My hat mojo seems to be outstripping my worsted weight yarn stash. So of course more yarn had to follow me home!
This yarn is dyed by someone I met in the Wet Coast Wools zoom knit night. She is Kelsey of K-Zip Knits and is a Canadian indie dyer. She had a 20% moving sale last month and I jumped on it.
I picked up a silver skein called Sterling, a purple skein called Black Light and a brown skein called Cocoa. These for sure are headed for my hat bin but for right now they are marinating in my stash until it is their turn.
I got another wild hair to cake up a bunch of yarn. I think this might be the leading edge of a fit of “cast-on-itis”. But hey, I have to go where the knitting mojo takes me.
The project started with six skeins of yarn, some lemonade and the Down Cellar Studio podcast in my ear buds.
I ended the afternoon with nine skeins of yarn and many dream knitting projects I can’t wait to cast on. I hope to turn this pile of yarn into:
Three skeins of green yarn that I will plan another Into The Light
Three skeins of pink yarn for a third Into The Light
That is A LOT of knitting. And I’m heading into busy accounting/audit season at work so my energy and free time about to be sucked up. But maybe if the yarn is ready and waiting I’ll have a better chance to keep projects going?
Oops, I also went on an accidental yarn crawl this weekend while with my mom. My mom needed to pick up her BOM (block of the month) quilt packs from a quilt shop that is sponsoring a remote quilt along. Not only did this fabric store carry yarn….there was a full fledge yarn shop on the way to the fabric shop.
Our first stop was Stitch and Chatter in Stockton KS. It was an bright and fun little shop with a small yarn selection in the back. I ended up coming away with two vegan pompoms, some KFI painted sock and six KFI minis for heels, toes and cuffs. Everyone was masked it was nice to peruse the almost empty shop because we got there right at opening.
Next up was the Shepherd’s Mill in Phillipsburg KS. This is a yarn shop AND working mill. They mill custom yarns for their shop as well as mill yarn for other fiber producers. There are long windows so you can see the mill working even. Of course we were there on a Saturday and they only mill during the week.
But I came away with quite the yarn haul. Starting in the top left I got some Lanaloft worsted weight in a camo colored single for another stockinette hat. Then I picked up a 2 ply fingering weight yarn that has mohair blended with wool, alpaca and nylon (grey). Next up are two skeins worsted weight for more beanie hats. The red/purple one is a 3 ply marled worsted while the teal skeins is a 2 ply tonal worsted.
Next up, at the bottom, are some custom gradients. The dark blue/purple is a 2 ply fingering gradient with alpaca, rayon, wool and nylon. And the pink skein, which my mom picked out for a hat, is a 2 ply DK yarn made of wool and nylon.
I really want to go back to this shop when we have more time. They offer classes and aren’t a bad distance from my parents house. I want to take some in person spinning classes after my vaccine and while I have childcare. I’m so excited I almost can’t wait!
I have been zooming every Monday evening with the ladies from the Wet Coast Wools LYS (Vancouver, CA) for their knit night. I enjoy it very much but I was WILDLY enabled this past month.
The shop ran a huge sale after Christmas on their yarns and add to that the favorable exchange rates for Americans…..I fell down the sweater quantity hole. I ended up giving Glenda all my Christmas monies (and then some).
I picked up six skeins of Lagom by Katia in a wonderful heathered grey color on a worsted weight. That is roughly 1,300 yards of yarn to make a nice nuetral sweater. Next up is eight skeins of Holst Garn Coast in a brown color. This is a fingering weight yarn I intend to hold double for a garment of sorts. Lastly I grabbed five skeins of Briggs and Little Regal in a heathered blue. This is another worsted weight but this one is pretty sheepy feeling. I think this will need to be a cardigan to be worn over an under layer for my princess skin.
All in all it felt nice to add some heavier weight to my stash. I have a TON of fingering/sock but I tend not to buy the heavier stuff to have on hand. I’m working on that in 2021.
I have completely unboxed my 2020 Advent calendar from A Girl and Her Wool. I ended up with the quite the collection of minis!
I have hemmed and hawed over what to do with these. I did some pattern searching and pulled down some possibilities. I had been leaning toward a cowl of some sort because the minis are all 10 grams I need something small-ish so that I can see good sized blocks of the different colors.
But then I threw that all out the window and I decided to make my own “advent” socks. I am going to use the full skein to make the heels toes and cuffs. And for each mini I will split in half and knit concurrent socks on two different needles. I think I won’t attempt any color management and will just use them in the order the dyer presented them.
And to keep myself motivated I am going to make myself finish my Carbon Sprinkles Vanilla Socks before letting myself cast on this new project.
I jumped on the advent calendar this year again. This time I tried AGirlAndHerWool that I found on Etsy. I opted for 24 ten gram mini skeins and full skein for day 25.
I don’t always remember to open every day between the chaos of school, working remote and trying to do “holiday related” fun things for my kiddos. But below is an example of the first five days that I have opened.
I am really digging the colors and tones of this calendar. They aren’t a fade or a rainbow but rather colors that all kind of coordinate and blend. I don’t have a plan for these for a specific project. Beings as they are 10 gram minis, they might just go eventually into my sock yarn memory blanket as they are perfect size.
But for right now they are doing the perfect job of bolstering my flagging Christmas spirit. What are you doing to pick yourself up in this strange holiday season?
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.
