uh oh

I'm still reeling from my yarn fever and it's apparent that I haven't fully recovered. I've seen this happen before. This is about how far it goes before one put herself on a yarn diet.

I bought this at lunch at Windsor Button. Malabrigo. My first.

I'm so utterly excited about this pure merino softness. Both will become hats for me.
I believe the blue one will be a Koolhaas.

Then I returned home to this on my steps:

That my friend is a whole mess 'o tweed. 17 balls of RYC Soft Tweed. This is for a still secret project.

So yeah. Gurl better stop buying yarn.

Here's what I've done on the Traveler's Stocking:

And I'm almost done with the back of the Minimalist:

When I finish the back of the Minimalist, I get to cast on for the Koolhaas.
I'm hopin' for tonight!!

Yarn Fever

I've got yarn fever.

In the middle of last week, I was almost convinced that perhaps my obsession with yarn and knitting had waned. It had been 4 weeks since I finished my class and I was knitting, but I wasn't really into it. I had finished Hubby's sweater and I wasn't really interested in anything. I visited Butterfly Yarns on Saturday for the first time since August. August, people. I went in to find a baby sweater pattern for some chunky yarn I had attempted to make into a sweater for myself, but that had failed miserably. At this point, I figured I might as well use up the stash if my knitting interest was fading.

I left with a pattern, some monkey buttons:

and some sock yarn (mostly because I felt like a fool not buying yarn and this was the most gorgeous charcoal gray I'd seen in a least a couple hours. Yes, I'm still dressing like an undertaker.):

It's Lana Grossa Seta Cashmere 65% wool, 15% silk, 16% polyamide and 4% cashmere. If you've got pattern ideas, I'm ready to hear them.

It was good to be back at the Butterfly. I adore Kim and she's always full of ideas.

On Sunday, I cast on for the Minimalist Cardigan. My Monday night group is knitting this together. I had hopes of showing up on Monday, but we got slammed with snow and I was too tired from hoofin' it around the city all day in my boots.



I've been working steadily on these socks since Christmas:


This is Cherry Tree in a colorway I don't remember. I bought it about a year ago at Windsor. I made a feeble attempt back then at a pair of socks. I've made myself a few pair of socks and none of them fit me well. Always too big, too loose. I ripped these back three times and I think I've got it. These are plain stockinette 60 stitches on size 1 addis. Eye of partridge heel, twisted rib at top and soon a kitchener toe.

I was working on these socks early this week when my inbox got hit with that disgustingly cute baby wearing my sweater. Hm... she needs another sweater...hm.... I just bought that pattern this weekend and what? I already have the yarn? So, I'm almost done with the hoodie version of the Oh My! Baby Sweater:

I see that disgustingly cute baby's mom on Wednesday night and I plan to deliver her another sweater. :)

So for someone losing their interest in knitting, this was a pretty production week right? This is where the yarn fever hits me. Thursday I impulse bought some Brooklyn Handspun in Persimmon (!!!!!!!!!). There is only one skein left folks. One skein. This yarn is a favorite of my pal The Nut and she carelessly made mention of it at our SnB on Thursday. This color caught me and I needed it. Again, pattern suggestions are welcome.

Then, I spent most of Friday morning *cough* working *cough* and mentally casting on for no less than 5 projects. Yes, mentally casting on. You know, a project comes at you from a website, a friend, a blog, and then next thing you know you're about to hit purchase on the pattern and trolling the web looking for just the right yarn at the cheapest price all the while your head is screaming "I NEED TO MAKE THIS NOW!!!", but you're at *cough* work and you can't and you already got a bunch of other things on your needles and "Oh hey, look at this sweater pattern..."
and there you are, off to cast on something else and repeat the whole process again.

Here are all the crazy ideas I had Friday morning. I'm not proud folks. I'm not ashamed either.

• Yesterday morning I listened the CRL episode with Debbie Stoller. I forgot that Son of Stitch 'n Bitch was out. I spent a good 30 minutes viewing the patterns on Ravelry. "Perhaps I should just order it from Amazon?", I pondered. I had decided that I needed to make a hat, a hat and mitten set and a sweater from this book.
  
• Then I spent some time looking at what yarns people are using to make their Tangled Yoke Cardigans. I've been wanting to make this cardigan so badly. I'm a little afraid of the fit. Leary of the cost of yarn.
  
• The Babette. Probably my craziest idea of the morning. For this I was going to enlist my grandmother to make squares for me. I don't know Ka-rate, but I know Ka-razy. I actually emailed my mother and asked if she thought my grandmother might want to make all these squares for me. Yeah. Not my proudest moment. It was the wool, officer. I had yarn fever. Temporary yarn-sanity.

I think I'm scaring the pooches. I think they're looking to escape.

Stash Enhancement

Butterfly had a sale on Saturday. Got some good stuff.


I got this to make an ascot type thing. I've been eyeing it for months. I'm gonna have to give it a try. It's Classic Elite Premiere cotton/tencel blend. Looking forward to working with this.


The color didn't come out well on this. It's a vibrant turquoise cotton blend. Two balls make a baby sweater!


This is the real pride of the trip: 8 balls of Spruce Green Skye Tweed at 40% off. Skye Tweed is discontinued and I'm thinking of a 3/4 length sleeve simple cardigan for this. I think that's a project for the fall though. I just hope I can do it with 8 balls. There's some of this on Ebay and I've been considering buying just one more ball to make sure. I'll think about it.

Elmore-Pisgah

I have no idea how to pronounce the company name, but I got a package from the lovely makers of Peaches & Cream 100% cotton yarn today. I ordered the "Mason-Dixon Pre-Pack Kit" which is a 12 pack of assorted colors. I'm so excited about this. I'm going to make Ballband Dishcloths.

What's that you say?

I know!! It IS exciting!!!

McOrganized

A yarn diet can be good. It inspired a closet clean-out. I forgot to take a before pic of the closet and really... thank goodness. It would have been embarrassing. Hubby has a stuff and stack policy about closets and to be fair I have a piling habit. Here's the progress:

I trashed at least 100 pounds of magazines. I filled a car load for the Salvation Army and my trash guys are gonna hate me come Thursday morning. It was quite a purge. Here's the clean closet. The bottom shelf is stash. It's not as bad as I thought. Quite manageable.
Here's all that remains. A pile of books that I need to take to work.
And as proof, here's the floor returned to clear. Luckily, I put Roxie in the "keep" pile.

Notions

Just for the record, it's a yarn diet. I'm allowed to buy notions. The whole point of this is so that I can finish things. Almost finished projects don't count.

I need a button to finish one project and I lost my favorite yarn needle. I'm going to Windsor today to take care of that.

Yarn Diet

Ok. Here's the deal.

I'm not buying anymore yarn in the month of February.

There. I've said it publicly. I've got too many projects half finished. I've been cultivating a bad habit. When there is a hitch in the plan or when something doesn't get finished on time, I ditch it. Yes, I admit it. I ditch it in its plastic bag and bury it beneath something on my desk. I move on to prettier, funner things.

Notes:

Notice I wrote "anymore yarn." That's because I made some stash enhancement purchases while visiting Milwaukee this weekend. Two Skeins:
1) I've already knit and completed the project.
2) I plan to not knit for a while. It's pretty. I need to stare at it for a while.

The last straw: Slippers. I was supposed to knit slippers for darling nephew and nieces. I knit one full pair for the youngest and one slipper each for the older two. The full pair was too small. Which means that the other slippers will be too small, which means starting completely over. I have to admit that I can't face this right now. But if I don't face it soon, it'll be June and wool slippers will be silly.

If I succeed, I can buy the Mason Dixon Pre-Pack of Elmore-Pisgah's Peaches & Cream cotton yarn.

Swiftly Tilting Planet

Behold:The first yarn on the swift and winder.
The first ball.
More yarn.

Ah. Yarn. Yarn in manageable, untangled, center-pull balls. Life is good.

Sccenic Lookout!!!!!

It's here! It's all mine!!Oh man! I want socks NOW.

Stash Update

 

I didn't do any Christmas shopping this weekend. I couldn't face the mall. The only shopping I did this weekend was a trip to the yarn store for gift supplies on Friday. 

Roxy is my girl!

After I took the stash pic, I left the yarn on the floor. I caught Roxy trying to steal my Noro three times. You'd think that I would just pick up the darn yarn, wouldn't ya? No. I left it. Mark caught her with it in her bed. She was lovin' it. She torn the skein all apart. Luckily, she didn't break the strand.



As I took pics of the damage, Roxy came back for another attempt:





It's a good thing this girl is cute. I've heard of bad things happening to those who mess with a knitter's stash! At least the girl's got good taste. Noro Silk Garden!

Secret Stash

So since Christmas is officially coming (yes, NORAD may not be tracking Santa yet, but November is upon us), the knitting of gifts has commenced. I bought yarn today for a few gifts, but I can't post it.

This poses a problem. Half the stuff I'm working on will be for others. Do I post or not?

Don't worry, if I do post, it probably won't be for you anyway. ;)

My work bag

Any signs of work stuff? Of course not! The tan is my sweater. The green is for my slippers. I brought that today in case I got bored with the sweater. I picked up the gray at Windsor Button.

New Addi Turbos!

I HAD to buy new Addi Turbo Needles to make my sweater. Darn! I almost have a full set: 1,5,6,7,8.

fingerless mittens

I get really bored with stockinette stitch. Since my sweater will be all stockinette, I will need something else to spice things up. (What? I can have 15 projects going if I want to! It's my blog!) My gauntlets work great when I'm chilly in 3/4 length sleeves, but when I'm wearing regular sleeves, my hands and wrists are still chilly. I need fingerless mittens! Right?! I'm making this with Misti Alpaca Worsted in color 6309 (which is not shown on the site). The pattern is Misti Cabled Thumb Mittens. YAY!

Felted Slippers

I am going to make myself cool felted slippers. I don't know if I'll make them with or without the strap. The yarn is Cascade 220 Wool in 2409. The pattern is Fiber Trends Felt Ballerina Slippers AC-14. This will be my first attempt at felting. Wish me luck!

Stash Update

 

I bought this a couple weeks ago at Woolcott's in Harvard Square. It's sock yarn, 100% wool. I had to get it because the colorway is called "Bearded Iris." Yes, it was made to come home with me. I'm thinking socks for your truly. ;) 

Yarn for my sweater

 

My yarn came in and I picked it up today. It's a little darker than I imagined, but I like it that way. It's just a taupe-y oatmeal color. I think it will look nice with jeans. 

Sangria Sock Yarn

 

A certain someone may end up with socks out of this. If I ever get to them. As you know my list is long. Maybe a Christmas gift. 

Sangria Lace Weight

Just got this in the mail today! Lace Weight Yarn that yes, will become a scarf - BUT a cool lacy scarf. Died in the Sangria colorway: orange and wine.