Because, obviously, I don't have enough yarn already.

Everything I've acquired in the past 3 days. Including the koala version of Kritter Craft Cases and some suede bottoms for felted clogs(not shown).

Cascade 220 in Italian Plum. It is a very beautiful, rich purple. My camera disagrees. I took about 20 pictures and they all look really dark. Other yarns look great, this yarn just doesn't photograph well.
Cascade 220 Tweed in a blue that is bright, but not nearly as much as the picture portrays.

Encore Chunky in a very nice gray.

Cascade 220 in Tutu Pink. (It's for my mother. She is all about the pink. I happen to think it's nauseating.)

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Semi-Solids in Indigo

In the past 3 days, I have spent a dizzying amount of money on yarn. I figured I might as well post pictures.

Oh, knitting fates, do you really have to mess with me?

I finished knitting, sewing, and weaving in the ends for my first pair of french Press Felted Slippers in 2 afternoons. My first pair of any footwear. My first felted item.

I learned something: FELTING SUCKS.

I mean, I'm sure it's great if you know what you're doing and the yarn is cooperating and the washing machine is producing the correct temperature of water. I'm sure it's fantastic if you know what you're doing. I do not know what I'm doing. I'm doing what I've read in forty million places and what the designer and my mom and a hundred other knitters said.

Thery're too big, they're not felted enough or in the right spots, and hand felting makes me want to eat my arm.

Tomorrow I am going to set the washing machine to a high water temp, put the slippers in (while also in a zippered pillow case) and let them do as they please. I'm going to shower and eat breakfast and just let them do as they wish.

(Although, honestly, if they don't do what I want them to, I might throw a world-class hissy fit. Yeah, real mature.)

It has FINALLY stopped snowing.

I'm doing Ravelympics this year. I figured: Why not? Any excuse to force myself to finish something.

I'm going to knit Serpentina, a scarf with a pretty simple lace pattern. It's easy, so why am I doing it? BECAUSE THE PATTERNS CALLS FOR 4 SKEINS OF YARN AND THE SCARF ENDS UP BEING 40 MILLION FT. LONG.


Here's my problem. I adore long scarves, but I do not have the attention-span for them. I barely have the attention-span for a hat or a cowl, but a huge ass scarf? No way. I happen to love this scarf though, and I want it very badly, and so I'm going to force myself to knit the whole thing in 2 weeks. I'm pretty excited.

~~~

There was a freak snow storm here for the past week, and we got 2 consecutive days off from school. That's never happened, ever. (Our district is remarkably stingy about snow days.)

I watched a lot of TV. I downloaded a lot of free patterns off of Ravelry (and quite a few not-free ones). I also knit. A lot. I got a hat and a neck warmer finished and blocked, and I started 2 socks (one of which has a good portion of the leg done). That's a lot of knitting in a short period of time.

I feel so accomplished.

~~~

I'm no longer wasting my money on yarn.

I am now learning how to waste all of my money buying patterns on Ravelry.

Great. There is absolutely no hope for me.

Oh, the sheer joy of sock knitting

Remember how I was going to knit socks?

Try 1: Yarn got tangled and only way to untangle the mess was to frog what little I had.

Try 2: I finished turning the heel and picking up the stitches fromt he heel flap to realize the sock was about 2" too big. Frogged again.

Try 3: With the entire sock being too big, I failed to notice that the gauge was also way too big. Frogged. Again.

Try 4: Use smaller needles, cast on fewer stitches and when this try will inevitably fail, resist urge to eat yarn and deny ever attempting to knit socks.

~~~

I'm going on a yarn/knitting notions/knitting books diet. I'm going to use up what yarn I have and use books from the library. I have enough yarn to last for months, and I am running extremely low on cash. I'm learning that buying yarn instead of buying things like shampoo and lunch doesn't work very well.

Knitting socks is way easier than I thought it would be.

I figured out the basics of sock knitting, and then taught myself how to knit socks. I taught myself how to knit using teeny-tiny DPNS. I taught myself how to handle bamboo needles. I taught myself how to do short rows, and therefore teaching myself how to turn the heel of a sock.

Whoever spread the rumor that turning the heel is scary and hard? It isn't. It's easy and totally entertaining that as you knit it forms this pocket for your heel. It's totally cool and quick and easy and it's definitely my favorite part.

(By the way, I'm about 5 rows away fro finished the heel of my first sock ever. It's top notch, really. They're going to fit perfectly, I can tell.)

~~~

I keep going to A Good Yarn every day or 2. This is ruining my budget for things like shampoo and food. Craaaaaaaap. Must. Acquire. Self. Control. Noooooooooooow.

Socks: Episode 1

I belong to the Prescott Knitters group on Ravelry. I've chatted with the moderator and I've been wanting to go to their meet-ups on Thursdays for a while now but couldn't find the time between finals and the holidays. And then they started a Saturday meet-up at this place called Method Coffee way out on Willow Creek out by the Ford dealership.

It was great. I met the moderator, Katie, first and then maybe half an hour later Allee (Katie's friend) came in. Allee is hilarious. She's this super outspoken woman who tells all of these hilarious stories. Katie is very sweet and open and totally cool. We all talked and laughed and drank coffee for 2 hours before we all parted ways. It was nice to just sit and talk about knitting with people who love it as much as you do.

Oh, and I got talked into knitting socks. I have sock yarn, and I do like portable projects, so all I needed was some DPNs. I went to my LYS and found some bamboo ones, which I was bummed about since I usually hate bamboo needles, but these aren't so bad. I came home, knit a makeshift swatch and CO. I got thorough about a row and a half before I decided I had to rewind my ball of yarn and blah blah blah it got tangled and I had to frog what part of sock I did have and now I'm back to square one. Craaaaaaap. Oh well, I'll take what little I did learn (like that you should decide if you want to use 3 or 4 DPNs before you actually start working on your project, or that you should not use a ton of huge stitch markers because they just complicate things) and CO again tonight.



Oh, and if you're a knitter in Prescott, you should come to one of the meetings some time. They're fun. There's one Thursday nights from 5:30 to 7 at the Starbucks on Gail Gardner (by Joann and Walmart), and there's one at Method Coffee on Willow Creek on Saturdays from 1-4 (you don't have to be there the whole time, you can stay as long or as short as you want).

YARN PORN

I am updating (and adding) pictures to Ravelry, so I figured I'd put some pictures up here too. Enjoy.




Patons Kroy Socks, 3 balls from Hobby Lobby. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them.



2 skeins (rolled into 1 ball) came in the kit for some lace scarf.. Anyway, the yarn is Naturally Atlante.



This was originally for Onerva, but I changed my mind. Now I have a single skein of Malabrigo Sock in Solis and I have no idea what to do with it.



Yarn for the vest kit my mom gave me for Christmas. It sure is puuuuuuurty.



Cascade Sock (2 skeins) being knit into Onerva. (Bottom picture is more true to color.)


This is the yarn for the Undulating Waves Scarf kit my mom gave me. It's pima cotton, but she lost the label/tag thing and I don't know the brand or dyelot or anything.



I skein of Berocco Peruvia in... some very pretty teal colorway I can't remember to save my life. It's more green, but my camera doesn't really care what I think.



3 skeins of Silky Wool in Viridian. I think I'll go back to A Good Yarn on Thursday and see if they have any more in this colorway.


1 giant (950 yards, that's what I'm talking about) skein of Madelinetosh Lace in Kelp from The Backwards Loop, they wound it for me for $1 (it's $1 for lace & fingering & sock[I think], but anything heavier is only 50 cents). The top picture is more true in color.

Hrm.

Today is the day of returning Christmas presents and using that money to buy something you'd actually use (or want). I returned $55 of stuff and then went to my LYS, A Good Yarn. I toddled around for a while and came up with e skeins of Silky Wool in Viridian (it's this light teal with just a hint of seafoam green tints), the big monstrous bottle of Euclan, and the mile-long circular needle for the blanket.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?! Blanket? Who's knitting a blanket?


Yes, that would be me. I decided to save all of my leftover yarn and just tie the ends together and knit and knit until it was big enough and have a multi-colored blanket of some sort. I figured that it'll take forever to knit and it will tell a very lovely story and it will give reason to my hoarding of all of my "yarn scraps". (Or maybe I'll just cast on a million stitches, knit for about 6" and call it a scarf. You never know.)


I went to see The Princess and The Frog today. While it had extremely creepy parts, (it's voodoo, what about voodoo isn't creepy) it was cuuuuuuuuuuute. I liked the southern belle, she was funny. I miss Louisiana :(

Guess who doesn't know a thing about photographing yarn...

Christmas is a very nice day.

My mother, being the beautiful creature that she is, got me the best Christmas present ever.

A swift and ball winder.

She got this for me partly because of the hints I've been dropping these past couple of weeks, and partly because it fascinates her how they work. Anyways, they're wonderful and amazing and I spent 3 hours this morning winding every skein of yarn I own (this is only a small fraction).


I also got a sweater kit that I was eyeing-but-not-buying at the quilt show (long story) my mom dragged me to in September. The one I saw was in gold, but this one is in teal and the yarn is hand dyed and hand spun and gorgeous.

As for non-knitting-related items, I got the entire Star Wars collection (I've never seen any of them before), 2 fitness games for the Wii, a couple of books (one with the low-down on socks, which is knitting-related), and various other stuff.


The morning was so crazy that I got really busy and forgot breakfast, and now my stomach hurts. Bleeeeeeeeh.


I'm going to go have some more Christmas fun, Merry Christmas to all :)


(I'll post later with some more pictures.)