Tag Archives: yarn swap

Everything is happening, so Nothing is happening

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Life never seems to happen at a steady pace, it surges and wanes into tides.  Its not that there isn’t progress in a wane period, its just that we mark the starts and ends of things.

Which means that I have plenty of WIP to post, just not much for the done pile.  I actually did finish two projects, but one is a gift and the other is… well its brown.

Now keep in mind I LIKE the chocolate brown and it is 100% Alpaca so its soft and warm.  This yarn was languishing in my stash for the past two years from a yarn swap and ever subsequent yarn swap I have this extreme onset of guilty feelings about not having used yarns from previous swaps or gifts.  But I’m not sold on its final form and perhaps I’ll just have to frog it and start over again.

So onto the WIPS!

I was determined to finish those blocks by my anniversary, so I set our a few days to finish off the last few. They need trimmed up and I am considering adding some inner vining borders, but overall here’s where we are.  New goal is to have the top and backing done and ready for quilting by Christmas.

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I am technically still on schedule for my cross stitch project since I am working on the 3rd quarter in the 3rd quarter, but it feels like I’m a bit behind.  My hobbit scarf is actually behind by about 60 rows.  We are currently riding in barrels on the way to Lake Town, but if I can get to the Last Light of Durin’s day by the last light of August 31 then I’ll be caught up again.

Meanwhile in the “it seemed like a good idea at the time” and “good lord what can I do for the Ravellnic games” depts…  A fellow knitter started a color work socks informal KAL.  And I started two different socks and then they got set aside to join that one sock on the last round I was in of Sock Madness 9 in May of 2015.  So that’s my challenge… to finish up all of my partial color work socks.

You might recognize that blue yarn in the last sock… its from my most recent completed yarn swap.  I am midway in another swap.  My recipient has already received what I sent and took great photos.  And I really can’t wait to see what shows up at my door.  Until then… back to socks and scarves and stitchery things.

 

Yarn Shop Hops and Swaps

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Before I get into the yarn eye candy, let me start with a view of my 2016 sock collection from Sock Madness.

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Just like last year, by the time we reach the finals I have thoughts of designing a sock for the next time.  Technically I have until September, but thus far my pile of projects doesn’t look like it has an opening.

At any rate, I ended up out on Round 5 with the upper left socks, Eisregen.  And while they only took 13 days, those 13 days included a trip to Mount Rainier (we were hosting a guest), the redditgifts yarn swap, and my first LYS tour hop.  Which means I may have gotten a bit carried away on the swap.  She said crochet, not too fussy about yarn quality, and purple; do you know how many shades of purple there are? Way more than the five I sent, but I hope it was a good first swap for them.  I actually ended up receiving from the person I sent yarn to last year!  She sent me a skein she hand dyed herself.

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I’ve got it wound up and set aside with a gunmetal grey for what I think may turn into a pair of Twisted socks.

I did manage to contain myself in the yarn shopping. (My husband may not fully agree, but he wasn’t there so he didn’t see all the yarn I didn’t buy, did he?)

Here’s my first day haul:

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I specifically wanted to try the Smooshy with Cashmere since I really love my socks from last years madness which were a cashmere blend. The skein on the right is by a local dyer that I met to hand off the remnant from my Golden Waikimari socks and there is some up currently in their etsy shop. The two on the right are my first yarns with sparkles, since I don’t look at color labels I found myself at the register discussing how much I liked the second from left colorway and saying it reminded me of “80s rose wallpaper” its called Zombie… which is OK too.

On Day Two I may have found a couple crazy deals at a shops discount section.

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The three on the left all came from the same shop, but the navy is a mink and the white is a cashmere… and how do you leave such softness behind?  I was thinking maybe some lacey brioche project, though the white is significantly more yardage than the blue. The pale amethyst and mint on the lower left clearly has said it needs lace and beads and gets its shine from sea cell, which is basically a rayon made from seaweed.

So two days combined with a couple thrift shop pick ups and… my yarn stash is threatening to regrow. Thankfully the local energy co-op has someone new looking to make hats for charity, and some fellow knitters are doing stash busting projects so hopefully I can destash a bit yet this year.

On the fabric front, the annual quilt shop hop is happening next week. ¬.¬

I am not sure what happened but there are significantly fewer shops this year and looking at my fabric and yarn stashes I’m leaning towards not going this year.  I do like the fabric this year so I might have to visit one or two shops, but I think I won’t do the bus.

And the Trees are striped Bare, of all they wear…

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You may recall a few posts back I mentioned getting some amazing 100% bamboo yarn in my last exchange.  Well my yarn Santa sent me not only the two skeins of bamboo, but a great hank of Hazle Knits sock yarn in Song Sparrow, AND a stunning pattern for a maple leaf shawl from my patterns wishlist.  Which btw… I should mention that my Santa this swap was actually my rematch giftee from an earlier yarn swap!  (If you are reading this then…. Thank you a billion times!)

So naturally I got out my birthday gift from Ben… which was a fabulous set of interchangeable needles. and got right to work on making my Maple Leaf.

This leaf fell a bit earlier in the year.

This leaf fell a bit earlier in the year.

I absolutely loved the pattern and color combination, but I will say I was a bit worried because of how drapey the project was knitting up that it wouldn’t hold its shape so well during blocking.  But I am very happy to report that a simple wet block and laid out flat was just right.  It has quite a bit of drape to it, but it holds the leaf shape very well.

Out in the sunshine
An indoor Maple

Now the one thing I can say about this pattern to be aware of, is that it has a large number of ends to weave in. Now that being a somewhat subjective determination, I did count and can give you a comparison.  For your average knit item its 2 ends per skein per separate piece.  So for a single skein shawl, such as this one… 2 ends would be typical.  I counted my ends as I weaved them in this morning… and came up with a total of 50!  You have roughly 2 ends per point on your leaf.  So this would not be a great travel project where you may find yourself without aide of yarn cutting implements.  *cough*TSA*cough*

But overall I loved the project… AND! I still have a whole skein left of this great Bamboo and another skein of sock yarn in Song Sparrow by Hazle Knits from this exchange!  Woohoo!

Since it was a great day… I couldn’t resist taking a beauty shot of my maple leaf out on the maple tree…. so I’ll leave you all with that.

PS - The title is from October by U2

PS – The title is from October by U2