Project Updates and Stash Enhancement

Some of the yarn I got for Christmas. This is alpaca sock yarn. How yum is that!?!

Knitpick Essential (soon to not be named Essential anymore so now it's a collector's item!) that Jason got me for Christmas. I looove the color. I think it's destined to be Monkey's.




The four above are all Manos del Uraguay The bright teal and the orangey one are their bulky wool, and the wine and the grey tones ones are the wool/silk blend. All four are sooo delicious to touch. Got these at a huge discount in Brevard at Charlotte's Fibers for her pre-Superbowl sale.


Also purchased at Charlotte's Fibers at the same sale, these are both JoJoLand Melody, and will made wonderful socks that do not have to match. Hooray!

Marie has made several of these really awesome ribbed vests that while they seem like endless knitting would be awesome for keeping warm. So I bought this Fibranatura Mermaid in a luscious red color to make one for me.

This seemingly tangled mess is destined to be a Colinette Absolutely Fabulous Throw, when I get the nerve to wind all that yarn and get started with miles of feather and fan.


The above are the fourth and fifth installments of the Seven Deadly S(p)ins club, Pride and Greed. Both of these I plan to finish, though at the rate I knit, who knows when I'll get to them.

My Malabrigo hat. I love the colors .. I think I could have made the hat a little bigger, though. but the thought of ripping out to make it bigger is so daunting. I know I should but .. ugh!

There actually has been a great deal of progress on the Wrapigan. I'm to the second armhole now .. just started the second ball of the yummy alpaca I'm using, and though I'm dreading binding off and casting on all those stitches, because then it's just another mile of stockinette before I can bind off and be done, it'll be so worth it to have this to throw on when I'm chilled.

One thing I'm sad about is that the end of the shaping part meas the end of using my cute little bee stitch marker. Jason got me these for Christmas. Six bees, plus a single rose. So cute!

This is a project I started just to use up some stash. It's Brooks Farm Duet in a deep foresty-green. I'm making one of those really simple triangle shawls .. for as long as the yarn will hold out. I have no idea if I have enough to make this any substantial size, but we'll see. If not .. well, I can always frog and try something else.

The sixth installment of the Seven Deadly S(p)ins club was Envy .. not Lust as I suspected it might be with Valentine's Day coming up. It's beautiful, though. Handwarmers. I can't wait to get these started!

I made this to be the cover for a rice-bag I haven't yet made. It'll be perfect for my stiff and sore neck though.

I have recently spent a lot of time photographing and adding stash and projects to my Ravelry. There was a ton that I hadn't entered .. there likely still is a bunch I need to deal with .. the cotton, for example, I just dread doing because I have a ton of 1s and 2s of things, and that's just a lot of photos to take. I'll get it done. plus there's stuff I still need to enter .. random stuff I've picked up in swaps, etc. pretty stuff, but I just need to account for it. I try to keep myself accountable for the yarn I have.

Some of the prettier stuff I'm showing off here, mainly because I can.







I've been working on a lot of things .. handwarmers, hats for charity (once I can find the needles I need), still slogging away at the wrapigan. The sweater's on hold, mostly because I've been working on other things. Marie taught me how to weave my ends in as I knit, and how to do the Turkish Cast On, which is the coolest thing ever, so I might be cranking out some holiday gifts here soon.

Yummy

First of all, I have all but finished the Peacock bag I was working on. I just need to figure out just what I'm going to do about handles. I might just make the ones the pattern calls for .. but I also kinda wanna create a drawstring to close it, so I dunno.

Let me tell you .. seed stitch in the round? Easy peasy. but oh my gods did I mess it up about a billion times. At least I never got but a few stitches before I'd realize, and tink back.

This picture doesn't show the stitch definition as well, and is closer to the actual colors, at least on my monitor. I have just loved knitting with this ribbon, and have a skein left .. before making the handles at least. I'll probably still have a skein, or most of one, once I do the handles. Could have made the bag longer but .. why?

Details, as always, on Ravelry.

I also have done a little stash enhancing. We went to the Yarn Shop in Pineville ... I think I went in looking for needles, and Jason wanted something to make a cute dishcloth he found. Well, as usual, there was something I just couldn't pass up. This time it was three somethings.

I have wanted to try the corn-fiber yarn for as long as I've known about it, and they had a bunch of it on clearance. Now, I know that means it didn't sell well and all. But c'mon. It's corn fiber. That's cool! So I bought this little grab bag which also has a funky ribbon yarn in it along with two balls of the variegated purple. Jason and I were talking as we picked up our lunch, and decided to go back to see if they had anymore. And we got there in the nick of time! THey were just closing. In fact, Hattie had already closed the register down. But they let me pick out all the A-maize-ing and put it aside for me. I went and picked it up yesterday. Quite a bit of yarn, let me tell you. but I think I'm going to use it to make bags similar to the Peacock, only smaller.

I love Araucania's yarns. I dunno what it is about them .. and I haven't actually knitted up any that I have. But I love them just the same. So when I saw this little beauty in with the cottons, I had to have it. I'm probably going to use it to make something for the 'Wrath' project from Seven Deadly S(p)ins, since the projects we were sent aren't exactly Wrath-ful. Not that I mind. I absolutely love the project we were shipped, and really need to get started on it.

It's got this almost-boucle texture though, so I don't think I can make the Sheepie cloth with it. The soap sack though, for certain.

Last but certainly not least is this cotton. It is Araucania's Nature Cotton, and it is heavenly. Very very splitty, sad to say, and Jason's ball, which is much darker colors, gave us fits trying to wind it out of the skein. But it's lovely and soft and I almost want to never use it. Almost. I think it's going to make a beautiful dishcloth. Probably a washcloth, actually. I can't see using something this soft and luscious on my grubby dishes.

Kitty pr0n

This is the good kind. I was going through my memory card today, and found a bunch of Isis shots I never posted. And since she's been Miss Bitchy Cat lately, I'm thinking it might be that she's upset for not being a feature of my blogging.


Kitty in her daddy's arms. She spends as much time as felinely possible in this position. As often as her daddy will tolerate her there anyway.

She was very curious about the strange spinning thing when it first arrived. Not so much now, so I'm glad I got a few shots. (Now she just chases the fiber as Jason's spinning it.)


Fiercen kitzen! (Actually, I woke her up from a kitty-nap and she yawned at me. But isn't she just darling?)





All together now. Awwwww.

Jealousy and Porn and other things.

First of all, Haphazard Knitter has knitting-themed refrigerator word magnets. I'm so jealous!!!

And .. did I promise porn? I think I did. Lemme pull some of it out to add to the drooling of this deliciously hot friday. Really, I mean hot. I think it came close to 80 degrees today. Yes. In November. (Which reminds me, I need to look up the origin/meaning of 'Indian Summer'.)





That is, from top to bottom, some Tiny Toes I got to make a beautiful beaded scarf (picked up at SAFF of course), some Knit Picks Shimmer I have for a shawl I want to make for Larissa, the dear friend that taught me to knit, and the Lorna's Laces Mother Lode sock yarn I got from my Yarn Aboard benefactress, that I'm just looking for the -perfect- sock pattern for. I'm afraid that any of the more detailed patterns might be a bit too much for this beautiful colorway.



I promised a photo of my book stash .. there it is, meager as it is for now. But I've got more on my Amazon Wish List, and a few more coming, thanks to my darling husband. He just purchased himself a spinning wheel, so I get to get books and such. Nice trade, hmm?

Yarn Porn

I just have to share some of my yarn porn. I can now have yarn porn, because I have a camera that will take the kind of pictures that I've seen others taking. These are some shots of the yarn I picked up at SAFF.


My beautiful, yummy, pettable angora, in 'creme', as it says on the tag. Oh, my heavens, but this is yummy. Yummy enough to make me want to buy bunnies, and make my own.


Some laceweight mohair I picked up at the place I later got my walnut swift. It's beautiful and cranberry and soft and just yum.


Three beautiful skeins of alpaca, lovingly offered to me by Magnum, Blitz and Hershey the alpaca.


Two skeins of bulky alpaca, the first alpaca I picked up during the trip. These came from Willy and Rose.


This is some absolutely delicious mohair/wool/silk blend I picked up. This is the yarn that matches my hair, and is destined to become a sweater.




My swtach of said yarn, with some ribbing, some seed, and at the top, the stitch pattern of the sweater I've chosen to make. Isn't the yarn just luscious?




Two more hanks of simply yummy wool/mohair/silk blend, in a deep foresty green and a not-annoying pink, destined to become a shawl of some sort, I think. I haven't decided yet, but between them I have like 750 yards.


A grey-green mohair/wool blend from Tintagel Farms, and a burgundy/brown/purple mohail/wool boucle from Persimmon Tree Farm. Also destined to become a shawl of some sort or another.