Prime Time Knitter

Guilty Pleasures

There’s not much knitting to show so far this week, and so I’ll do what any sensible blogger would do in such circumstances—flash my stash.  In this case, it is new additions to my knitting yarns collection and supplies.

I just loved the tactile pleasure I got from knitting with Socks That Rock yarn.  In an idle moment, I thought about the yarn I’m using for my WIPs.   Zara (for the Devonshire jacket) is wonderful to the touch. Silky Wool looks better than it feels.  I don’t really like knitting with Cotton Fleece, but I will finish the red sweater—which I know will be enjoyable to wear. But the Bee Fields shawl has languished because I just don’t like the way my stash yarn looks and feels.

Anne Hanson and Wooly Wonka offer this shawl as a kit, and the yarns are lovely, as you can see from those on the KAL who’ve completed their shawl.  My one-color yarn looks flat compared to the beauty of the slightly variegated yarns of the other KAL members.  I decided not to use the kit yarn because I simply don’t look good in green or yellow.  Anne also recommends Fearless Fibers, and while web surfing, found a yarn that would capture the same honey glow as the kit yarns but in colors that are better for me.  And so I put aside the sense of virtue I was getting from the prospect of stash reduction and bought it.

While doing that, I thought I’d also try some of Fearless Fiber’s sock yarn:

It is just gorgeous to the touch, and I love the colors—which have more purple than my camera captured.

I’ve had in the back of my mind, a shawl that Wendy had made last year.  She used Morehouse lace weight.  I have loved Morehouse Farms yarn ever since knitting their Family Sweater (featured in Knitting in America) for my son.  I’ve made some of their children’s sweaters as special gifts and a tweedy scarf for myself.  So when I got an email notice saying that the March special was their natural color lace yarn, I couldn’t resist. 

I had intended this for another of Anne’s shawls, Wing of the Moth, but when the yarn (color: oatmeal) arrived I thought, with its homespun texture, that it would be better for another shawl: Summer in Kansas from Two Old Bags.

I’m still on the prowl for the perfect yarn for Wing of the Moth.  I might choose Morehouse’s off-white natural yarn when I’m done with Summer in Kansas, but I’ll leave that for my Rhinebeck quest this coming fall. 

When I used KnitPicks Harmony circular needles in US 3 to reknit Liv’s sleeves, I also liked the feel.  And when I started my new sock using my trusty Brittany Birch DPNs, I noticed that the points were rounder than those on the Harmony needles.  I thought how nice it would be to have the KnitPicks DPNs for those yarns that could use a pointier needle, and I ordered the set—along with the set of interchangeable circulars from sizes US 4 to 11.  So now my sets of Harmony’s are complete, and they’re a welcome addition to my tools.

Tonight it is back to knitting on something.  Work has interfered with every aspect of my life since Monday, requiring me to work and not knit after dinner.  And staring at the computer screen, even that of my beloved Mac, for all those hours has given me some eyestrain.  But the prospect of knitting with these yarns is an inducement to get the WIPs to FO status.

 

Disorganized No More?

Things have gotten away from me over the last month.  Has this happened because I took a rare week off for Stitches?  I’m not sure.  Work projects that were dormant have sprung to life, so my due dates are conflicting.  Some knitting projects haven’t proceeded according to plan.  It has been too hot on many nights to work on Ed’s sweater, and I need daylight for some finishing.  Seaming the dark green has not been easy, and I’ve saved some of the more noticeable bits (the pockets and the finishing at the cuffs and bottom ribbing) for brighter light.  Liv is still suspended in time, until I can remove the sleeves, shorten them, and reknit the caps.

So what did I do over the last few days—why begin a new project, of course.  Here is the start of the Bee Fields shawl.

This doesn’t look like an evening’s worth of knitting, but it is.  I think this is the most difficult shawl I’ve attempted so far, and I don’t have a sense of what the pattern is doing yet.  I also spent Monday night swatching this stash yarn.

And yesterday I got my Ravelry invitation, so now it is time to start entering my stash, after I get the housekeeping chores of loading Firefox (I use Mac’s Safari now) and coordinating with Flickr completed.  I suspect this will take a while.

In anticipation of joining Ravelry, I started photographing my stash some weeks ago.  I set everything up outdoors, and after taking pictures of about a half-dozen yarns, it began to rain.  So, like so many other things in my life, there is yet one more thing suspended in an unfinished state.

I did unearth some interesting yarns.

I need to knit this Soysilk quite soon.  It is intended for one of Myrna Stahman’s seamen’s scarves for my good friend Mary Anne.  She liked the one I knit from Acero, but it was too itchy—she has a problem with wool, and even the softest merino seems to give her trouble.  I think Acero feels like silk.  I’ll see Mary Anne in a few weeks, and so this project has to begin soon.

I also found some KnitPicks Elegance that I bought to try out.  Yup, yet another sample scarf.  The need for Christmas knitting has become apparent—and I can’t believe it is almost November already.  This would be perfect for a gift scarf.

If young children are looking at your computer screen over your shoulder, please shield their eyes before reading on.  In the recesses of my stash, I found this:

I realize that heretofore this has been a “family blog”, and I’ve included no objectionable content or foul language.  That has just changed.  I bought this yarn in about 1982 or 1983 in a yarn store in Manhattan that had a beautiful selection of Danish yarns from this manufacturer.  I’m afraid to google the yarn company to find out any more about the yarn, but I intended it for gloves.  I have about 1100 yards, and it is a true laceweight.  It would work very well for one of the smaller shawls in VLT.

I’ll save the rest of the photos, and the new ones I hope to take this weekend for my Ravelry inventory, and I know I’ll have a huge sense of accomplishment when I finally have everything listed in one place.  I also hope to work with my blog so that by my blogversary at the end of December I’ll have my posts in categories.  This has been on my mind but not on my to-do list.  And I want to link photos of my FOs both here and on Ravelry.  Can I do it?  It is more likely that I can be in control of my knitting than the rest of my life, so it is worth a try.