seemed really happy with it when I handed it to him, we’ll see whether that translates into submitting to an FO shot wearing it (I really doubt it)! I am also almost finished with the 2nd cowl, and would have been done already had I not bought a book that I then couldn’t put down . . . I’m aiming to finish it tonight.
Which reminds me that I owe you guys a picture and pattern for the feather and fan cowl. I will try to get that up this weekend, sorry for the delay! Who knows, maybe I’ll even do the same for the second cowl . . .
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by Ivete on August 28, 2008
in Yarn
According to our moving plan, last night was the time to pack up all my yarn into garbage bags and take it to the new place. I rationalized that the yarn is so bulky yet so light-weight that it would be silly to have the movers take it, so decided to move it myself beforehand. I estimated I would have about 6 garbage bags full of yarn once I condensed it all . . . yeah, try 9 bags. Heavy, overly-full, large size garbage bags.
There was an entire garbage bag full of just sock yarn.
And one of odds and ends.
The moment of truth last night went something like this: Hi, I’m Ivete, and I buy too much yarn.
So I’m declaring a moratorium on yarn buying until the new year. Four months seems like a completely-doable and yet slightly scary length of time to commit to, yet completely appropriate given just how much yarn I have. Deep down I know I probably won’t make it the whole way, but I will count my Diet a success if I do a good job of finishing some outstanding projects and, more importantly, publish some new patterns. Hopefully those two goals will lead to a shrinking stash, too!
In all honesty, the amount of yarn I have isn’t the real issue. If I were being productive and releasing patterns at a faster rate, this quantity of yarn would seem reasonable, even appropriate. But considering how far short I’ve fallen off my self-publishing goals, it’s easy to see that I make myself feel better by buying more yarn, which then distracts me from the almost-finished designs and then makes me feel bad again. It’s a vicious cycle and I don’t like it! I blamed my lack of production during the last 6 months on wedding planning, but the truth is that I could have been more productive than I was, I just didn’t know how to motivate myself to do it. I’m not sure I know the answer now, but I do know that shiny new yarn is a gigantic motivator!
So here’s to more output and less buying. Hopefully the blog, and all you faithful readers, will benefit from my Diet as well.
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