Fell off the wagon

15 Days. That’s not bad for a first try I guess. 15 whole days before I succumbed to making a yarn purchase. All because of WEBS. It wasn’t their summer sale that got me but several closeouts that I happened to notice while I was browsing. Rowan Cotton Glace and Queensland Cotolino. I had patterns picked out but didn’t buy the yarn, waiting for the right moment when they would go on sale and voila! $2 and $1.99 respectively. Can’t beat that. And since I was already paying for shipping anyway, I threw in a dozen or so of the Elsebeth Lavold Classic Al which just happens to have the same yardage and gauge as a Valley Yarns pattern I had in my queue. Perfect! Now, if I only had more time to knit these up. Did I mention Smiley’s Yarn just added a whole bunch of Rowan and Nashua yarns? All under $3. Talk about wow. I guess since I’m buying things anyway, might as well take advantage of the great deals (maybe I’ll buy some more of those $1.99 Jaeger Roma yarn)

Okay, Official Yarn Diet

Last night, after being unable to locate a ball of yarn to finish my short sleeved Sweater for All Ages (from the Yarn Girls Guide to Beyond the Basics book) in my vast yarn closet, I decided it was time to reorganize what was quickly turning into a yarn ball pit. So at 11PM, after both kids were sound asleep, I dumped out all the contents of the Rubbermaid containers and various boxes and bags containing my yarn. By the time I was done putting everything away, the clock read 1:45AM and the boxes in my closet were nearly touching the ceiling. Reality check: NO MORE YARN BUYING!

From today on, I vow not to buy any more yarn until I have at least 5 projects completed (that’s not including current WIPs) OR if I find the following yarns on sale for more than 70% off (which is HIGHLY unlikely) Tahki Torino, Tahki Torino Bulky, Filatura di Crosa Zara, Rowan Wool Cotton, any 100% cashmere yarn, Louisa Harding Grace, or Moda Dea Washable Wool. Ok, that’s sort of a lot but you get my drift.

It’s about time I put an end to this nonsense (and my wallet can’t take any more yarn purchases because I just bought a new camera lens :P)

Beautiful Patterns at String

I happen to come across a yarn shop in NYC called String which sells mostly cashmere and other lux yarn. Besides the fact that most of their prices are waaaay out of my price range, they only sell their pattern designs as kits (with accompanying cashmere yarn. Can you imagine what that will cost to knit?) But their designs are soooo pretty. I found this cardi-pullover I totally want. And it’s knit in Rowan Kidsilk Aura so it’s not totally out of my league ($144) but I still wish I can just get the pattern because I can certainly find Kidsilk Aura for a lot less elsewhere.

These days, I see all these pretty knits in Nordstroms catalogs and think, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll just write up a pattern for these myself.’ Yeah, wishful thinking is my middle name. Who knows, one day I’ll be experienced enough to actually write a pattern. I figure, by the time I’m through knitting my stash, I’ll be a total expert!

Hubby saw my box first…oops

I tend to hide my boxes of yarn from my husband because he gives me crap about my having too much yarn (is there such a thing?). So when the UPS guy or the mail man drops off packaged during the day, I’m really good about scurrying my stash away like a good little yarn squirrel. Today just so happened to be my once in a blue moon clothes shopping day so I was out of the house for a good several hours, which is why I didn’t realize there was a GIANT box sitting in front of our door. Of all the packages that had to be sitting there, why this one? 13.5 pounds of yarn in one humongous box will scare even the most understanding of husbands. Yep, I got an earful. “You know, you should at least have the decency to hide this stuff from me so I don’t have to see it,” says he. Hahaha. I tried, I really did! Here’s my score from E-bay and 4 Jaeger books that I had ordered all the way from Rowan Up Country in England (ok, ok, the U.K). The shipping cost more than the books themselves. As for the yarn, there’s a good 100 balls of yarn in there.

10 or more balls each of the following: Katia Bamboo, Rowan 4-Ply Cotton, GGH Samoa, Crystal Palace Sequoia, and Filatura di Crosa Baby Kiss. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it all but boy did I have fun squeeshing the hell out of them all.

Washed Cashmere

Having been skeptical of the Colourmart yarns I had received (they were very rough and splitty), I was eager to wash these babies (since washing them supposedly yielded much more favorable results). I made 6 swatches and washed them in a bucket of dish detergent, rinsed, and finished with hair conditioner. And guess what….they are SOFFFFTTTT! I especially like the aran weight ones (only because the DK weight ones were very splitty when I was knitting with them) I guess this means I’ll have to keep an eye out for any of these to go on sale (since I can’t justify buying more yarn at these prices)

Tomorrow is my once-a-week knitting class. I guess I’ll try to make some progress on the 4 odd projects that are in limbo right now (summer short sleeve knit, acrylic socks, baby knit tank, and sleeveless Bella Colour top) Ugh. I’d rather be starting a new project with all these new yarns sitting in my closet and all.

Colourmart Swatch Days

I’ve heard a lot about Colourmart and it’s great prices on cashmere. If you don’t know about them yet, they sell mill ends of deluxe yarn and because all yarn prices include shipping (from the UK), the price listed is what you pay. Anyway, I’ve been hesistant about ordering from them because as you know, I have WAY too much yarn as is. But I was still curious about their yarn and seeing how cheap some of their E-bay listings went for, I couldn’t resist. So I ordered their yarn sample pack for $5 which I get reimbursed if I buy yarn from them in the future and the pack includes15 or so itty-bitty mini skeins to test out their yarn AND includes a pretty sizable skein of cashmere. Well, I just received it the other day in my mailbox and at first I was disappointed in the rough texture of the yarn. Yes, the paper that came with the sample pack exclaims “Remember, these yarns are still oiled!” but I didn’t really think it would have such a big impact on the texture. They felt like bad acrylic. Really. But when I opened the bag of cashmere that was handwashed, oh my my my. SOFT. Like Buttah. OK, they sold me. I shall be buying from them sometime soon.

Well, I figured, let’s test these babies out. Hence my mini-swatch-a-thon begins. So far, I’ve knit up 6 swatches of their yarn but I don’t think I’ll be touching anything thinner than DK weight. Even these yarns seem  little too thread-like to me. I’ll throw them in a woolbath (read: dish detergent water) and see how the end product comes out.

One more thing - the UPS guy just dropped off a 9 pound box from Little Knits. Oh joy!! (I better hurry and hide these from my hubby before he gets home)

Yarn online

I buy most of my yarn online (most being 100%) because I have two little babies that aren’t welcomed in most yarn shops. Ok, maybe some might welcome them but if I were a LYS owner, I wouldn’t want little kids with their grubby fingers all over my precious yarn. So, I have resorted to the click-n-buy which is turning into a full blown addiction. Sure, I can get incredible deals but how long can I keep up this $100/day habit before my bank account hits the dreaded $0 balance? Oh, I’ll worry another day.

Guess what I found sitting in (or is it on? I can never get these two straight) my doorstep: more yarn! It’s 30 balls of Schachenmayr Nomotta Joana that I ordered from Herrschner’s about a week and a half ago. I saw this fabulous pattern for a City Coat (I’m a total sucker for sweater coats) in Domiknitrix and knew at once that I NEEDED to buy the yarn for this. Here’s the catch though - the pattern calls for 30 balls of GGH ASPEN. Hello, that’s like $250 worth of yarn. I realize a lot of people will try to rationalize that it’s worth buying nice yarn to knit handknit items but $250 is ridiculous. And it’s not even angora or cashmere. So I dug dug dug and found this sub yarn on sale for a whopping $56 (I had a free shipping coupon so there). I can’t wait to cast on and knit this thing but it will have to wait in line with all my other 300 planned projects.

Too much yarn

A family friend came over today with her daughter and mentioned she needed a needle to fish out some splinters out of her daughter’s hand. It happens that I keep all my sewing supplies in my craft closet with all my yarn. To get to these needles, I had to dig out boxes and boxes of yarn while she stood there gaping and gawking at my yarn mountain. It was sort of embarrassing actually. I had to tell her that I stopped shopping for clothes or shoes ever since I decided to build my yarn stash. Does this sound pathetic? I keep trying to tell myself, ‘Hey, it’s better than me buying drugs/cigarettes or a pair of shoes that will go out of style in two years.’ At any rate, I went ahead and bought more yarn off of Ebay. You heard me, I bought MORE yarn.

This seller on E-Bay had loads of Louet Gems for like half price and I always wanted to knit these gorgeous sweaters that were featured in Interweave Knits that called for Louet Gems Worsted (I always try to stick to the yarn the pattern calls for cuz I suck at substitutions) And to make the situation worse, my LYS is having a 50% off sale and whaddaya know, they have SWTC Karaoke on sale! Yeah, I’m reading a lot of comments on Ravelry that mention how crappy this yarn is but I have this awesome pattern for a men’s sweater that specifically calls for this yarn so I’ve been eyeing various sites for the yarn to go on sale. And ta-dah! I have enough yarn to literally knit 500 sweaters and 15 pairs of socks. What could this mean? More excuse to stockpile sock yarn!

Jaeger pattern books

So you probably know by now that the entire Jaeger line has been discontinued, which means deep discounts on their yarn! But it also means, it is near impossible to flag down any of their pattern books. I’ve searched high and low for some of their pattern books on ebay, google, and Ravelry just to run into a lot of deadends.

I must also mention that Cucumberpatch UK has a ton of Jaeger yarn on sale (which I, of course, took full advantage of) In my stash, there are approximately 40 balls of Extrafine Merino Aran, 20 balls of Extrafine Merino DK, 30 balls of Roma. So yes, I have A LOT of Jaeger yarn. (I promised myself not to buy anymore Jaeger yarn until I start knitting with any of it. I’ve got my eye on you, Matchmaker DK!)

Back to the topic at hand. All I found was the yarns on sale with the comment. “Pattern support could be found in Jaeger JB##” Well, how about actually offering the book for sale? What the hell?

Well, thanks to my borderline obsessiveness in “digging” for info on items I want to buy, I was able to locate a whole bunch of Jaeger books at Rowan Up Country in the UK. The good news was that all the Jaeger books were on sale. The bad news: the shipping cost as much as the books. Normally, I would have balked and closed the window, but knowing how hard it was to locate these books, I ordered them begrudgingly. $40 for 4 books. Not too bad, I think. (Have you seen the patterns in Jaeger JB20? They are to die for!)

Knitty Gritty Baby Blanket

 So my husband’s friend’s son, Oliver, is turning 1 this week and they’ve invited us to his birthday party. Although the invitation did state “No gifts please” I felt bad about not bringing anything when we’ve received numerous gifts from them for our kids. What better gift than a handknit baby item?

When I received the birthday invitation, I had 4-5 projects that I was already working on but I tossed them aside and got right down to knitting this baby blanket. Unlike all the other projects that I was dilly-dallying with, this one actually had a deadline and I’m no speedknitter. It was an extremely easy pattern (5 rows/sts of garter stitch edging on all sides and all stockinettes for the rest of the blanket with the letter “O” in the center of the blanket) but it was taking me forever to knit this thing because I kept making silly little mistakes. I would frequently purl the garter stitches and then find out 4-5 rows down the line. I would fumble with the crochet hook to fix the error then make it worse and end up ripping out 5 rows. Repeat mistake 4-5 times and what I had was a colossal time-suck of sorts.

Well, I’ve got about 80 rows of 130sts to go until the baby’s birthday in 5 days. I better haul ass.