Category Archives: Stash

Winding Frenzy

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I was on the receiving end of a day off work Monday. This coupled with the Grandparents corralling the kids for a portion of the day led me on a WINDING FRENZY. The cooler fall temperatures have set in and I’m absolutely craving more hand knit sweaters.

So obviously the only logical thing to do was wind two sweater quantities of yarn!? The top lot is my Treasure Goddess Yarn DK Treasures and some newly aquired Hedgehog Fiber Merino DK in the Deep End colorway. I hope to turn these skeins into a Radiate by Jojo Locatelli. My expanded ramblings on this obsession can be found here.

The second lot is the Malabrigo Rios I purchased on Local Yarn Shop day. Its the Fresco and Seco colorway and I hope to turn into into a Weekender by Andrea Mowry.

I know some knitters don’t wind up their cakes until their cakes until they ready to knit it. But in this house I just don’t have that time luxury. So I have adopted a technique to try and negate the “stretching” that happens to yarns under the tension of sitting in a cake.

I hand wind the skeins into a loose ball (right) and then use that ball to wind on my ball winder into a cake. I use my free hand to monitor and keep consistent but gentle tension on the yarn as it goes into the cake. So far this this has worked for me and none of my yarn seems worse for the wear even after *cough* years *cough* of sitting in a cake.

Do you have any idiosyncrasies about winding yarn?

More Radiate Options

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I have this sweater I can’t get out of my head. I think I talked about the pattern when I was stash diving awhile back. It’s Radiate by Joji Locatelli. After letting my options marinate for awhile I decided that none of them really made my heart sing. So I swung by my LYS the other day and they had a few skeins of Merino DK left from Hedgehog Fibers.

I ended up gravitating towards a variagated speckle kind of color. Its called Deep End but the jewel tones just CALLED to me. And I thought they served as a nice pop with a black background.

And it passed the contrast test in a black and white photo. Yay!!

I of course didn’t know how much I would need of the contrast color because I haven’t swatched to know my gauge. So therefore I bought both skeins they had of this color. Only logical right? I mean extra Hedgehog yarn can’t be a bad thing?

I have a few things I need to clear off the needles and then this sweater might jump my arbitrary and only in my mind knitting queue!!

Happy knitting!!

Mystery Box Surprise

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I really need to unsubscribe from my newsletters or a bit after my last purchase or two. I am a SUCKER for a yarn deal. Oh well, my bills are paid and my family is fed. I’ll just die in a well insulated craft room some day!!

KnitCircus yarns was having another mystery sale. This is where you get to pick a yardage amount and number of skeins but nothing else. And you get a super good deal because they are clearing out the discontinued colors, short skeins, skeins with knots, or happy dye accidents. I picked a 150 g skein plus a second skein that would be tonal or semi-solid. I ended up with these two beauties…

The first is a 150 gram skein of Trampoline gradient yarn in the Sherwood Forest color. This is a discontinued color on their fingering to light fingering base. This should make a really lovely and large shawl some day. Off the top of my head this might be a good use for the Vamping Shawl I tried and failed earlier.

Next up is a skein of worsted weight Ringmaster in a prototype autumnal color on a skein with knots. Orange isn’t usually my color but this should make a wonderful hat. Maybe a Barley by TinCan knits or a Quick Ombre Hat by Emily Dormier. I have been meaning to dip my toe into colorwork.

Have you ever bought mystery yarn?

Picking Sweater Colors

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I am down the rabbit hole and back from looking at DK/Sport weight sweaters for my recent stash enhancement. I was flipping through pages and pages of results when Joji Locatelli’s Radiate practically jumped off the screen at me. It’s a top down yoked sweater with a two color slipped stitch design in the yoke. I bought the patter on the spot.

Then I jumped to my stash and dug out all my superwash merino DK yarn to find a contrast color. I found three, a Treasure Goddess DK skein in a Merlot wine color, a Blueberry Chick yarn in a Lilac color and finally a Moonstone Dyeworks DK yarn in honey color.

Because I have been burned before, I pulled out my phone and took a black and white photo. Immediately this eliminated the wine color because it does not have enough contrast.

The lilac and honey both contrast nicely. But I’m left really having to decide if either of those two colors are really what I want. I don’t have a specific color in mind. I’m just not 100% sold that either of those two are “it”. I need to do some pondering….I really want this sweater to be SHARP.

I need to gauge swatch anyway. I might start swatching and work in both colors without cutting the yarn to see what they look like? Or I may pull up the pattern page and look at what others have done. Or both….bwhahahaha!

Happy knitting!!

Emotional Purchasing

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I am normally a pretty even keeled person and I can let stuff roll off my back fairly well. I really do have a very good life in the grand scheme of things. However, my work life has been more stress and less success lately. I had a professional opportunity get postponed at the last minute that left me kind of bummed. Jellybean got me flowers which made did make me feel better. But later that same evening I got an email notification that a local to me dyer was having a 40% off and free shipping sale. I caved like a house of cards….I succumbed to emotional purchasing.

The Treasure Goddess Yarn shop sucked me right in. I am feeling the sweater mojo here lately so I picked up five skeins of her DK Treasure yarn in the “Gunpowder” colorway. It is black without being all black so that I can’t see to knit with it. It is hand dyed yarn so I will have to alternate skeins not matter what pattern I pick. But I feel like this should make a staple wardrobe kind of sweater.

Now I find myself slowly cruising Ravelry to find my next sweater pattern….but I’ll save that rabbit hole for another day. Happy Knitting!!

Happy Anniversary to Me

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As of June 30th, the husband and I have been married 12 years. We’ve added two dogs and two kiddos over those many years and boy are we exhausted! I’ve said this before (with all due respect and love) that my  husband is a terrible gift picker outer. So these days I keep a google doc where I link to things I would like to have. He then only has to click and purchase from a list of things hes certain I want. It has served us both well.

This year he picked out some wonderful things from Tuft. He chose a sock soap, bath bar and some hand balm. I think the sock soap is just natural scent, the body bar is honey scented and the hand balm is definitely blueberry lemonade. They are all heavenly and this is my first Tuft experience and I’m not disappointed so far!

And he managed to throw in some yarn from String Theory Colorworks. This is Stark Effect on their Inertia base (80/20 blend of merino and nylon). It’s crazy rainbow bright and should make some brilliant socks.

P.S. Don’t worry I didn’t forget the hubby. He is getting his car professionally detailed to rid it of kid crumbs, dog hair and about 7 years of Kansas mud and dust!

Happy knitting!!

From Across The Pond

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Hi, my name is Rachelle and I’m a sucker for beautiful yarn and the creative people who dye it. I have fallen down the rabbit hole of watching Amy Florence’s Youtube Podcast “Stranded“. I am working my way through her back catalog and I succumbed to the wool fumes. So here is my pretty little skein that made its way to my stash from across the pond.

I bough a skein of her BFL nylon sock base in the Antagonist color to make myself a pair of socks. I haven’t worked much with BFL but word in the Knitti-sphere is that it is very hard wearing. And that intrigues me. And the color is just so gorgeous. It’s a grey base with little speckles and blips of pinks, greens, yellows and all kinds of loveliness.

I’m not sure where this skein will land in my current sock queue but for now I’m just going to pet the pretty and smell the sheepy smell. Maybe I can start a pair that I only work on when I’m binging her back episodes? Hmmmm, I’ll have to think on that!

Happy Knitting!!

World Wide Knit in Public Day 2019 (And A Little Stash Enhancement)

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I decided to participate in World Wide Knit in Public day on June 8th. I passed PB and Jellybean on to my husband and was like “peace out I’m going to the yarn store!” and ran away.  It was a wonderful couple of hours. I managed to sit and knit for a bit in the mall courtyard outside the shop but I neglected to take photos. But I did snag a photo of some sweet ice cream treats the yarn store owner was passing out to knitters.

Well I’m not sure if it was the chocolate high or the yarn fumes wafting out of the yarn store, but they were have a sale and I fell down in the Malabrigo section. I’ve been toying with the idea of knitting a worsted boxy to use a nicer sweatshirt in the fall and winter. Like a socially acceptable blanket I could wear and be comfortable and stylish. Jellybean always likes when I wear green so I bought six skeins of worsted to knit a boxy.

I got the Fresco y Seco color and its wonderfully tonally green and bits of yellow. Now I fully understand I’m going to have to alternate skeins to prevent pooling and lines where I would change skeins. I’m thinking about trying helical knitting that seems to everywhere on the podcast and inter webs here lately.

I have like four projects that I need to finish before I let myself cast this on. So this is almost like Wishful Knitting but here’s hoping it is at least near in the future!

Happy Knitting!!

Winter Woolfest 2019

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The Christmas season is over and it’s back to real life. And that real life has involved a lot of germs and coughing around here. So I made sure to take some time away from nursemaid duties and re-charge my batteries a bit. I made a trip over to Wamego, KS for Winter Woolfest 2019!

First I’ll flash all the goodies I found with my Christmas cash. I focused my monies on independent dyers and especially those I haven’t seen before. I grabbed a Little Lamb children’s book with pattern from Melissa Dallke. And four 20 gram mini skeins from her Acorn Willow yarn line for my scrappy blankets. Then I snagged a speckled DK yarn from Leon Alexander in glorious shades of purple. Next up is a dark grey and rainbow-y skein of sock yarn from the Wichita Woolery. It’s called Prism Break and it should micro stripe if I get the gauge right. Finally I finished up at a LYS booth that had several indie dyers. I gravitated to the speckles again. I picked up some Super Sock 4ply from Twisted Owl Fiber Studio in the Razz-ma-tazz color. I listen to their podcast, the Worsted Knitting Podcast when the occasionally drop episode and it’s hilarious. And lastly I picked up some Pebble Sock from Black Trillium Fibers in the Happy Fun Times color. I didn’t go overboard and I was very pleased with my purchases.

It was a beautiful sunny and weirdly warm January day here in Kansas. The attendees were slightly sweltering in their knitwear this year!

This year’s theme was Classic Rock N Roll. It wasn’t quite as cool as last year’s female super hero theme but still adorable.

And this festival has really grown. This place was PACKED by 11 am after the doors opened at 10 am. It was honestly hard to move around and get into most of the booths. This kinda triggers some anxiety in me and was my least favorite part.

P.S. This Wamego is kind of Wizard of Oz themed because they have the Wizard of Oz museum. And the whole town has kind of rolled with it. They have a tulip themed Toto that made me smile!

Happy Knitting!!

Planning Northeasterly

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I have gone completely bananas. There is just no other explanation for what I did. I went and lost what little I had left of a brain and ordered a cone of yarn….A CONE! It’s a million miles of fingering weight un-dyed yarn. All because I needed to start another scrap blanket.

I have been seeing and hearing about Northeasterly by Melissa Alexander-Loomis all over blogs and vlogs and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I almost started right off with my scraps from my mitered square memory blanket. But the pattern is written for DK and Fingering. You can achieve DK weight by holding two fingering weight yarns together. And my brain went “Oh…let’s do a marl!” and off I went to find some white un-dyed yarn. I snagged a cone of Franklin’s Natural sock yarn from Webs that was on sale so that I can hold doubled with my scraps. I will get a lovely marled yarn look and make all the crazy scraps look a little more cohesive.

When will I have time to start this? Who knows! But I have the yarn kitted up in a project bag with the pattern. I’m hoping to dig out some US 5 needs on the shortest cord I can find in my stash. I really don’t want to work on straight needles or managed a bunch of extra cord for not that many stitches. Maybe this will make a great new start for the 2019 new year?

Happy Knitting!!