Tag Archives: yarn stash

Twisted Project Plans

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Alrighty….let’s talk some wishful knitting! I have had some time to think about my purchases from Twisted in Portland, OR and here is what I’m thinking….at least for now. I reserve the right to change my mind as many times as I want.

Hazel Knits Lively DK in Acquarius, Paisley and Sea of Tranquility

Chubbs & Squeak Tweed DK in Colonel Mustard and Scabbers:

This might be the next shawl on my needles because I literally lay in bed thinking about this beautiful tweed yarn. And how gorgeous it would be with a black or grey tunic top…

Knitted Wit Smarties in assorted colors: I picked these up to add to heels, toes and cuffs stash for my hand knit socks. I tried to get colors I didn’t have in my stash but that matched the color palette of my stash.

Twine. Sock in the Wild Abandon colorway:

Knitted Wit Sock in Unicorn Giggles. I think this will be just a fun pair of blueberry waffle or vanilla toe up socks for me. The rainbow colors just make me happy!

I have dutifully logged all these ideas on Ravelry and in my stash pages lest I forget. Do anyone of you have an patterns to suggest with these beauties? I’m always open to suggestions and falling down the rabbit hole that is Ravelry!

Happy Knitting!!

A Visit To Twisted

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While in Portland my friends graciously offered to help me find a yarn store. And we wandered our way into Twisted and y’all….it was amazing.

They had a well curated shop of lots of amazing mainstream yarn lines and many indie dyers. And with no sales tax in Oregon….I fell down hard and basically handed them all my birthday money. The staff was knowledgeably and helpful but just let me shop and squish yarn in my preferred way. They had Quince & Co and Brooklyn Tweed, neither of which I had seen in person before. I think I lapped the store three times just taking it all in! My friends were so great and helped me shop. They asked some very thoughtful questions and really took an interest in how the whole knitting culture worked.

I came away with quite the haul. There were two skeins of fingering weight, five skeins of DK, five mini skeins and three enamel pins. And I did actually try to thoughtfully purchase so that I didn’t just buy pretty yarn to linger in my stash. I bought yarn in color combinations that went together and with projects in mind.

The tweedy yarn will be a two color shawl, the Hazel Knits in green hues will be some sort of a faded project, the Twine will be combined with existing stash for a shawl and the Knitted Wit will be happy socks for my feet.

I can hear Jellybean rustling in his bed so I need to get moving this morning. I’ll try to get up a separate post where I geek out a little harder over this yarn haul.

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!!

Do You Swapless Swap!

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I have a love of all things mini skein. I mean I have not one but two scrap blankets on the go. My Memory blanket which has been around since 2016 and my Northeasterly that I started in February. I quickly understood that I can’t knit fast enough with two small children to generate enough scraps to feed my blankets. And that when I discovered swapless swaps on Ravelry!

I don’t have to make the time to dig up a reciprocal package. I just pay my money and a bag of neatly wound mini skeins from a fabulous dyer shows up at my door. I’m currently stalking all the swaps by YarnMatrix aka RoMillet on Ravelry. I have to limit myself and not go crazy. But I just had to jump on the Leading Man Fiber Arts swap….I mean look at those colors!!

Do you swapless swap?

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!!

My Birthday Yarn Haul

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Months ago my mom and aunt went with me to a LYS closing. And my mom let me pick out some yarn as a present. (At 40% off it was quite a steal!) I just had to wait until November to get my lovelies…

I picked up 5 skeins of Berroco Vintage DK in a lovely blue color. And I also picked out 6 skeins of Berroco Vintage Chunky in a dark grey color. I was thinking easy maintenance sweaters to catch all the slobber/boogers/milk and whatnot of motherhood, plus you know the affordability factor.

Unbeknownst to me she also picked out some yarn clips for large projects and sweet little bag. It was so lovely to get yarny goodness for my birthday and to know my mom picked out something special for me.

I think the grey chunky yarn needs to become a sweater for me and get on the needles ASAP!!

Happy Knitting!!

New Old Yarn

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My mother works part time at an antique store come lunch dinette back where I grew up. And because she is an employee she gets to peak through all the goodies that come in. And recently a wooden crate came in that was full of yarn. The antique box sold quickly but the yarn got tossed aside.

Most of it was really old squeaky acrylic but she found a few skeins of actual wool and decided to grab them for me. This is Pace by Universal Yarns and it’s fingering weight made of 75/25 wool to nylon blend. And with five skeins this is just over 1,000 yards in the chocolate color. And I can tell that someone got this yarn at Tuesday Morning.

Will I knit with this? I really don’t know. It doesn’t feel bad when I squish the skein and the color isn’t terrible. But it doesn’t really grab me as yarn that says “knit me now!”. So after a careful freezer and heat cycle to kill any weird hitchhikers I will tuck this into my stash for a rainy day. Or maybe I’ll list it as willing to trade on Ravelry. I’m just happy my momma knows the way to my heart!

Happy Knitting!!

Destash Score

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One morning I was perusing Instagram while waiting for my son at the dentist. And I saw one of the dyers I follow was de-stashing some of her personal stash. I though what the hey, I’ll go see. Guys….she was selling primo stuff! And for less than original purchase price.

I saw two wish list yarns and jumped on them like a lion on a wounded wildebeest.

I scored some Voolenvine yarn in her Smitten DK for a color called Mood Indigo. I never managed to catch her updates and had given up hopes of ever trying her yarn. So this was a big win. Next was some Leading Man Fiber Arts Show Stealer in a color called Sand Castle. I had been thinking about putting this yarn dyer on my Christmas list and now I don’t have to.

Guys….both these skeins have CASHMERE in them. They  are soooooo soft and wonderful. I have no idea what they will grow up to be. But I just knew they wanted to come live with me.

Happy Knitting!!

Oh Hell No

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My husband and I were recently down in the basement doing laundry. The laundry room being adjacent to my craft/guest room. My husband tells me casually “look, there is a moth” as he grabs a paper towel to kill it. Needless to say I FREAKED. A moth was adjacent to my yarny treasure….oh hell no!

So the next day while PB was taking her morning nap I did an airing of the stash. I pulled out ALL my yarn with any kind of natural fiber content and inspected for moth damage. Only a few skeins were protected by plastic bags and I hadn’t aired the stash in awhile so I was worried. I did this in two lots. All my fingering through sport weight yarns…

And then all my worsted and above…. (some of this is acrylic but I wanted to them organized all together by color or sweater quantity).

I luckily didn’t find any moth or insect damage and now all this lovely yarn is located inside zip-lock bags and with lavender sachets inside the storage drawers. I also double checked what is stored in my cedar chest and found no damage there. This process also reaffirmed how much yarn I actually have and I really need to knit some sweaters. I may also put some of this  up for trade/sale when I have a little more brain space and sleep. I didn’t feel in the right mental state to determine if I still love all this yarn.

The next hurdle is to look in the makeshift closet we use for winter coat storage to make sure they aren’t eating any items in there! But this tired mommy is going to leave that for another day…perhaps when the grandparents are here to entertain Jellybean and PB.

Now I just need to get my pulse and blood pressure back down to normal…lol. Happy Knitting!!