A Public Service Announcement

If you are in the market for a luxury yarn --- particularly cashmere or a cashmere blend --- then I HIGHLY recommend ColourMart.

They have truly beautiful yarns in nice, lovely, natural, workable colors for extraordinary prices. I just got 420 yards of light worsted cashmere for $36, shipping included. Colorway is called "dust." The best way to describe the color is that it's a light gray beige.



It's even nicer in person. I plan on using it as the main color to make the Folk Art Scarf. Link is to free Ravelry pattern.


Now I'm being tempted by a luscious plum-colored aran cashmere...$32 for 330 yards, shipped.

Commence sitting on hands in 5...4...3....

DONE!

Hear, ye! Hear, ye!

All the yarn in my stash (give or take 5-7 items currently in use in projects that I can't easily pull out & photograph) is finally up on Ravelry. It was both labor and time intensive, but worth it in the long run!

I actually sold something too. Oddly enough, it was one of the last things I ever expected to sell: 3 skeins of Paton's Mosaic in Bottle Green. But hey! It's a start! I also listed 4 things on Destash, just to see if I get any bites there. Nothing yet. I actually have sold 1 or 2 things on Destash, so people do look there.

I also broke down and got some blocking mats for myself from KnitPicks. Since I seem to veer towards knitting gifts lately, I figured it might be nice to have them look a good as possible! And...I got this sock yarn. Oh boy, is it beautiful.

Stroll in the Tea Party colorway:























YUM

More Stashing

Last night I put 2 more groups of yarn colors on my Ravelry page: purples and blacks. Man, I have a lot of purple-ish yarn. Tonight I might try to do grays and ivory/white. I have an assload of gray too, I'm sure.

In other news, I decided to knit a newsboy hat. I've been wanting to knit one for a while now and haven't been able to find a decent enough pattern that doesn't require cutting and inserting a piece of plastic in the peak. I finally found this free pattern from Coats & Clark. Unfortunately the pattern calls for crappy Red Heart Zoomy yarn. Blargh. The main problem I have with this yarn is that it comes only in pastel-ish colors. When I think newsboy hat, I don't think pastel. I think brown tweed, army green, denim blue, or charcoal gray, etc.

So I set out to find comparable yarn to use. Gotta love etsy. I found this 100% wool bulky weight yarn in a deep indigo color from Cordova Studios.














I cast on last night and I can tell it's going to be a really quick knit. I'm liking the way it's turning out. My only concern is that the dye is so deep and inky on the yarn that it tinged my fingers blue while knitting with it. I just hope that when it's done, it doesn't dye my forehead blue! But, we'll see!

Ravelry-o-rama!

Hey folks! So I finally am getting around to updating my stash information on Ravelry. Took me long enough, I know!

So, I am photographing and cataloging in the order that I have the yarn in my wall-o-yarn shelf --- by color. So far I've done:

Red/pink
Orange/Yellow
Greens
Blues

Now, I also have some random yarn in bags or what-not hanging around and decided to do some of those as well. Just what I could grab nearby.

Which means that I'm about 1/3 of the way done. I need to do this on the weekends when there is nice light coming into the yarn room. At night it might be harder. I really want this to get DONE, but I don't want to rush it either.

I have left to do:
Purples
Black
Grays
White/Ivory
Browns
Pastels
Multi-color

Go over and check it out when you get a chance! I have some stuff listed for trade/sell. I might look into another place to try to unload this stuff. But we'll give it a little time on Ravelry and see if I get any bites.

I'm spent. LOL

Top 10 Reasons To Love Ravelry

10.
It's like, the thing to DO, man.

9.
Can meet new people with similar (or not-so-similar) interests.

8.
Can actually purchase yarn (some rather obscure and/or discontinued stuff even) and other knitting items from other Ravelry folks.

7.
Join a group or post to a forum about a tricky project to get info and advice.

6.
Help catalog your extensive library of books and patterns.

5.
Can catalog your entire inventory of yarn with your own photos.

4.
Project management abilities that are amazing and helpful. Can include notes, progress reports, and photos. You can rate patterns and yarn. And you can see who else is knitting your project and how they are doing it.

3.
Access to what seems like a bajillion patterns and other people's projects with real photos.

2.
A lot of FREE patterns.

and the #1 reason to lurve Ravelry...

1.
THE.
FATHER.
TED.
KNITTING.
GROUP.

Of which I am now a member, of course (Knit fast, Father Ted is the actual group name).

FECK! ARSE! GIRLS! DRINK!

Whassa Goin' On?!

Ok, so first of all, what happened to the Dishcloth Swap? One day, I was told to "check back on May 1 for the next round's sign-up information." Then I didn't go check the blog for a few weeks and now suddenly, the entire blog is GONE. I e-mailed the moderator last week. No response. I hope nobody is sick, or worse. If anyone knows what the deal is, please fill me in. Even if it's because I totally suck at life and they all hate me personally, I still want to know.

I need a swap, people. I need the excuse of being a "spoiler" in order to justify buying shit. I love to buy stuff, seriously; even if it isn't for me. If it is, then rock on.

Which reminds me. I HAVE been knitting. I made a scarf for Todd (FINALLY) from some Lamb's Pride Worsted, which I doubled, in a pine green color. It looks really nice. I hope he likes it. Todd's not the gushy type about anything, short of like winning the 200-million-dollar PowerBall. So, he's not likely to get too thrilled over a scarf. I think when I showed it to him he mustered, "Very nice." But he was distracted by Samurai Warriors II on the Playstation II....Anyway, picture to come later.

About a week ago I cast on for the somewhat infamous pinwheel sweater in the adult size. This is a free pattern on Elann.com. Instead of using the Highland Wool that they recommend, I decided to try something different. I am using Lion Brand Cotton Ease. Oh, what nice yarn to work with. I am just about at the point where they tell you to make the arm holes. It's been going very well so far. My concern is this: I have fat arms. Like gross-fat, gelatinous arms. (Sorry for that visual.) So I'm trying to figure out NOW what I can do to make them wider. I'd hate to have to frog this thing back out to the armholes. Because, while it's not HARD to knit; it is A LOT of knitting. Again, pictures are forthcoming.

Ok here's one:





I got my invite to Ravelry back in October. And I think it's a fantastic resource. And recently, I've been really getting into all things Ravelry. I am seriously going to try to photograph and catalog all the yarn in my stash on Ravelry. Stop laughing. I am! Today I went through and added as many books as I could. I think I might try to finish the books part tonight. I'm pretty sure I am only missing a few and then there are some not in the Ravelry database. Although how THIS isn't in the Ravelry book database, is beyond me.

Friday is my birthday and I am taking off from work. This will be the first time in ages that I've taken off from work on my birthday. Todd, Nicole and I are hitting the first showing of Speed Racer that day! It's getting bad reviews so far, but whatever. I have really bizarre taste in movies. In fact, this weekend we got Dude, Where Is My Car? from Netflix. I thought it was great. SHIBBY!

Oh and Happy Cinco de Mayo.

TA-DA!

YAY! I got my Ravelry invite last night! So i signed up and began poking around there. OH. MY. DOG. There is a bajillion things to do there. It's the perfect site for someone like me: anal and a knitter. I can actually catalog every item in my stash! Oh why are the days only 24-hours long?

Speaking of stash management, I signed up for DeStash, too. I just have to get around to taking pictures of some stuff that I want to get rid of. And, holy cow, let me tell you, I need to do some serious de-stashing! I re-organized my knitting room last night, to the best of my ability. And you know, my yarn hording has gotten to the point where I can't even fit all the yarn I have into that IKEA cubby-hole shelving unit. I had to leave some of it in one of my rolling storage bags (yes, I actually have 2. Oy vey.) That's un-good.

Anyway, if you want to look me up on Ravelry, my name there is "mirthful."

Woo!