Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Knitting: Good Grief!

I started going through every single bit of my stash of yarn yesterday, trying to get a sense of what I have, what's been entered into my stash tracker on Ravelry, and to get an idea of what to take along with me on my car trip to and from Gramma's house this year.

Holy Guacamole.

I found two sampler bags of sock yarn and a sampler bag of lace weight yarn from Knit Picks that was never entered into the tracking system.  Yet another reason why boycotting them is a good idea for me.  I'll tack on a skein or two of sock yarn to my order since it's cheap, and now... I have an entire 50 quart plastic bin of just the *pretty* sock yarn.  And NONE of it was entered into the tracking system.  So I file it away in a bin, and promptly forget about it.

Well, I've entered it all into the system now.

So needless to say, the rest of my 2011 knitting year is going to consist of a combination of severe yarn diet and stash-busting projects.  I had several sock-weight projects in my queue already, but I'm going to add on a Many Colors Swirl Coat which uses eight different color skeins of yarn in addition to the Strata  Sphere Swirl coat I'd been planning to make to use up some of the Noro yarn I have that has that god-awful Mohair in it.

We're still trying to save for a house, although if we're moving this year, it looks like it might be to just a different apartment instead.  We'll have to see.  So it won't hurt to just sock away my "allowance" for a few months, and I certainly won't be hurting for yarn.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Knitting: Hot Enough for Popcorn on the Sidewalk

... but I'm still knitting.  I managed to finish the Lily Cuffs in Midwinter Chroma.  I made them twice as long, changed to stockinette for the middle portion, and left off the ruffles.  I had enough yarn, I just didn't feel like having ruffles tickling my armpits.  There is eight stitches worth of increases between wrist and top, just enough for an additional pattern repeat on the rib detail.  They fit like very close-fitted sleeves.  I may capitalize on that at some point and create a cardigan or pullover if I ever decide to lift my Knit Picks embargo.

I am getting close to done on the Nantucket blue Azami pullover.  Since I rarely do a pattern in the yarn called for by the designer, I am disappointed in the lace panels in this thing, which for once cannot be attributed to my yarn choice.  The lace is blocky, muddled, and has no real flow from one section to another.  I see nothing attractive in having it at all, and I will be omitting it as much as I can from the hood and sleeves, which is all I have left to do.  I would imagine having a stockinette hood would be warmer for its purpose, anyway.

After finishing up the True Blood Vlad in Twisted Warlock for the knitalong, my decks will finally be cleared.  I have verbally (well, as verbally as you can on the internets) committed myself to the Game of Thrones group's "Knit Watch" knitalong, with two projects.  A Catkin capelet in some leftover Knit Picks gloss and other sock yarn, and a Sylvi in Valley Yarns Bulky Red.

I regret that I do not have any pictures of my finished and in-progress items, but my battery pack is currently (ha ha) charging and I wanted to get this out before midnight since I skipped last week.