Finished!

Check it out! I finished something from the great New England buying spree of a couple weeks ago!

Yarn keeps mysteriously showing up at my house. Another 3001 yards this past week. One of the things was the Knit Picks Palette to start Spilly Jane's Sea Mineral Mittens (see the link on the right side of her blog). This was one of the first patterns I found after joining Ravelry and I've been waiting for her to post the pattern. I'm dying to start them, but I also have some Christmas knitting looming over my head so I'm torn.

So here's a question - what knitting web sites would you be better off not visiting (lest you find yarn mysteriously showing up at your house also)? For me two big killers are Earthfaire and Naturesong Yarn or any of its sister sites. 'Nuf said.

Ready for the number?

10796.95 yards!

Plus seven kits - the six little ornament kits and another Flock Sock club kit.

Here's the damage!

That's it all together. Knowing what I spent it doesn't look like much, but there is a lot of cashmere, alpaca and silk there.

On the left side, top to bottom, we have 2 skeins of Filatura di Crosa Superior in lime and burgundy, one skein of Kidsilk Haze in Drab and one skein of Rowan Calmer in a light tan. In the middle section, left to right, we have one skein of Blue Sky Alpaca Organic Cotton, one skein of Valley Yarns Hand Dyed 2/14 Alpaca Silk in Atlantis, one skein of Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in Garden, and two skeins of Art Yarns Silk Rhapsody in color #139. On the right top to bottom we have six skeins of Frog Tree Alpaca Sport in two shades of grey, red, orange, chartreuse and light blue, and one skein of Tofutsies in color 785. Oh, and not in the picture are the the sheep ornament kits that can be seen at the Buttermilk Cottage site. I have all six now.

Now the good news is I actually have a plan for all of this. The Filatura di Crosa Superior is for a lace scarf. The lime skein is for me and the burgundy for my friend. We saw the sampler lace scarf in the pattern book, but we aren't going to buy that book for a scarf pattern when we have lots of stitch pattern books! It is good to know that you can get a nice scarf out of one ball given the price of it!

The Rowan Calmer is to make a chemo hat for an aunt (though she's actually about my age so I always think cousin), the Organic Cotton for a baby kimono (even though there's no baby in mind now, I just love that pattern), the Alpaca/silk for a Rhea Stole (a Valley Yarn pattern), the Silk Rhapsody for a Dramatic Squares shawl (an Art Yarns Pattern), the Alpaca Sox and Tofutsies for, well, socks! The Frog Tree alpaca is a substitute for the Blue Sky Alpaca to make the Composed Mitts in the most recent Interweave Knits magazine.

The skein of Kidsilk Haze in Drab finished this collection:



Can you guess what it is for?

I do have some additional yarn that arrived in the mail since the last time I did a tally. I probably won't get all of this entered into the inventory until the weekend, so I'll give a two-week total next Sunday.

Quickie until I get back to Virginia

Well I said I was taking my Aunt to Webs while I was up here, but that's happening today.

But Saturday I had to take my niece to her job, and decided to take a quick run up "to check on the store hours for Monday." So while I was there I decided to look for the stuff on my shopping list, so I could focus on helping my Aunt today. Are you buying any of this????

So this is what I bought at Webs on Saturday - 1 skein of the Alpaca Silk Handyed, 2 balls of Filatura di Crosa Superior (1 for me and 1 for Gayle), AND (not on the list but I noticed while I walked by) 1 skein of Classic Elite Alpaca Sox and 1 skein of Natural Cotton (blanking on the name but its the one for the One Skein baby bolero). Plus 2 shawl/stole patterns.

Then yesterday we went down to Tiverton Four Corners and my sister remembered that the sheep ornament kits she had ordered for me were at the yarn shop. So we went there to pick those up, and I found the one color of Kidsilk Haze I'm looking for Modern Quilt Squares. Oh, and 1 ball of Calmer for a hat for an aunt who's undergoing chemo treatments right now.

Plus I vaguely remember that some stuff had come mail order since last weekend.

I'll post better details and photos of the pile when I get back.

Anyone think I won't buy anything else at Webs today?

I can't resist showing you some pictures

The first two are Wollmeise yarn that I purchased direct from Bavaria. Claudia was great to work with.



And these yarns are even prettier than I imagined! I may have to do something with them other than socks just to show them off!

The last is from Zen Yarn Garden's Art Walk Sock Club. This was my first month with the club, and unfortunately it will be my last. She's also started a semi-solid club, and lately I'm more drawn to those types of yarns. So as much as I like this yarn, I've made the decision to stick only with the other club. But if you aren't in too many sock clubs, I'd recommend checking this out. Its a month to month commitment only.



Okay, so true confession time. I did finally get that yarn to the friend that know's someone who works at the jail, so 475 yards out of the stash. But the sock yarn buying frenzy continues, so I was also up 6170 yards! About 1/3 of that is a cone of Henry's Attic fingering for some dye experiments, but still! And next weekend I'm heading to Massachusetts and promised to take my aunt to Webs.

P.S. Click on the pictures and they'll supersize so you can really get a sense of how gorgeous they are!

So I've been missing for a while

Why, well that's hard to say. Work has been crazy busy the last few weeks, so I haven't had much energy to do anything else during the week. I've come to the realization that my job only has two speeds - busy, and crazy busy. I have to stop thinking its going to calm down and figure out how to deal with that.

Then, I received my invite to Ravelry two weekends ago. If you're there, my user name is vaknitter (imagine that!). If you aren't, go there and get your name on the list! It took about six weeks before I got my invitation. They just go down the list, so an invite is just a matter of getting in line and waiting your turn. And it is worth it. There is no way I'm going to catalog my entire stash there! Its just too big, and last year I created an inventory. But if your's isn't as big as mine, its a great place to do it and then you can download an excel file. I'm going to add new yarn as I get it, and also yarn I'm actually working with.

But its hard to describe just how much you can do there. There are groups, and all sorts of info, and just take my word for it, its amazing. I had a lot of fun one point picking a yarn in my stash and searching to see what other people are doing with it to get ideas. Or say there's a pattern you're interested in, you can find others who have done it or are doing it, what they're using, their experience, etc.

Anyway, I must admit I wasted a lot of time there last weekend.

This weekend I got back to some house chores, and now I'm catching up here.

So the yarn buying orgy continues. Last weekend I should have confessed adding 5070 yards to the stash and using only 212.36. This week, I've added 3020 and used only 109.36. Mostly sock yarn. Makes you wonder why I got rid of so much last year! No pictures - you'll just have to go to Ravelry for that (cruel, I know).

As for the WIP count. I finished an ancient one - a scarf using NZ Artisan Laceweight. Not that exciting, but it was quite nice to get a longtime WIP off the list. I also ripped a shawl that I had only 2 rows done on and frankly couldn't remember what I was doing with it. Better, to just restart from scratch. I started and finished two Calorimetries. The first, two go with the fingerless gloves in the last post.



And I had so much fun with that one that I made another from some Noro. I have one mitten made with this yarn but not good notes on how I did it! I figure this gives me an idea which needles I used anyway:



And today I started Hanami: