I have been exceptionally bad recently, or good, depending on how you look at it. Since, as mentioned previously, I decided not to go to Rhinebeck this year, I splurged and bought quite a few things that I probably shouldn’t. The upside of this is that I have lots of new pretty yarn, and the downside is that I’m running out of storage. I also joined a sock of the month club from Spinning Bunny, and I’m waiting to see if I can get on the list for the Rockin’ Sock Club at Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I don’t have my hopes up for that one, because it’s so popular, but I decided it can’t hurt to try.
I did end up buying the vineyard heather from knitpicks for Secret of the Stole and it’s a lovely color, a burgandy red winey color. It’s finer than I expected, just a touch heavier than misti alpaca, and quite soft. I bought some blue moon e and seed beads yesterday to add, since it’s a beaded shawl, and they look quite nice on the swatch I started knitting. Here’s a nice picture of the yarn all balled up and some of the beads I’m going to use.
I ran out earlier today after reading that prethreading the beads is discouraged in this pattern and got a size 12 crochet hook. Luckily The village yarn and fiber shop, which has recently moved to a new location, had just gotten a new shipment of needles and crochet hooks and they had some. I’ll have to go back next week to peruse the new stuff once it’s stocked.
Other knitpicks purchases included some sock yarn (Essential in pumpkin, grass, dusk, and ash) some different colors of Palette to practice fair isle, 24″ harmony needles in sizes 0 through 3, and 4 and 6 in 16″. I also have size 6 and 7 in dpns, because I apparently didn’t have either size in wooden needles. I cannot wait for ravelry so I can have somewhere I can keep track of my needles. While I suppose it would be easy to make a spreadsheet to do this, I am what the experts call super lazy, and would rather wait. There’s only about 300 people in front of me now, so hopefully I’ll get my invite tomorrow!
Anyway, back to the yarn. I bought Ornaghi Filati Merino Oro in Fern Green for the Print O’ the Wave shawl for my grandmother from Yarn Grove, and some in charcoal for my stash. I also ordered a pair of addi turbo lace needles, size 2 US because I clearly knit a lot of lace, and I wanted to see if these are as great as promised. Since I was splurging anyway. I really liked my experience with yarn grove, everything came very quickly and they sent me an email when the order was shipped. There was also one in the package itself, which was a nice touch. The yarn itself is beautiful, nice and soft, except it was extremely frustrating to wind by hand. I managed it in two nights, but I had to split the skein in half because of an impossible knot, unfortunately. I wish I had a swift, but I can’t justify one to myself when I could spend the money on yarn. I’m going to wait to wind the charcoal yarn because I don’t need it now, and hopefully I’ll get a swift for christmas. Otherwise I might have to break down and get one myself, since I have tencel I’m afraid to wind by hand, as well as some other lace weight yarns waiting to be used.
From Yarnzilla, I got some long sought after seasilk in the marine colorway, and some seawool in the mermaid colorway to make in to socks. I think I might use the seasilk to knit the shoalwater shawl instead of the cherry tree hill silk, and I’ll use that for another project. The seawool I got to make some special socks, it’s super soft, but not in the same way that something like alpaca is soft. It’s neat stuff.
From Woodland Woolworks I bought a few different colors of misti alpaca lace, charcoal for Muir for my mother, which has quite a bit more green in it than I expected, but I think will go with the pattern fairly well. I got some dark chocolate brown because I’ve taken to wearing quite a bit of brown and figured it would be good to have, and some pine green to use to make the acadia shawl that I have vaguely forming itself in the back of my mind. I’ve named it already, and have a sort of idea of what I want it to look like, but I’m not skilled enough in either lace or pattern design to create it yet. But I have yarn ready when I am.
While I was waiting for the various and sundry packages to come I started working on seaside from magknits, and after fighting with the beads for awhile got them all strung on the yarn correctly. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first glove, and I’m hoping to finish it this weekend sometime. I’m also planning on casting on/swatching for most of the yule projects, and probably seeing if I can find some worsted yarn for my sisters mittens and hat. She wants it to match the brown of her snow boarding jacket, and now that I’ve seen the brown, I have a better idea of what to go on. It’s a pity she doesn’t want it to match the teal on her jacket, because teal is a much easier color than the brown-green that her jacket is. I could always kidnap it and take it over to new york knits to see if I can find a good match.
I swatched the delft heather with US 3 needles, and the fabric is too dense for the scarf I’m going to knit with it, so I’m upping the needles to US 4’s. I do like how the yarn knits up though, and it’s a nice heather medium blue, it should make a nice version of henry for my brother. The 3 needles would work fine I think, except that I knit so tightly.
Here’s a picture of that swatch since it was recently requested, but it doesn’t show the color as well as I’d like. It’s not a soft yarn, but it’s not rough either, it has a good wholesome wool feel if you know what I mean.
My other recent purchases have been several sock knitting books, Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave, Getting Started Knitting Socks, Sensational Knitted Socks and More Sensational Knitted Socks, and finally Knitting Circles Around Socks. I also bought Spinning in the Old Way. Like I said, splurging. Plus, I had quite a bit of overtime last week at work (39 hours worth) so I thought I deserved it. I think they’re all going to be really helpful and useful, especially Getting Started Knitting Socks. I can knit them fine, but gauge is not my friend (since I don’t ever want to check it), and I wanted some basic basic patterns that I can jump off from. The other ones are mostly for my future reference because I do like knitting socks, and once I actually manage to make ones that fit me correctly I’m not sure I’ll want to knit much else. And I do so love sock yarn.
I found some fun Bernat Handicrafter twist in red, green and white and red and white that I want to use to make holiday slippers at some point, but this will definitely have to wait until after the gift projects are fixed. But I keep looking at it and getting excited.
Next up, pictures of works in progress, possible ravelry update, and hopefully some more thoughts on a patron fiber goddess. My weekend goals are to finish the first seaside glove, cast on for henry, muir, and print o’ the wave, and write my wedding thank yous (which, while not knitting related, needs to be done soon)
echo knits 