Yarn Porn - New Stashes

Had a mini pay day spree. The dark blue and red semi-solid skeins are destashes from Ravelry. The scrap ball and aquamarine variegated skeins are new from The Knitting Goddess. The rainbow mini skeins are from Mothy and The Squid.

The Knitting Goddess

I properly love The Knitting Goddess. The colours are just fantastic, I can always pick out skeins of hers. I treated myself to two mini skein packs on Tuesday as a birthday present to myself.

This is the May mini skein club pack, which has 7 skeins in lovely soft, light & summery colours. My blanket has a tendency to get darker in some areas, so I'm hoping these will help balance it out.

Last but not least is this 7 skein pack of 'charcoal rainbow' which predictably is the colours of the rainbow with dark grey & charcoal running through it. I can't wait to ball these up & knit them into my sock yarn blanket over the next few days.

(It's a crap photo but I've noticed all of a sudden that my blanket is actually noticeably bigger & has grown now. It's a nice feeling but it's already taken two years to get to this stage and I'm not even 20% of the way there!)

I think these are maybe my 4 or 5th packs from The Knitting Goddess. I have several 'full size' 100g sock skeins, plus lots & lots of mini skeins. You can buy the mini skeins in packs like above, or individually for £1.50. I'd recommend trying some, the colours are just beautiful. (I'm not affiliated in any way with The Knitting Goddess, just a fan of several years!)

Stash Diving

I'd like to say that with it being 'spring' and a bank holiday I was inspired to have a good clearing, sorting & tidying session. As it was, I went into my tower drawer storage yesterday and found two skeins of yarn I realised I didn't have catalogued on Ravelry. Obviously that's not on, so....

Please meet skein No. 1 - a gorgeous, squishy, pale yellow, semi-solid skein from the fantastic Knitting Goddess. (I love, love, love her yarns, and if anyone's stuck on what to get me for my birthday in June, they have a sock yarn club!) This one was gifted to me by Makan on Ravelry, also known as Leah :)

I also found this one, which I cannot remember buying :s May have had a slightly yarn buying addiction a few years back! I did go a bit nuts buying yarn to make up for the fact I wouldn't be able to for 3 years while in Uni. (Or so the theory went, please ignore the last yarn porn post!)

Unfortunately Sugar Hippo Creations seems to be out of stock or stopped trading maybe. What a bloody shame, look at that skein! The colours are gorgeous and it's unbelievably soft too.

I found those two on Thursday, so yesterday morning (Friday) I grabbed my camera and Craig's ipad and went stash diving. When I was leaving Reading, I packed two massive cardboard boxes full of wool. They were boxes for IDEXX pots we used to use in work, which came lined with a plastic bag so I thought they'd do well in protecting the yarn from any nasties that might want to eat them. However because the first thing I packed was yarn (I was spending more time drinking & partying than knitting, how life changes...) I couldn't remember what was in them. I went home in January & brought the biggest box up to Cardiff as I realised I was seriously skint and would saddly have to start selling some of my lovelies.

So it was a box full of yarn I couldn't remember, and I wasn't sure if everything was catalogued. Turns out, they weren't!

Meet Teksrena. I bought these two Lithuanian skeins off Ebay back in December or January 2011 sometime. It's 100% wool so I'm a bit scared of using it yet (it'll felt!!) but the colours are gorgeous! I seriously want to try a pair of matching socks, or maybe a bright scarf. The yarn's a little rough & rustic, but there are some good reviews on Ravelry from other users. ('Users' makes us sound like druggies!). Here's another link to purchase some, they do all kinds of gorgeous colours!

 

I also found this skein of King Cole's Zig Zag which might have been another gift from Leah. I seem to remember she bought it from eBay, but I know we both independently bought a skein of something without checking with each other during our phase of going nuts buying all the cheap yarn we could find on eBay for our sock yarn blankets. I think she tried to gift me a skein I already had split for us? Not sure on that one. 

These are two skeins of Abstract Cat Crafts 'Pout' in superwash 100% merino sock yarn. I had this Christmas 2010, I asked Mam if she'd buy me some lovely yarn & gave her a few links. She ended up asking me to buy it instead & giving me the money for it as she hadn't knitted in so long she was unsure of what type of yarns would be best for me. Laura was the first indie dyer I came across & fell in love with (her yarns!).

I went through a phase at the start, of feeling the need to buy two skeins to make a pair of socks. Pretty ridiculous looking back. My first sock took 53g however, so I bought another & from then kept buying sock yarn in pairs. Now I barely use 70% of a skein when I knit socks for myself. So I think I might hang onto this pair & see what else I can make with them. It's lovely & soft yarn. 

I also found this skein of Black Cat Fibres dreaminess. I have NO recollection of buying it! Unfortunately my etsy purchase history doesn't list it either, maybe it was too long ago? I'd love to find out the name of the colourway (I'm a bit OCD like that), but will have to settle for knowing the yarn content instead. 

It's lovely & huggable, and I adore Ruth's work. She once custom dyed a skein for me after accidentally sending me the wrong skein in the post. Can't get better service! Unfortunately Ruth's health has prevented her from dyeing recently, but I'll link anyway. I really hope she recovers soon. 

I also found my second skein of Blue Sky from The Knitting Goddess. Yep, another skein from her!

This is another skein that I started knitting socks with, panicked I wouldn't have enough and bought another. Originally these were intended to make socks for my ex, but I ended up using them to start knitting Wraparound Gloves. I found the first half of a glove in a bag stashed in my storage tower (which takes us back to a full circle) and dug them out to work on during placement. I'm still deliberating making some socks for myself, the yarn is seriously nice to work with!

All of these have now been appropriately catalogued & stashed on Ravelry. I still have another big box at home, which I'll go through this summer. It's been an eye-opener to see just how much yarn I actually have, especially considering I bought most of it within the first year of beginning knitting! I have a lot of patterns lined up and no excuse not to go stash busting & make them!

Naughty Yarn Porn

 I bought more yarn. Expensive yarn.

I'm supposed to be saving as I'm super skint right now, but Super Sock Store is closing down and I've wanted to try some Cherry Tree Hill yarn for years now.

It's absolutely stunning and my perfect mix of blues, pinks, purples & green. I can't regret this, I won't! (Although I regretted it before I collected it as the post office depot is a maze which I almost failed to navigate until the woman in the car behind me started gesticulating widly which way for me to go, which I just managed to see in my mirror).

I also made sensible purchases. Like this one. It's knit THEN dyed, with the theory being you then get matching socks. I've wanted to try these for ages. This was only $6 which works now (15/03/12) out as £3.96. It was cheaper when I bought it back in February. That is a bloody bargain for superwash merino sock yarn!! This colourway is currently offered on Ravelry in trades for $15.

My camera hasn't quite picked up the right shade of the blue, but it is my favourite part of the colourway and wasn't even shown on the website so was a very happy surprise :)

Mainly due to the price, I then picked up another as it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity, plus with the international shipping I may as well have! Unfortunately I forgot about the import tax at customs, and got charged £14.60 (including a £8 handling fee).

I'm leaning more towards either keeping this as a scarf or making socks for Craig. I'm not sure how the vertical stripes will knit up, so it'll be interesting to see.

This Cherry Tree Hill sock kit one was the most expensive at $23.60. There are currently a few kits left at $14 if you fancy it. The yarn is fantastic.

The price includes a sock pattern too. I've been trying to step away from my usual 'plain vanilla' sock that I've always made. So hopefully this will be a great transition, plus it's very pretty and squishy.  

I can almost always justify buying yarn, but I think it was worth it this time :) All of the above, plus international shipping for £47 (not including customs fee).

(I almost forgot, I listed all of my Wollemeise yarn for sale/trade on Ravelry back in January, at ridiculosly low prices (£22 each, I paid ~£25-30 each). Had a PM yesterday asking if my lovely blue is still for sale. Looks like I should be good and sell it to pay towards the customs fee!)

Cross Section of Wool

Hello :)

Sheepish post. Literally! Oh dear... 

Just came across this and thought it was pretty funky. Life's gone a bit nuts the last two months or so, hence the lack of knitting and posting. I'm getting back into things now though, I have some baby clothes to make for my (now 7 months, it's gone so quickly!) pregnant friend :)

xx

Travelling Bags

Morning :)

Thought I'd do a quick post to show what I ended up putting in the travelling bags.

I had a few duplicates, so these went into one bag, and a similar amount of colours went into the second. All in all, I've really enjoyed taking part in the whole thing :)

xx

Travelling Squares

Morning,

I've just finished watching The Prestige (really good, I'm getting into Christopher Nolan films now!) and while I was watching it I made 3 squares for my blanket. I have a lot of individual squares from travelling to work etc, I normally make 1 a day at least when I'm not reading my kindle all the time! Had to finish The Book Thief before I could do any more though, but that's all over now (awesome book btw). I'm up to 55 squares in the blanket, which isn't quite wide enough yet, and 21 individual squares that are set aside to introduce colours randomly all over the blanket and to widen it further.

So I've ended up picking out 10 balls of yarn from the travelling bag. Here's a quick picture of them all:

First up, I made a square of the sparkly rainbow yarn you can see at the bottom of the pic. It's quite funny, since buying a Colinette creative pack and noticing how much thicker Colinette Jitterbug yarn is to 'normal' sock yarn, I've been able to spot the Jitterbug yarn balls in the travelling bag a mile off! This is one of them :)

The sparkly thread running through it doesn't really show up in the picture, but it's there :) It's quite subtle, I love it. I might have to buy a little more...

Next I decided that an area with predominantly purples, pinks and blues needed a different colour. I was gonna go green but didn't have any to hand. So I went for this ball instead. It's so small that my scales didn't want to register how much it weighed (they are only 1g scales) and there's definitely not enough left for another square. Nice though. Not Jitterbug ;)

This one is Jitterbug! Went with orange to brighten up the area. I'm aware that my favourite colours are blues, greens, pinks, purples and turquoise/teals so each time I get a ball of yellow, orange or red yarn I make doubly sure to keep hold of it and put a few squares in!

Not a bad haul I don't think! Night all!

xx

Travelling Bag

Morning,

The first of two travelling bags arrived this morning. Had a slight moment of panic when I realised that both were headed my way and I wasn't sure which one this one was due to it not being labelled! I guess that's what you get for being greedy!

All trussed up in the bag. 

Spilled out onto my bed. I've picked out 8 balls so far (most of which are out of view) that I'm going to either whittle down, or replace with some of my own. I haven't 100% decided yet.

xx

Kool-Aid Yarn

Evening,

Just a quick post to show you the results from Sunday...

Quite pleased with it! There's a little more red than I had planned in there - I used the same volume of red and blue but red has covered a much larger area, but I do like it. I'm going to use it for my May pair of plain vanilla socks I think! And then the leftovers will go in my sock yarn blanket :)

xx

Kool-Aid dyeing in stages

First grab your yarn, and your kool-aid sachets. Choose your colours wisely ;)

I bought my kit from DT Crafts and this is their method. 

Unwind your skein of yarn. Posing it for a picture is optional.

Let the yarn soak for up to 45 minutes. This needs to happens so that the dye penetrates the wool completely, otherwise it goes blotchy. Depends what effect you're after I guess!

Note: This one just looks like spaghetti, my previous skein (90% alpaca, 10% nylon) looked like curly noodles after soaking!

Pour your kool-aid into an empty (clean) bottle. Note how the powder is white, yet magically turns blue when it touches water!! :)

Make up all the colours you need while the yarn is soaking. It doesn't take too long. 

These are Ice blue raspberry (blue), lemonade (yellow) and strawberry (red).

Take out the yarn from the water it's been soaking in, and squeeze the excess water. I squeezed a bit too much, and by the time I got to the second and third colour had to put some water back on it. A spray bottle might be an idea if you have one, to keep it damp. 

I'm awful at not tangling yarn while handling it! This is how not to do it! :)

Pour/dribble/drizzle/chuck your dye over the part of yarn that you want that colour. This time I did it in sections, the first time I dyed I did vertical stripes, which means very short colour repeats, and much more blending of the colours. Check underneath to make sure you don't have any white bits, and fill in the gaps if you don't want them. You can gently squeeze on the yarn to get the dye to move around a little more. 

Once you've done all the sections, you need to 'cook' it to fix the dye. The citric acid in the kool-aid just needs heating up. Scoop up your yarn and put it in a pot. Add water because it's really important that it doesn't boil dry. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

(You can also do this in a microwave - put in a microwave suitable container, add some water and heat on full power for 3-4 minutes in 30 second blasts. When I did the first one mine took longer, I wanted to be sure that it was bubbling!)

(You can also steam the yarn on the hob for 20 minutes, or for 5 minutes if using a microwave steamer.)

Just to show the almost finished object :)

Simmering away nicely :)

Take the pot off the heat and allow to cool. Once this is done rinse the yarn well - insects are attracted to the sweet smell of the kool-aid so make sure you double rinse it! 

Once rinsed, lay out flat to dry, you don't want gravity over-stretching your yarn and ruining it! 

Once dry, rewind into a skein until you want to wind it into a ball. It's better to leave yarn in a skein until you need to use it, as winding yarn into a ball puts tension on the yarn, stretching it. 

Have a lovely Sunday :) 

xx