My Life in Stitches: Testing my Willpower

Photo by Anna H-G

This year I’m on a yarn fast. For non-knitters, that means I’m not buying any more yarn unless I need it to complete a project. It’s Feburary and I’ve only bought one skein of socks. But there are some yarns out there that are really testing my willpower.

•       Jimmy Beans Wool’s Micro-Brewed Series Chronicles of Narnia. This beauty is called Aslan for the majestic lion from the Chronicles of Nardia series. The yarn is drool worthy, especially for people who are seduced by gradients. The Ice Queen is great, too.
•      Verdant Gryphon Utopia in Bugga. This color way is too of my favorite colors combined. That, combined with the fact that it’s Bugga, makes me want to grab my credit card.
•       Miss Babs K2. I’m not a big chunky weight girl because knitting with big needles hurt my hands, but this would be worth it. I’ve been longing to knit Soho Purl’s Color Dipped scarf and this would be perfect. 

Hopefully I can stay the course with my yarn fast. Not easily with all this loveliness popping up on my FB timeline.

My Life in Stitches: Accidents Happen

A little while ago, a woman in my knitting group accidently bought a lot of yarn through an online shop. She was recovering from a sickness and on medication when she did it. She didn’t realize what she had done until later. I admit I laughed at her story. She got some amazing yarn, so it was a happy ending. It was an odd story but I thought it was her unique story.

…Until I accidently bought yarn.

No medication or sickness was involved. I was completely cognizant. So it started, like most things, with Facebook. One of my favorite online yarn shops, Jimmy Beans Wool, put up a post on mill end Cascade 220 on sale. I hopped over the site and browsed. And I admit, I added stuff to my cart.

One of my favorite yarn stores!

One of the thing I love about Jimmy Beans is that they give 5% cash back on purchases. They also offer coupons for free shipping to loyal customers. So after added what I wanted to my cart, I tried to log in. My goal was to see if I had any cash back and free shipping coupons to use.

But I missed one important thing. In order to streamline people’s yarn addiction, Jimmy Bean Wools added a one-click button. So instead of logging in, I purchased 7 skeins of Cascade 220 mill ends. And like my knitting friend, I didn’t realize what I had done until I got the confirmation email thanking me for my purchase.

I could have returned them, but they were such a good deal. I decided to keep them. Besides, now I can say I accidently bought yarn.

My Life in Stitches: Project Before the Yarn or Yarn Before the Project?

Last night my husband asked me a very thought provoking question: Do you buy yarn with a project in mind or do you buy yarn because it’s pretty?

Normally, I am Johnny-on-the-spot with an answer to his knitting questions. But for this one I had to pause because I have done both. I think most knitters, except my husband, have done both. So what’s the right answer? The answer, for me, depends on your perspective on stash management (I guess I’m creating a new term).

My Stash!

To let the non-knitters in our interesting knitting world, your stash is how much yarn you have stored in your house. Most knitters try and manage our stashes, but most of us do a poor job of it, When I returned to knitting, I was very anti-stash, mainly because I had a “stash” of other crafts I’d done cluttering up my basement (and I’ve never met a craft I didn’t like). Unfortunately, I’ve failed at keeping my stash small. It’s not big, but I think it would take me a year to knit through all the yarn I current have.

So I think that if you are anti-stash, you should buy the yarn with a project in mind. I find that when I do this, I usually only buy the yarn I need for the project, thus helping with stash management. My husband is a testament of that. He has a very small stash because he only buys yarn for the project he has in mind. 

Emotional purchase.
Malabrigo Finto. So soft...

Now when I go yarn “shopping,” that’s a whole different story. Any kind of shopping, I think, involves emotions. When I go yarn shopping, I buy yarn for the emotional response. Something is a lovely color, or wonderful to the touch, and then you buy it. You pet it and take it to your knitting group so everyone can ooh and aah over it. Pure emotion.

I have, however, found the wicked downside to emotional yarn shopping: when you finally figure out what you want to make with the random skein or two you bought, you many not have enough yarn for it. It’s hard to figure out how much yarn you need when you don’t know what you’re making.

Still, this is a personal preference. I don’t think there is a wrong answer or a right answer. I think a little yarn shopping is good, but if you don’t want a huge stash, stick with buying yarn by project.

What do you think? How do you buy your yarn?

My Life In Stitches: New Cool Knitting Stuff

This month I’ve come across some new cool knitting things. I guess I’ve spent too much time on Raverly. With my last blog post of the month, I want to share some of those things with you.

We Are So Very Pretty colorway

Yarn

Nerd Girl Yarns. I have a friend who loves Firefly, so when I came across Nerd Girl Yarns, I couldn’t wait to share it with her. Nerd Girl Yarns names their colorways with lines from Firefly. I read the names to my friend, and she knew exactly what episode they came from. Beyond the moment of bonding I had with my friend, the colorways are lovely. Nerd Girl Yarns is on my yarn bucket list.

Techniques

Lifted Increase. This week, I learned how to knit a lifted increase. It was pretty simple once I practiced a little. I needed to learn it for the Skew socks I’m working on. Here is a video.

Overdying yarn. I think most knitters have a skein or two of yarn that captured our attention in the skein but ending up being not so exciting in the cake. I have a skein of purple sock yarn like that. I made a pair of socks, but didn’t like the color pattern. So I, being the geek that I am, researched overdying yarn. It was way more simple than I thought. I’ll be making my attempt next week.

Miss Terry by Kyla Hurst

Patterns

Miss Terry. What a cool name! My lovely knitting friend, Jill hipped me to this pattern. It is so me. I love working on lace and I have plenty of DK in my stash to work with. Can’t wait to start this. Isn't it every girl's dream to wear herself?

Raverly Groups

For the Love of Darcy. For those who don’t know, I am a huge Jane Austen fan. And once again, my knitting friend Jill suggested the Raverly group, For the Love of Darcy (Pride and Prejudice is my favorite Jane Austen book). Right now, there’s a discussion of which Darcy (Firth or Macfadyen) looked better wet. Hilarious!

What cool new knitting stuff have you come across?

My Life in Stitches: Back in Paris

Paris is an interesting city. Some people love it. Some people hate it. I am among the hate crowd. Maybe not as strong as hate, but I did strongly dislike it. It was a little too dirty for my tastes and I think maybe my expectations were a little high. And honestly, I would go back to see Notre Dame and the Louvre and actually go to the Eiffel Tower (I saw it from the window on the trip back).

Apparently, I like knitting projects about Paris more than I actually liked being there. The knitting "trip" to the City of Lights begin with my $5 in Paris sweater, which was delightful project (see post). This time, my "trip" was the Dinner in the Eiffel Tower scarf by Jessie Dodington. I'd added this scarf to my Ravelry favorites last month and discovered that I had enough DK weight yarn in my stash to try it. I was also excited to try a semi-circle scarf with that much lace. Most of the ones I've done were triangles. I must say that this scarf wasn't as fun as the sweater, namely the lattice lace section. 

One of the things I love about knitting is that one project can pretty much solidify your likes and dislikes in knitting. This project reminded me that I don't know knitting lace on the wrong side, especially when you work on 200+ stitches of lace. 

Also, I realized I have a "hate it on the needles" problem. I repeatedly told my husband that I wasn't going to like this pattern, until I casted it off and blocked it. I even didn't like the yarn that I was using while I was knitting it (Sidar Flirt, 80% bamboo, 20% wool), but when I blocked it, it has a good weight to it. It's heavy than what I'm used to in my shawls but with cooler weather coming, this may be a good item to have in my wardrobe. 

Thanks, Renae for the pics. 

My Life in Stitches: Ravellenic Games...Epic Fail

This year, I participated in the Ravellenic Games, an event in which knitters compete by completing a project while they watch the Olympics. I hadn’t planned to participate, but after all the hullabaloo over Raverly.com (the website hosting the event) getting a very nasty cease and desist letter from the US Olympic committee (and their subsequent apologies), I decided to join my LYS’s team. I was completing in the scarf sailing with a design of my own.



Verdant blocking...

Epic fail. Like German-diver-hitting-the-water-flat-on-his-back epic fail. Or Michael-Phelps-failing-to-qualify epic fail. I started the sample of my scarf on needles two sizes too big (and yes, I did create a swatch but decided to ignore it). I should have entered the frogging competition. Anyways, I had to drop out because there was no way I could have finished in time.

 And then I casted on Verdant by Gina Bonomo on the Friday morning before the Olympics ended. I finished it last night…which makes that six days of work. Why, oh why didn’t I knit that for the Ravellenic Games? Despite this, I love the shrug so far. I foresee I’ll be wearing this a lot.

Also it was great to take a break from fingering/sock weight yarn. This is my favorite weight to work with, but projects made in this weight can be slow going. I’m reluctant to go back to fingering. Unfortunately, my two WIP are both fingering. I’ve been trolling Ravelry looking for another project using worsted weight but having no luck. Maybe I’ll look for something in DK.

My Life in Stitches: Yarn That Doesn't Count

My entire yarn stash.
Isn't it cute?

My knitting life has been a little slow lately. So slow that I asked my seventeen year-old daughter what I should blog about. She said, “You can blog about how much yarn you have.” Yeah, that’s a subject to blog about.

I don’t have a huge stash. I have four 16-quart bins and two 25-quart bins. It’s sorted by weight for the most part. My most recent yarn purchases are in bags sitting around the bins, including my birthday yarn.  It would seem like a lot, but it’s not because half of it doesn’t count. Why doesn’t it count, you ask? Because when yarn purchases fall into certain categories, it doesn’t count towards stash building. Those purchases are “special.”

Here is my unofficial list of yarn that doesn’t count:

• Holiday yarn. That includes birthday, anniversary, Mother’s day, and Christmas yarn
• Travel yarn. Any knitter worth his or her salt has already mapped out the directions to the nearest yarn shop before they even leave for vacation. And besides, vacation destination shops often carry brands of yarn that your LYS doesn’t carry. Consider those purchases as broadening your cultural experiences.
• Sale yarn. Absolutely doesn’t count! It’s on sale for crying out loud.
• Special events yarn. This includes yarn festivals (for me it’s Maryland Sheep and Wool). This also includes yarn purchased at Vogue Knitting Live, Stitches events and any other knitting getaway.
• Gift/Gift Card yarn. Any yarn you don’t pay for doesn’t count.
• KAL (Knit-a-long) and test knits. For the sake of building community during a KAL, the guilt of buying more yarn is waved. And as for test knits, most knitter test knit for friends or people they admire. Why not buy yarn in their honor, too?
• “Not enough” yarn purchases. Most of us have lived through the horror of starting a project and then realizing more yarn was needed than what was purchased. You can’t just leave your UFOs (UnFinished Objects) floating in limbo. You have to quickly go and more before the dye lot is gone. Besides, no one wants to be in Raverly purgatory, having to search other people’s stashes for the right dye lot and praying they’ll sell it to you. 

Got more additions for yarn that doesn’t count? 

My Life In Stitches: Birthday Yarn Doesn't Count

Happy birthday to me...a day
early!

Last night, I went to Fibre Space, my wonderful local yarn shop, for some birthday yarn shopping. I have been planning this trip for the entire month. Since I was getting my birthday discount, I decided that I wanted to at least get one yarn in sweater quantity. I’ve also been seeing quite a few patterns in DK but I have very little in my stash. So I set off to get my birthday yarn, because birthday yarn so doesn’t count!

This should have been a simple trip but two things tripped me up. First was taking my husband. I love my honey, don’t get me wrong, but letting us both loose in a yarn shop ends badly. I brought him along for moral support, but he starts shopping (and he has great taste). The second problem was I ended up picking all sale yarn, so my birthday discount was useless.

Sweet Georgia in Riptide

My sweater quantity purchase was some just arrived Sweet Georgia Yarn in their Riptide colorway. Lovely. I plan to (plan being the operative word) to make Francis Revisited by Beth Silverstein, but this yarn will work for Ashby by Leila Raabe, too. I've been crushing on Ashby for a long time. I also bought enough Shepherd’s Wool DK (Plum colorway) to make a Mara shawl.

Shepherd's Wool in Plum

Good stuff, but all on sale and I needed to use my birthday discount. So my husband and I went through the store again. On the second go-round, I grabbed some Space Cadet Creations Stella in their Pride colorway. I have no idea what to make with it. My husband is steadily becoming a big Miss Babs fan. He bought Whatta Skein in Royalty colorway.

Space Cadet in Pride

I am pleased with my birthday shopping even if it turned out to be longer and more stressful than I anticipated. Now let’s see if I can work through my stash and have this knitted up before my next birthday.

My Life in Stitches: Birth-Month Knitting

Yesterday, I shared my birth-month celebration plans (my birthday is actually on the 29th). But there is one more important thing I must add: knitting. I’ve already planned to go yarn shopping, but I also have planned out what I’m going to knit this month.

I normally am a very organized knitter. I pick patterns before I buy yarn (most of the time), and I try to knit my yarn in the order in which I bought it (First in, first out. Thank you five years of working at Burger King). Last month, I assigned most of my stash to projects and saved them in my Raverly queue. My next project is supposed to be the Emerald Isle sweater, but for my birth-month, I’m ditching my queue…by creating another queue.

Pei by Michelle Wang

Now the point of birth-month knitting is not to actually finish the projects. I probably will, but that’s not my goal. My goal is to work on patterns that I like with yarn that I like. Pure enjoyment knitting.

First in my queue is Pei by Michelle Wang. I will be making my Pei out of my very special Elizabeth Bennett yarn from Yarn Love (Earl Grey colorway). Seventy percent merino and thirty percent silk, it’s lovely on the needles (I casted on today). I don’t think I’ll have any problem finishing this one. I would like to wear it on my birthday, but that depends if the weather cooperates.

Spectra by Steven West

Second in my birth-month queue is Spectra by Steven West. I’ll make it with Spud & Chloe and Noro Silk Garden. I’ve had my eye on Spectra for a long time and was certain I purchased it but I didn't. No matter. That’s an easy fix.

Color Affection byVeera Välimäki

And if, by some freak of nature, I get both of these done before the end of the month, I’ll cast on my Color Affection made from Kollage Yarns Sock-a-licious and Giant Farm yarns I got from Nature’s Yarn in Fairfax, VA.

The best part about this queue is I reserve the right to change it if something else catches my eye. Aren’t birth-month celebrations great?