Yarn & stuff – Page 2 – Enchilada Sunrise

Autumnal Spring Cleaning

I’ve been having a really good clear-out over the last few weeks, and I’m starting to feel less mentally cluttered as well already. I’ve even eBayed more of my yarn. I know! Can I really be breaking my hoarding mentality? Well, no, not if you look at my bookshelves (MY books *clings*) and, uh, the remainder of my yarn stash. Not to mention the contents of my wardrobe and drawers… and a couple of suitcases… However, I am going to eBay some more stuff. Not yarn this time (although I might be able to persuade myself to part with a couple more skeins), but things like my spare Palm cradle (never used) and serial cable (not used since approx 3 computer upgrades ago)… oh, and I’m sure there are some other things. I have also sorted out more clothes and knick-knacks etc to go off to the charity shop. I think I still have more to do there, though!

Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit stalled on the whole thing because I’m still ill. Bleuch. I left the flat yesterday for the first time in about 2 weeks (alright, maybe my mental health hasn’t been ideal: being stuck indoors ill was threatening to push me into a ‘down’, but I think I’ve caught it in time) because I had to go to the Post Office, and stopped in to speak to the pharmacist on the way. She reckons I have bronchitis or a chest infection, and what with being asthmatic already, I’ve been told to go to the doctor tout de suite. I know, I know, I should have gone a week ago. I am Procrastination Woman. In this case, that’s particularly stupid of me since it means I’ve been propped at a weird angle in bed for several days since I can neither sit/stand up or lay down normally and breathe comfortably. V annoying. Oh well. I have an appointment this afternoon. I’ll be fixed soon. On the plus side, this whole thing seems to have sorted out my insomnia / wonky body-clock thing that I had going on: I’m now tired / sleeping during the actual night again, instead of being awake all night and tired or asleep all day. Hoorah!

In knitting news, I have got some work done on my WIPs. I really must remember to make a couple of posts about my current WIPs and recently completed FOs to spring-clean that off my mental to-do list. Mainly I’ve been working on “Mmm, Refreshers”, which is a Christmas gift. Can’t say anything else about it in case the recipient trundles over here. You never know with my friends and family *peers around suspiciously*. I’ve also done a bit of “WFS” (likewise, Christmas), and some of my Fireworks socks… which are for me me me, so there. Obviously I finished my Tête à Fetching (wore it when I went out yesterday), and I’m really chuffed with the response – some people have said they like it and want to make it, it’s in a few queues (and one in-progress!) on Ravelry, and I even got a really lovely comment from Cheryl Niamath who designed the Fetching gloves. :-) I’ll get the scarf pattern written up soon-ish as well, but I want to make a wider version of it for Mum first. Once I’ve finished something else, that is.

I actually think my WIP tolerance has been reached. If I cast on one more project, my head would explode. I can cope, just about, with the number I have going at once right now (8 plus 3 in hibernation) because I have a definite Christmas deadline for, um, three of them. Although I have at least two more things I wanted to cast on for gift knitting as well. Oh dear. But I’m not going to think about that now! The thing is, those gift knits are the ones which are taking priority, and the rest are pushed to the back-burner. Some more than others – I’m still working on my various pairs of socks (for me) every now and again, to give myself a break. It seems to be working. But anyway, like I said, I’ll make a proper all-about-my-WIPs post a bit later.

I didn’t find my gloves, by the way. So far I’ve been wearing my Fetchings or my Hurry Up Spring fingerless ones, but I’ve wound a skein of Yarn Yard Merino sock into a ball to make some new ones – I think I’m going to make cabled ones with that. And I did crumble and get ones of the glove kits, so I’m going to make a pair with that too.

Photo of Yarn Yard Merino Sock yarn 'Damson'

Photo of Yarn Yard Glove kit yarn 'Olive-ish'

Yay, gloves! I’m not allowing myself to cast on for them until I’ve finished a couple of my current WIPs, though. Preferably the Christmas gift ones, since those have a deadline!

Hmm, was there anything else I was going to say? I can’t think… oh! I remember. I found a (the) Holiday Gift KAL-CAL. Just what I wanted! I have duly signed myself up. Um. Oh yes, and I’ve been working on my next (final? I’m not sure if I’ll be sending one more package or if I’ll split it into two – Katie, do you have any preferences?) SP11 package. Mwahaha. Etc. ;-)

Right, that’s enough being upright for me for the time being. I’m going back to bed for a bit to listen to the radio / podcasts while knitting, then I shall get up again, have foooood, and get myself off to the doctor’s. TTFN!

Under the weather…. but presents cheer me up!

Oh, ick. I’ve been somewhat under the weather (physically… my mental health is still good, hoorah) for the last few days, and I thought I had a cold. But now I have the sneaking feeling that it might be something that’ll need antibiotics. Blech. I have that weird hollow-yet-tight feeling in my chest, I haven’t been able to breathe properly for a few days, and every muscle in my chest and upper back hurrrrrrts. *whine whine whine* And now I have that swollen-gland thing going on. There’s probably no point in going to the doctor just yet – I’ll wait a few more days and see if it goes away on its own. Although this has reminded me that I should get my flu jab done!

Anyway, I’m not going to moan on about that any more. If I disappear for a few days, I’ll probably be wrapped up warm in bed. Knitting, naturally. Hopefully it won’t come to that, though (the having to stay in bed, not the knitting – the knitting will no doubt happen anyway). :-)

So, on to the good stuff! I got my second SP11 package!! Wheeee, thank you Janey! :-D

Continue reading “Under the weather…. but presents cheer me up!”

Hi, my name is…

…and I’m a yarnaholic. Although when I follow that analogy through, perhaps it’s not quite accurate. Because it’s not my actual consumption of yarn that’s the issue. No, it’s that like many many knitters I have a little tiny stash problem. But then again, if yarnaholic = addicted to yarn, then I spose that works. The point is – and I do, usually, get to my point ;-) – I’ve come to the reluctant realisation that I have Too Much Yarn.

You see, I’ve been cataloguing my stash on the wonderful Ravelry, and this has meant hoiking out yarn that I haven’t even seen for about three years. And I’ve realised a couple of things about all this yarn. To me, “too much yarn” doesn’t mean that I have more yarn than I’m likely to use in the near (or far) future. It means that I have specific yarn that I now can’t see myself ever using for anything. In general, that’s yarn that I bought because it was too good of a bargain to pass up. Ahem. Well, we all do it!

So, what I have at the moment is pretty much this:

Doesn’t look tooooo bad, does it? Although when you bear in mind that of course the bags and basket are really packed full of yarn that you can’t see properly in the picture… Um. And I also have a large-ish box full of machine knitting yarn under my bed that I haven’t brought myself to drag out yet. Yeah, I need to start knitting faster. And knitting larger things again: I have the yarn for more than a couple of jumpers / cardigans. The top two boxes by the telly house my sock yarn. They’re a bit jammed. Oh dear, I’d better knit myself more socks. Shame!

So, what I’ve done is gone through everything and sorted out some things to go to charity, and some things to be sold on eBay. The ones that I’ve put on eBay are yarns that I bought because I liked at the time… but as I said above, I’m really never going to actually knit with them. They need to go to someone who can use them. For example, there was a time when I bought an awful lot of mohair because it was pretty and fuzzy and also very reasonable in the LYS. I did my typical thing of “ooo, I like! I shall have that colour and that colour and that colour, and…”. Yes. Four years later, I’ve knitted some of that yarn up, and now I just don’t have a use for the other colours of it! Some of it, I really do love the colour… for a hat, for example. Which I don’t want to make in that kind of yarn. Doh! But you learn these things with experience.

Therefore, to eBay it has gone. There are five lots of mohair (80-90% mohair or mohair/wool and acrylic blends), one lot of Jaeger Cadiz (silk/viscose), two lots of 100% wool fingering weight, and a Colinette pattern book. Help me de-stash!

Once I’d done that, I decided to work out, with the help of Lixie’s Stashtimator, how much yarn I now have left. Oh dear. Like I said before, I’ve got to start knitting faster, and most importantly knitting from my stash. Because I have:
Laceweight: 238g = 1.6 miles
4-ply / Fingering: 5805g = 13.2 miles (of that, Sock yarn: 3810g = 8.7 miles)
DK: 9640g = 13 miles
Aran: 3995g = 3.8 miles
Chunky: 1915g = 1.6 miles
Super Bulky: 1100g = 0.9 miles
TOTAL: 57626g = 34.2 miles

From now on, then, I’m on a yarn diet. This does not mean no more yarn: food dieting doesn’t mean stopping eating, after all! What I’m going to pledge to myself is to buy no more yarn for larger projects until I’ve used the yarn I already have, unless it’s for a gift (honestly: unlikely… gifts will probably be smaller things!), and to budget the amount of sock yarn / single skeins that I can buy. Yes, in this case, sock yarn does count as stash. Somewhat. ;-) Again, yarn for gifts and commissions doesn’t count, but I am going to try to knit from my stash for those as well where possible.

…… Wish me luck? (And buy my eBayed yarn! ;-) )

SP11 Package #1! :-D

So! My first SP11 package came! …. A week and a half ago. I’m a bad blogger and totally failed to post about it til now, but I did email my pal and gush a lot. *g* Also… I now, totally accidentally, know who she is! It’s because (a) she’s on my blogroll and Ravelry friends-list, (b) she really doesn’t live very far away from me, so even though all she put for a return address was a postcode, I recognised which town it was…. and (c) my suspicions were aroused because her real name was written on the little card that came with the scrummy hand-painted yarn she’d got me. So I asked her, and yes, it turns out she’s Janey. It’s kind of hilarious, because I was having such fun with the mystery aspect – not that knowing who she is has spoiled anything. But it’s fairly ironic that all those factors came together like that and gave it away. *g* Especially since I’m a relative newbie to the knit-blogging community and don’t know all that many people!

But anyway, on to the best bit: the PRESENTS! *mercenary* ;-)

I like the anticipation almost as much as the opening them up, so I took the box into my bedroom and sat on the bed to open it. When I opened it up, the gifts inside were beautifully wrapped in purple tissue paper and ribbon. So I carefully prodded them for a little while, and then took them out of the box and laid them on the bed…

Oooooo, exciting! Then there was some more prodding, and eventually, I started opening them. *g* Of course, the Xandermog had to come and investigate.

But there wasn’t anything edible for him, so he soon lost interest ;-) So, what did I get?

From the back: Thorntons fudge (omg yum: that didn’t last long!!). A wibbly-wobbly pen… because it has purple hair and therefore made Janey think of me! Thorntons strawberries and cream toffee (once again, yum!). Two balls of Debbie Bliss SoHo, because she’d noticed I haven’t yet tried any felting projects – and I do want to, so yay! A skein of gorgeous black and purple hand-painted sock yarn from Gemini Knits. A dinky little sheep notepad (cute!). A set of 2.5mm Brittany birch DPNS!!! An absolutely charming book of sheep pictures and verse. And last but certainly not least (except in size *g*), three of the cutest little sheep stitch markers in the WORLD. As you can see, they’re tiny – they’re for small needles too, so perfect for sock knitting. Yay! So here’s bigger pic of them. Look at their little faces!

Isn’t that awesome? I don’t know what I love the most… the yarn, the sweets, the stationary / sheepy things are all brilliant, and the sock yarn just couldn’t be better colours for me! But I think perhaps the adorable stitch markers, and the DPNs which were on my mental luxury wishlist (and which I admit, I’ve spent an awful lot of time just stroking!) have to come out on top. Just! Janey, you’re the best pal ever – THANK YOU!! :-D

To Frog or Not To Frog?

… That is the question. The other question is, hey where did the last week disappear to? Bzuh?? I know I was quite busy, but I didn’t realise it had been that many days since I posted last. Whoops! My Secret Pal package did arrive on Monday as expected, and yay, it’s awesome! But I’ll babble about that more in a separate post, because I haven’t uploaded the photos yet.

What I am going to babble about now is my frogging dilemma. See, I’m about 10-15% into my Forest Canopy Shawl, and it’s very pretty and all. But I’m not quite sure that Eva is the best yarn to use for it. It’s gorgeous and shiny, but it hasn’t got as much elasticity as an all-wool yarn, which means that the sl1 k2tog psso decreases look a little baggy. I’ve hibernated it anyway until I’m done with my Christmas knits, so I was thinking that maybe I should rip it. Because it also occurred to me that Eva would make the most beautiful Clapotis…

I know, I know: everyone and their dog / cat has already made a Clapotis, and I’m the last person in the world to jump on this particular bandwagon. You know, I wasn’t even particularly enamoured of the pattern until I started thinking how well Eva would suit it. And suddenly, it clicked for me. Well, I’m late to everything else, why not this too? It really would show off the yarn soooo well. As for the Forest Canopy? Well, I have a skein of PY Emily in some lovely shades of green that strikes me as rather… forest-y. Is that too predictable? I think it’ll look good, though, and I like green. So there ;-) Plus, I’m pretty sure that it’ll knit up better Emily. My other choice would be YY Merino, or possibly Sock, but I don’t have a colour in either of those that I want to use for the shawl, unless I used the YY August club yarn. But I have that earmarked for a particular sock pattern, so I don’t think I will.

I have another frogging dilemma as well, although this one is less of a real dilemma. A couple of years ago, I started knitting a zip jacket that was actually a man’s pattern by Debbie Bliss featured in Simply Knitting mag. Well, I say I started knitting it. I went out and bought the yarn (a substitute, but pretty well identical: Sirdar Denim Sport Aran instead of Debbie Bliss Denim Aran), and cast on. Aaaaaand that’s as far as I ever got! I spose I was distracted by other things (this was right before Dad’s accident) and somehow I never picked it up again. And then, in the most recent issue of Knitty, I saw Mr Greenjeans. Ooooooo, I thought. I like that! My first idea was that I could maybe use some Jaeger Matchmaker Merino Aran that I have lurking in my stash for it – it’s a lovely dark green colour, and I’ve been wanting to find something to use it for for ages. But when I double-checked, I don’t have enough of it. D’oh!! (One of these days, I might pick up some complementary yarn and make a Tubey with it. That would be nice.) So I kind of figured I’d have to give up on the idea of that cardigan for a while, until it suddenly struck me that I have that Denim Sport Aran sitting around not being knitted. Was I really ever going to knit the zip jacket? Probably not. So I think I’m going to use that yarn for the Mr Greenjeans instead. The only thing that’s vaguely bothering me is that I’m not 100% sure the yarn is actually very me. Will I wear a blue denim-effect cardi? Oh, I spose I will. I could think of it as work clothing! At-the-computer attire. After all, it won’t show the cat hair as badly as all my black clothes do. *g*

I spose that’s decision made, then. Zip jacket thing: Frog, and re-purpose the yarn as a Mr Greenjeans. Forest Canopy: Probably frog, re-purpose the yarn as a Clapotis, then re-start with the green PY Emily. Hoorah! (This isn’t helping my startitis any, you know….)

I’m back!

I did say I was going, didn’t I? I’ve been off in Manchester at the TRA Meet-Up 2007, which was the best con evah. Seriously. Actually, it was more like a pilgrimage than a convention – it wasn’t the kind where several hundred fans are packed into a hotel for a weekend and queued past actors. Which, hey, I’ve been to plenty of and enjoyed very much! But somehow this was better: there were just 50 or so of us, and we visited various filming locations, “met” the Camberwick Green puppet of Sam, and got to sit in the Cortina! So yes. Pretty much the best Life on Mars geekfest possible. There was even a party with fab 70’s style buffet food (and a pub quiz) on the Saturday night. The girls who organised it really went all out and made it a seriously memorable weekend for everyone, plus I met some lovely lovely people. Whee!

I got back down from Manchester on Wednesday evening at…. late-ish. I had to hang around in London for a while to avoid the rush hour – I did think about braving it, but I didn’t really fancy possibly standing all the way to Hastings with my backpack on. I was wiped out when I got home, so I kind of fed the cat and fell into bed at that point. Since then I’ve been (a) recovering and (b) working. Or is it the other way around? Nah, maybe not. ;-) I’m just in the process of ploughing through my email, so if you’re expecting to hear from me… I may be gone some time! Oh alright, I’m being over-dramatic. Hopefully I won’t take very long – at a quick glance I see I have mail from my SP to answer *waves*.

In knitting stuff, I did get a fair bit done on the train journeys, which was nice. I made my second Fetching, and a good start on my first Hedara sock. More about those later when I have photos to prettify the post. Listened to plenty of knitting podcasts, too, which enlivened the whole travelling thing. Hoorah!

I got my Yarn Yard club parcel yesterday, too. :-D I don’t think I mentioned last month’s, which I loved as well. This one is scrummy – I won’t describe it just yet in case there’s anyone reading (is there anyone reading? At all? *g*) who’s in the club and hasn’t had theirs. But it’s bright and delicious, and there were sweets in the package as well! Yum!! I think I definitely do want to use the accent quarter skein for toes and heels this time. I’m just not sure whether to make plain stst socks or do something with a little bit of a pattern / texture. I’ll think on it. And post photos in a couple of days when I’ve taken them.

Right now, though? Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Die Wolle!

Also! Ich kann nicht gut Deutsch spreche, aber wolle ich für einer blog Eintrag es versuchen. Ich habe aus BockstarkKnits einen Preis gewinnt! (And really, me writing this in German is silly, since the fab Kris who runs the site is actually an American expat.) Letze Samstag, es kam mit der Post: eine handgemacht strickendes Projekt Tasche, und ein schön Strang das grün Sockenwolle. Klasse!
So, yeah, if you didn’t get that, or are still in hysterics over my crappy grammar (please feel free to correct me, because I know I’m rubbish but I’m trying to re-learn!), what I’m trying to say is that I won this fabulous sushi-pattern handmade project bag and a skein of German indie-dyed yarn (from Tausendschön) in Kris’ last competition on her site. They arrived in the post last Saturday (yes, I know, I’m slow at posting about it!), and I love them :-) So hey, here’s a photo:

I love the contrasting lining of the bag… and it’s kinda cool to have a fishy one, because woe, I can’t eat sushi (or any kind of seafood) because I seem to be allergic to it. But at least now I can look at it! Also, check out that lovely green yarn. I don’t know if Kris knew this before she sent it, but I loooove green, and this is a particularly yummy shade.
So in conclusion – yay! Thank you Kris! Vielen Danke!

Oh! Excitement! I won!!!

Duh, I know what I wanted to say! I AM A WINNA! And stuff like that. To my huge excitement, I won the prize draw that Kris ran on Bockstark Knits for a handmade sushi pattern project bag (kind of ironic, since fish makes me ill, but I’m quite happy to look at the stuff, after all! *g*) and a skein of German indie dyed sock yarn. Bweeeee!
I am a happy bunny. Tired. But happy!

[Listening to: Sticks and String – Show 12 – ]

Swatcharama

So, I finally beat that skein of Eva Tuscany into submission and got it wound into a ball! Woohoo! However, I have to admit… I did resort to scissors. I tried for three whole days (on and off, not constantly, obviously) to detangle it. And I suppose I could have unwound the 1/3 I already had on the ball-winder. But that just seemed like the road to further tangling, so in the end I took a deep breath, and…. snipped. Once I’d done that, the detangling actually went dead fast, and as you can see I now have a lovely neat centre-pull ball. Two extra ends to be woven in, yes, but never mind.
So, I’ve been busily swatching away. I’ll be making the Forest Canopy Shawl with it, and as Eva 4ply’s not the same weight as the recommended yarn (which I think is a worsted weight), I needed to figure out which needle size I want. This is a pattern which is fairly friendly for using different weights of yarn, and gives lots of comprehensive information on the pre-knitting part of the process – three whole pages, in fact! Since this is my first big lace project (hats, socks, and even BP (which is ‘big’ but only a very simple lace pattern) don’t count) it’s nice to have clearly laid out instructions and suggestions like that.
Anyway! I started out with 4mm needles, but that gave me a gauge of 24×28, when what I was after was 22×14. I have no idea how that can be, actually – surely you normally get more rows to a gauge than stitches? Stitches are wider than they are high. I’m wondering if that’s a typo, and it should actually be 22×24? You know what? I think it has to be. I’ve just had a glance through every pattern I have to hand (which is quite a few, since I just printed a whole slew from Knitty), and 22sts x 24rows makes far more sense. Also, that’s the gauge I’ve now got by swatching on 4.5mm bamboos, and I like the way that knitted up as well. Drapey, but not too floppy.
So that’s what I’ve decided on: Forest Canopy shawl in Posh Yarn Eva 4ply ‘Tuscany’, on 4.5mm needles. As I mentioned above, I’m starting off on bamboo straights, but when it grows too big I’ll have to move it to circulars. I’ll need an 80cm one, I think, and I don’t actually have a 4.5mm one in that length.
I wonder if it’s worth getting a set of Denise’s or Boye Needlemasters? I’m drawn to the Boye ones, because they’re shiny. Literally shiny: multicoloured metallics. Shiiiiiiiiiinyyyyy. Plus, I think they have a couple more sizes than the Denise set. If I learned the Magic Loop technique, I could use them for the sock knitting as well, and not need to get the new DPNs that I was coveting. Anybody have them, and/or have any opinions on which might be better? Or if it’s worth it at all? This would also solve the possible problem I have with making Fetching from PY Sophia 6ply – I’m not sure that 4mm needles are going to get the right gauge for that. Although of course, going up to 4.5mm might make the fabric too floppy, in which case I’ll just have to get some 8ply instead. Maybe I should have gone for that in the first place.
Still, I spose there’s only one way to find out: SWATCH!

Skein Wars: The Yarn Strikes Back!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posh Yarn’s Eva Tuscany foils my attempt to wind it from a skein to a ball. Maybe it objects to the ancient knitting-machine ball winder? O.o