splityarn

spoiled!

I'd been feeling a little guilty about using my stash Silk Garden to knit that baby sweater last week. I know, why should I feel guilty when I used stash yarn to knit a gift for a good friend's new baby? But see, it was *supposed* to be a Wavy scarf for my sister in law's birthday which was almost 5 months ago. So really, I guess the guilt wasn't that I'd used the yarn for another project, but that I'd totally slacked and hadn't knit the gift for the SIL in the first place.

On Saturday the SnB splinter group girls and I took a trip out to Bluebonnet Yarns, the new LYS in town (well, north of town - it's a 25 minute drive). Everybody found something to buy except me. I looked at the Silk Garden and knew that I really needed to replace what I'd used and get going on knitting the SIL's scarf. I dug through the piles of SG they had on hand, but I wasn't wowed by any of the colours. I left the store without any Noro for the scarf and feeling kinda guilty. I dropped the girls off, drove home and wallowed in my non-knitting guilt (how's that for twisted - I felt guilty for NOT buying yarn.) As I pulled into the driveway, I checked the mail and wowzers if there wasn't a little priority mail box with the magic RAOK letters on it. Kirstin from Spinning Athena had sent me two absolutely luscious skeins of Noro Shinano in the perfect colours for the SIL's scarf. How serendipitous is that?  Thanks doll!

more red goodness

The Husband is convinced that buying old sweaters at thrift shops and repurposing the yarn would be a fantastic business. It's low overhead, environmentally sound and has a  thrill of the hunt twinge to it when tracking down the right sweaters. Could be fun. I'm pretty sure there's one or two folks who do pretty well with it on ebay. I've always wanted to try it out, but the thrift sweater shopping in Texas is incredibly limited. I take a peek through the sweaters every time we cruise through Goodwill, but I've yet to find even one sweater made of anything other than acrylic. For now I'll just envy all of you with access to cold weather thrift shops.

I was incredibly happy and surprised yesterday when I checked the mail to find Michelle (yarn recycler extraordinaire) had RAOk'd me with some fun black and red recycled yarn. I was not expecting this at all! She even labelled each ball with the yardage. How sweet is that? Thanks Michelle, you made my week!

springy switch

11 votes for the red buttons for the Silk Garden baby sweater, the mob has spoken. I'll sew 'em on tomorrow morning when the sweater is dry. Thanks for all the great input!

There certainly seems to be a red theme going on around here. I popped into the LYS the other day to cash in on a gift certificate that'd been burning a hole in my pocket since my birthday. I came home with 6 skeins of some lovely, soft, black merino. It was gorgeous stuff. I sat down in my knitting chair, pulled out my needles to cast on for a swatch and stopped dead. It's spring. It's hot out. I don't want knit with black wool! What fun is that? I put it back in the bag, ran back up to the shop and picked out some yummy red Debbie Bliss Cathay that they had *just* put on the shelf. It's destined to be Shimmer from Knitty. Aaaah, red. That's much, much better.

this week in pictures (with a few words too)

We've had WAY too much beer this week. I think we were out every night. Even if we weren't, it sure feels like it. There's water on the table there, but I don't know who was drinking it. It should have been me.
Stash additions: a flowery mod print from jcaroline, some vintage printed corduroy I scored on sale at Room Service, Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed on sale at my LYS, my scrabble stitch markers looking all professional n'shit.

Hopefully this week I'll have time to get stuff done around here (sans hangover.)

it's not really that big

I've been inspired by a few folks here and there who've been organizing their stashes in an effort to get them under control. I'm an organizational freak, so this type of thing really appeals to me. I'm also someone who's easily distracted by shiny objects (and new projects) so it's a good idea for me to write down what I have and my original intent.

I don't have an enormous stash to start with. I don't have yarn hiding under the bed or piled in a secret closet. I have exactly two rubbermaid filing bins. One labeled "active yarn," one labeled "stash yarn." The active bin holds all my current projects (Mariah and...well...right now just Mariah,) the stash bin holds everything that doesn't have a project attached.  Turns out I have even less in the bins than what I'd thought. I've assigned so many different projects to each random yarn stash that I thought I have more yarn than I do. I've also realized I don't have as much acrylic as I thought either. What I do have I've been lugging around since 1980 so I'm sure it's not going anywhere quickly.

This will most likely only interest me, but I've created a stash photo album so that I can remind myself of what I should be knitting next. Somebody has to keep me in line. It might as well be me.

sew what? sew buttons!

I've been snooping around on a few other crafty blogs lately that all seem to have good buttons. They'll need a button for an eye on a softie or the perfect button to adorn a new carrysmall and they'll dig into their stash and just find one. I was envious, I'll admit it. I had exactly 3 kinds of buttons. Brown ones from Haiku, daisy ones from my rollup needlecase and 3 teeny purple ones that I found in the very bottom of my quilting fabric box. Not much good for giving something that cute little finishing touch.

The solution? ebay, of course. I won a mixed lot of over 1100 buttons for about $8. A pretty good deal I'd say, considering a set of 5 boring ones sell on a card for over a buck at fabric shops. This is just a small selection of what was in the auction, but I'm really pleased with them. I did need to give some of them a little bath, they were pretty dusty and dirty. Thankfully I only allowed one button to fall into the garbage disposal. I tried to get it out, but sticking my hand into the disposal gives me nightmares. I always think someone is going to sneak in and turn it on <shiver.> At any rate, the button was plastic and the disposal seemed to eat it up just fine.

qu'est que c'est?

I got a fantastic package from my mum the other day. Normally she sends us cards (last week was Valentines and Chinese New Year), notes and newspaper clippings (usually about the hockey strike.) This package was different though. Yarn! I love that! This is some of her stash that she's desperately trying to pare down. It's Pingouin Pingora in the sweetest cotton candy pink with teeny slubs of different pinks and green. She sent about 600 yards of the stuff. It's a delightfully soft DK weight that I have NO clue what to make out of it. I'm not really a shawl or wrap girl but I was thinking that it might make a cute shrug of some sort. It might be a little too delicate for me though. I'm still not sure. Anybody have any ideas?

the fabric of our lives

One thing I love about quilters is that they understand the value of fabric scraps. Sometimes all you need is a scrap the size of a credit card as long as it's the right colour. Whenever I'm working on a quilt I keep any scrap bigger than 1.5 inches square. You just never know when you might need it later. I file them all according to colour in little ziploc bags. The bigger pieces (anything bigger than the base of an iron) goes into the fabric stash with all the rest of the fat quarters and random yardage.

Last week I was emailing back and forth with Mia and she mentioned that she was going to pop "a little something from the fabric stash" in the mail for me (along with some extra scrabble tiles - a girl can never have enough.) I was excited thinking, "Yay! Scraps!" But what I got was better than scraps. She included a whack of fat quarters in some great fabrics! Thanks Mia! These will be put to good use, I assure you.

I wish that I could start using them right away, but we're off to California for a whirlwind visit with some family. I'll be back Wednesday!

retail therapy

I've been a bit grumpy with Mariah. We're not speaking for a day or two. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, I'd just pick up my sewing machine and work on something else for a bit. Only I caaaaaaaaan't (yes - I'm whiney today). My sewing machine is still in the shop. I might get her back as soon as Thursday, but they didn't know for sure. That'll be almost 3 weeks without any sewing. gah!

I consoled myself with some fat quarters at the Quilt Store today. In the absence of my machine I've felt the need to get the rotary cutter out and start piecing something. I'll wash these tomorrow and get started on the planning. Mmmm, pink, red and black. Yay!  I also grabbed that little piece of upholstery fabric with pink flowers to make another needle case. I can get most of it prepped and done in time for my sewing machine to get home.

not just rudolph's nose

The family have flown home. The ornaments are safely tucked back in the closet. The tree will get put away this weekend. The weather has warmed up and almost everything is as it should be. (We're still having troubles with the loo but that's a story for another time)

Mum and I went up to the LYS while she was here. She picked up some bamboo needles and some Silk Garden to start her own Wavy scarf on the flight home. I think it's probably a good thing that we're in different countries; it cuts down on the yarn enabling. We could easily have spent a lot of dough. We managed to keep it mostly under control. I did buy my yarn for Rogue though. Yummy, deep red Cascade 220 (colour 9404.) I can't quite get the photo colour right but I'm sure there will be plenty more sunny days with Rogue in the shoot. The Rogue yarn isn't the only new red item in the house these days. My desk now has a shiny new addition. If you've seen the movie Office Space, you'll know why this isn't just any ol' stapler.

temporary embargo lift

The husband won an enormous lot of comic books on eBay, so I've been granted a temporary lifting of the yarn embargo.  First up is some Wool-Ease Chunky that I'm going to try out for Haiku. I knit up a quick swatch in a few sizes last night to see how they look.  It kinda feels like I'm knitting with udon noodles.  It kinda looks like it too!

Next up is some Crystal Palace Squiggle in Code Pink I bought on eBay over the weekend. I'm thinking I'll put together a quick scarf or two for my nieces when it arrives. 

Last up? (and also not here yet) The yarn for Larissa's Massive Meathead Knitup.  Technically it doesn't count under the embargo since I'm not keeping it, but it's yarn coming into the house nonetheless.