My “retreat” yarn showed up in the mail this week! As part of my virtual yarn retreat earlier this month I got to have a personal zoom shopping appointment on the Nomad Yarn truck. And I fell down with my wallet.
From the top right is a skein of Nomad Yarn Feast in the spice box colorway. This will surely become a bulky hat. Next up is two skeins of Nomad Yarn Fireworks in the Magnesium colorway. It is a sparkly single and I am picturing a nice big two skein wrap or shawl.
The bottom right is five skeins of Nomad Yarn Tweed Rocks in the Steel colorway. I want this to become a nice tweedy top down sweater for myself. And finally I could resist a skein of Malabrigo sock in a beautiful speckle color. This will NEED to be socks for my feet. It’s just so lovely.
It was a nice mail day and a sweet way to remember the weekend where I didn’t have to mom AT ALL and got to knit for 24 hours straight. Happy Knitting!!
This past weekend I attended my first ever knitting retreat. And it was 100% virtual. I sent PB and Jellybean to the grandparents for the weekend and took the WHOLE weekend to myself and knitting. For those with inquiring minds, it was the 5th annual Nomad Yarns Retreat normally held in Indiana. I got a wild hair because I was disappointed about Knitting in Heartland being cancelled back in April. So I dove in and I’m glad I did. I’ll do a complete retreat review post but I was so excited about one of the classes I couldn’t wait to share!
We did a sock yarn dyeing class for “instant” dyed yarn. I can’t even begin to describe the genius that this was. But Dave, the dyer for Nomad Yarn, firgured out how to load dye into gel capsules and ship a dye kit to me that only required gloves and a plastic container. You guys, it was was wild! I layered yarns and dye capsules and poured hot water over the whole sheband and boom…..I made pretty yarn.
We had yellow, safety orange, deep red and purple. And it made this most beautiful variegated skeins with super color splotches. The sock yarn base is Dyed By Ewe in their Sultry Steps base. It’s 40% Llama, 40% merino and 20% nylon and feels DIVINE. The skein is dry and I have it re-packaged. I have zero clue what to do with it so I’m just going to enjoy my beautiful treasure.
This was my first “real” dye project with profession dye. And I didn’t mess it up and my skeins is one of a kind and mine all mine! I think Nomad is going to make this up into a kit you can order and do at home. I will for SURE order another one of these kits and do with my kiddos.
I recently signed up for the Yarn Harlot’s patreon and I have been watching her videos. The most recent one was a tour of her stash and how to best care for your yarn. One of the items she recommended was to do a “toss” off the stash a couple of times of year to look for pests and to reacquaint yourself with what you have.
I got a wild hair this past weekend and pulled out every skein of yarn I own. Warning….yarn content ahead. Avert you gaze if chaos and piles of yarn will offend your sensibilities.
Okay, I warned you. The below photo is the entirety of my stash. I very carefully emptied every tub and examined every bag. I found a single spider but other than that my yarn appears to be clean and pest free. And then I had to put it all back….
I carefully curated each yarn category and repacked into clean bags. For instance my sock yarn and lace yarn is below. Starting at the bottom left working clockwise I have a large pile of variegated yarn, then above that is my self-striping, then sock blanks and sock tubes, followed by lace mohair or suri alpaca, below that is sock sets, then a small pile speckled yarn and lastly in the bottom right corner are my solid and tonals.
I packed each kind of yarn together and but into drawers. And then for the first time I affixed labels to each drawer so that I know where to look for various items.
Some of my categories were by weight, fiber content or sometimes by manufacturer. It may not make sense for everyone else, but I think it’s going to work for me.
What did I learn from this? I have WAY too much variegated sock yarn, less self-striping sock yarn than I would have guessed, very few sweater quantities and almost no worsted weight yarn whatsoever. I’m hoping this review will help me make more productive purchases in the future. But who knows….sometimes a knitter never learns, lol!
I found out one of my favorite podcasts/yarn stores has decided to close their brick and mortar operations. Mind you, they are in New Jersey and I have never been in person. But I feel like I know them after watching hours and hours of podcasts. I soothed my dismay by helping making a small purchase. I picked up a kit of sock yarn with coordinating mohair.
They even through in the tote bag as a special surprise! It is rose gold and super shiny. My children immediately tried to claim it.
The skein on the left is Chelsea Luxe Sock in the Rainbow Sherbet colorway. The yarn base is an 80/20 wool and nylon blend. The skein on the right is Chelsea Luxe Mohair in the Tube Top colorway. It is a 70/30 mohair and silk blend. I have no clue what they will grow up to be but I’m happy to support an LYS as they take their leap into 100% online shopping.
My unabashed self caring buying continues. This week I had a couple of packages show up on the same day from two indie small businesses. It made for a happy mail day indeed! Today is also my 13th wedding anniversary so I’m going to count these as presents from the hubby, hehehehehe.
First up is an adorable bunny stitch marker from Hannah of The Corner of Craft in the UK. I think this will go right on to my Radiate as a progress marker!
Next up is some fiber and yarn from BlueBerry Chick yarn in South Carolina. I got her some Corriedale in her limited edition Tequila Sunrise color. And then I picked up some gradiate sock yarn minis in her Pansy fade.
I’m thinking the fiber is going to skip stash and go right on to my drop spindle. It is soooo summery that I just think it’s destiny.
I’m so close to finishing my Weekender that I’m making out of Malabrigo Rios. It was my first garment in Rios and my second time ever using Malabrigo. I might be in love…
I am also finding that my knitting mojo is really geared towards garments right now. My cup runneth over with scarves, gloves and hats but I don’t have many nice finished garments that show my current level of skill as knitter. And my stash is largely single or double skeins of yarn. I don’t really have any sweater lots. Which is why I fell hard when Twisted in Portland ran an online sale for Malabrigo Rios.
I managed to grab eight skeins of Jupiter which is a reddish brown variegation. Twisted was amazing and reached out before my order shipped to let me know that they weren’t all the same dye lot. They have five skeins in one lot and three in another and that they were markedly different. They even sent photos!
I decided to risk it. I’ll start my garment with the darker five skeins on the bottom and save the lighter skeins for hems, cuffs and/or collars. Maybe sleeves if I really have to. Part of my brain thought…I could find a five skein pattern for me and then use the last three skeins for a sweater for PB….
Happy Mother’s Day to me!! I sent my hubby a wish list this year and he came through big time! He picked some goodies from Gingersnap of Canadian fame.
He picked the PERFECT bag and a unique sock set. They aren’t colors I would have picked but they are kind of stunning. The hubby swears like a sailor and I will think of him everytime I use the bag, lol.
The yarn is their Zest Fingering in the Penguin Plunge color with the bright yellow contrast color. I’m thinking socks with contrast toes, heels and cuffs? Maybe a cowl….I think this needs to marinate for a bit.
What will not marinate is this project bag. It features nice long handles and a wire framed opening. I really need cast on a new project to christen this project bag. So many ideas!!
I have been listening to the Nomad Yarns podcast for a couple of years now. It is a married couple who ran a yarn shop turned into yarn truck as well as dye independent label yarn. They have small children and pretty much speak my life. In this time of cancelled events and social distancing they advertised mystery boxes. You pick your price level and give them some suggestions of colors, weights of yarn, etc and they put together a surprise.
You guys….this was so worth it! It was a happy mail day indeed. My box was bursting at the seams and full of goodies!
I received two skeins of West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley DK in a nice blue, a skein of Nomad Yarn Twisted Branch sock yarn, a custom needle gauge, two mini skeins of Nomad Yarns Pallete, a set of Carbonyz Size 2 double pointed needles, a set of Knitters Pride stitch markers, and some waste yarn.
I loved everything in my box and it was neat to not know what I was getting. I have zero idea what to do with any of this and my stash is already at SABLE but this was a good investment. I supported a small business and I got to have the joy of new to me goodies.
I have been steadily cranking on my Fluffy Sockhead Hat made my Apothefaery Fibers and I very quickly realized I was going to run out of suri alpaca. I had some funds laying around that I had earmarked for the (cancelled) Knitting in the Heartland Event. So I decided to get more suri alpaca and support an indie dyer at the same time.
I purchased two skeins of Snowdrift (white) and two skeins of Sterling Silver (grey) thinking that this will be nice solid colors to have in my stash to work up with the perfect future project, no matter the other yarn color. In the meantime I am going to skein up one of the snowdrift skeins and add to my aforementioned Fluffy Sockhead hat. It will be lighter than the original suri alpaca skein but will end up adding a third color block section to the hat.
I’m just going to consider it an unintentional design feature! Happy Knitting!!
This week’s self care is brought to you by Canada! I opened the Gauge Dyeworks newsletter at the exact right time for a shop update and the wrong time where I was feeling down about the state of the world.
This is the classic merino twist sock yarn in a self striping set of greens. The official name is Colour Study: Green. It’s 443 yards and 115 grams of the plumpest most glorious sock yarn ever. I have been letting this yarn sit out on my work at home desk so I can admire and pet before I add it to my stash.
Has the current state of affairs led you to pad your stash or use your stash? I’m somewhere in between the two….
