Planning ahead

As I posted in my last post, The Day of 95 skeins (v.1), I have a yarn hoarding sickness. I still plan on posting some yarn pornz from that haul, but the weather has been yucky, the lighting in my house stinks and I would like to capture the beauty that is Araucania Aysen in all of it's glory.

Sneaky peak

It truly is stunning. And, if you're in that big of a rush to see what kind of shenanigans I've been up to, you can take a stroll on over to my stash. Prepare to be disgusted impressed.

The trouble with having such an addicting hobby is that even when you dedicate hours to said hobby/addiction, it still never feels like it's enough. As much as I knit, I never get sick of it. Sure, I may get burnt out on a project (Matt's Urban Aran Cardigan...), but then I can just move on to something else for a little while.

Shrug WIP

Take "The Shrug That Would Not Shrug," which I have been working on for most of the month of April. It is my April goal to knit this shrug, but I got a little burnt out. So this time, instead of pressing through it, and eventually hating it (like with the UAC), I set it aside and cast on for something else: The Karen Shawl by Amy Swenson.

Karen Shawl edging

I fought casting on for the Karen Shawl because, quite honestly, I need another WIP like I need a hole in my head. But, after starting it for 3 or 4 people at the shop and seeing Gretl's beautiful first and second attempts, I gave it. And bought myself some Madelinetosh Pashmina in "Port," which is a lovely color that I like to compare to my newly dyed hair (dark purpleish black with red tints). I've run into a few snafus since casting on, but I'm glad I did. Karen has saved me from hating "The Shrug That Would Not Shrug," which I really do love. And am excited to share (in May, probably).

I'm also excited to announce May's "knitting resolution" in this post: Ecuador (photos from Rav)

I've been a huge fan of Joji's (Rav username Jojilocat) for awhile now. Her designs are very cool and she uses some beautiful yarn. I mean, she's from Argentina! Land of Beautiful Yarns. Anyway, she posted her Ecuador design yesterday and inquired for some test knitters. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity. I've never knit a vest//swing cardigan before! My initial plan was to use some Noro Kureyon Sock, but I feel like that might be too busy and I would never wear it. So I've decided to use some Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in "Filigree." This knitting everything out of Tosh phase will end some day...won't it?

Joji used Malabrigo Sock in "Indiecita" for her prototype, so mine will be slightly lighterweight. I'm very excited to try this new garment style. I think it will be perfect for wearing over a short-sleeve shirt in the summer and versatile enough for the transition into fall. I'm hoping to finish it before our England trip this summer.

I'm gonna be a Pogona Shawl someday!

I also have the Multnomah KAL I started (and haven't cast on for) with my dear Cyborg friend, the Pogona I'm itching to knit using my new Socks that Rock AND the Golden Wheat Cardigan, another Cyborg KAL. AND I have a baby to start knitting for (not mine :p). It sucks jumping on the shawl/shawlette bandwagon so late in life.

Meeting Sally Melville...part two

As I mentioned in my last second to last post, Sally Melville was in town this past week for a couple of workshops and meet and greets around town. I work most days at Wool & Co. and it was definitely exciting to have her stroll in and out while I was working.

Me with Sally Melville

Now, I try to be as honest as I can in this blog. And, before working at Wool, I was not very familiar with Sally's work. And even as news of her rolling into town spread, I still didn't really know what to make of this lady, BUT now I know. And she is pretty incredible.

While I was unable to attend any of her workshops (pesky computer science exams, boo), I did have the pleasure of seeing her speak at the Fox Valley Knitter's Guild meeting on Wednesday evening. Matt's mom, who is a huge fan and owns all of her books, accompanied me and it was a nice little venture for both of us. Hey! We're guild members now :)

The topic for the evening was how to make the most of your yarn collection and pairing colors/tints/textures together to make something beautiful and cohesive. I like to think I have a good grasp on which colors go together and how to arrange them, but Sally pointed out something rather revolutionary: ALL colors go together!

What? All colors? No, you can't be serious. But, as it turns out,  they do. Now, you can't exactly pair a pastel with a pure and saturated color, but you can pair pretty much any pastel with any other pastel. Weird, huh? And it makes sense. I remember when I was making my second Calliope hat I decided that I wanted to use a dark red yarn and green/blue buttons. Kate questioned my decision, but, in the end, it all worked out. Because they were the right shades of red and green and their "tones" complimented one another.

Knitting and signing

So, Sally has inspired me to sort my stash...one of these days. I went into work Thursday evening, the night following her talk at the guild, and heard rumblings of the aftershock. Apparently more than one guild member went home that night (or, in the case of one, woke up at 4:30 that next morning) and dove into their stash.

Sally also hosted a meet and greet at the shop on Thursday evening. She was kind enough to sign books and allowed us to try on samples from some of her newest books.

Samples

Sally modeling her designs

Sample from Mother and Daughter Knits

I tried on this one...no action shot.

Some of the ladies

All in all Sally's visit was very exciting and inspiring. Hopefully I will be able to put some of her suggestions to the test. Y'know, when my 19 pound box of yarn arrives this week. But more on that later...;)

The problems(?) with variegated yarns.

Recently, Little Knits posted a ton of Araucania Aysen on clearance for 81% off. Eighty One! That is almost unheard of and, most certainly, an unavoidable temptation for a silly little yarn hussy such as myself. This 81% discount applied to full bag purchases and I managed to snag up the last full bag of Aysen in color 826 and a lone skein of color 814.

Araucania Aysen in color 826

Aysen in 814

Beautiful, right? I was sad to see that some of the more exotic colors were sold out, but you can bet your sweet yarn-loving behind that I snatched up what I could. The yarn is incredible; softer than Malabrigo, with an incredible fiber content of 70% merino, 20% alpaca and 10% silk, it's hand-dyed and offers a generous 190 yards per skein.

Of course when the fine people at Little Knits unearthed more of this true gem of a yarn I had much more to snatch up...in the form of 3 (or 4?) more bags. This yarn hasn't arrived yet (my only true qualm with LK is that shipping can take quite a bit longer than places like Webs and Jimmy Beans), but this has given me plenty of time to start planning things out.

What the heck do I do with all this yarn?!

By the end of next week (I'm hoping) I will have 40+ skeins of hand-dyed yarn. I have yet to see many garments knit out of multicolored yarns (such as Noro, some Malabrigos, etc.) that tickle my fancy all that much. So what am I going to do with this stuff?

I started a thread over at the Little Knits group on Ravelry posing just this question. The ladies on yonder forum posted some great ideas. And some of them managed to walk away with more Aysen than this crazy loon did (some bought 8+ bags! Ay Carumba!). All photos are taken from Ravelry.

Imogen Cardigan

Abalone Cardigan

Tea Leaves Cardigan

Golden Wheat Cardigan (by my lady crush Veera)

Pole

These are just a few of my favorite musings, but what are some of your favorite garments (or larger projects) knit using hand-dyed and variegated yarns?

Aspirations and Whatnot

Part of me wishes that Ravelry had never come into existence...

*collective gasp*

Ok, I'll take that back, because Ravelry is pretty much the greatest thing that has happened to knitting/crocheting in a long time, if not ever. But, at the same time, my productively always takes a nosedive when Ravelry is involved and I feel like I could get so much more done if Ravelry would just crash every once in awhile.

Ok, I take that back as well. Please, please don't crash, Ravelry! *Shudders* I remember that one time that livejournal was down for a few days back in 05 or 06. That was a nightmare.

All it takes is a troll(olol) through my queue or favorites to see that I like a lot of shit. I favorite everything that I like on Ravelry, but I don't have too many things in my queue. I try not to "aspire" as much as I try to do. Because I find, with me at least, that when I make goals or to-do lists that I am much, much, much less successful than I would be if I just acted. Instead, I just favorite thousands of things and hope that someday I will get it done.

I'm not afraid to try new things with knitting. One of my biggest pet peeves, one that has intensified so fiercely since I started working at Wool & Company, is when a knitter is content to just knit garter stitch/ribbed scarves. Cables and lace may scare some people and may hold people back, but one of the biggest (and stupidest) things that stands in the way of some of the things I want to accomplish is my own self-esteem issues. Yes, we all have them and it's often hard to overcome them, but I feel like that is one of the biggest things I need to work on this year. I LOVE knitting cables more than anything else, but I hate the way cabled garments look on me. And I feel the same way about knit tanks, dresses, skirts, etc. Clearing up those issues is a constant aspiration that I have.

In the meantime, the one "resolution" I made at the beginning of the year was to try something new, no matter what size, each month this year. So far it's been going great (I'm 2 for 3!) and I think this month, or maybe in May, I may try socks. Two at a time! Because I like the challenge :)

Now, with that out of the way, here are some more tangible aspirations from my queue.

"Wish Leaf Socks"

Idlewood by Cecily (Hell, I'd love to make anything by her)

 

 

 

Truffle Cardigan Tutorial by Megan Rogers

Sylvi by Mari Muinonen

Hooray Cardigan (and everything else) by Veera Valimaki

If that truffle cardigan doesn't inspire me to run I don't know what will.

Something Completely Different - (Almost) Wordless Inspiration

I want to keep this as wordless as possible. The day 5 topic of Knit and Crochet Blog week is to challenge yourself as a blogger and post something you would normally not post. I post a lot of my own photos and whatnot, but for this post I'll offer some "wordless" inspiration on things that I find most inspiring and beautiful.
(Also, I'm on a bit of a time crunch).

Credit given where I can.

Holga photos

Vintage styles

Book Collections

Lonely Places

Metaphors

Organization

Bare Backs

I don't have links for these last few images. I found them on flickr or livejournal, I know, but they've just been stored in a folder on my computer.