Category: yarn

yarn

My First Yarn Tasting

Jen5 Comments

So my LYS had a nifty yarn tasting today, which featured yarns from Bijou Basin Ranch. I have seen them at Rhinebeck, but their booth is either too full of people for me to get into, or they don’t have any yarn left for me to fondle (or to sell me), which is why the yarn tasting was such a treat!

First I knitted with the Yak/Bamboo blend. It was soft and drapey. The Rep had knitted a Pretty Thing cowl from it (see it in the photo there, just behind the yarn ball?) and it took all my will power not to tuck that Pretty Thing into my pocket and sneak out the door with it.

Next up was the Cormo blend. It was soft, light, and very very smooshy. A hank of it may have found its way into my shopping basket.

Oops. But least I ignored my baser desires and actually paid for it! *laugh*

Lastly, I sampled the 100% yak lace weight. Loved. It. It reminds me a lot of qiviut fiber in that it definitely has that softness, but it’s not quite as pricey and, as such, is much more accessible.

The Rep also brought along a sample of the yak down which had been processed for spinning, but since the shop doesn’t actually carry spinning fiber I wasn’t able to bring any of that home with me. (boo-hoo!) Luckily, it’s available on their website! (yay!)

All in all, I had a really nice time. The shop owner is a lovely woman who you can tell just loves yarn and The Rep was a very enthusiastic lover of all things Bijou Basin. It was fun to sit with them and the other yarn tasters and bond over our love of string! Yay yarn!

Further, a certain knit blogger you know may be teaching a sock class there in March. I’ll keep you posted.

Knitting · yarn · Zombies

Socks!

Jen8 Comments

[ravelry]

Finished up yesterday while at a play date w/ the boys and cast off last night while playing Borderlands with the hubs. (My computer takes a long time (sometimes) to load the different maps.) Did I tell you I love this yarn? Soft and sproingy and look how much of it I had left over!

Luckily I have some more in the stash. :-)

Knitting · life · Spinning · Tour de Fleece · yarn

Catching you up

Jen5 Comments

Sometimes you go so long without making a blog post that re-entry is awkward and difficult without an “I’m sorry I haven’t blogged” sort of statement. Generally I try to avoid those because, hey, blogging is a hobby and sometimes I have time for it, and sometimes I don’t. Suffice it to say that not only was July a very busy month, but I have also spread myself rather thin in the social media sphere. I have two blogs, a ravelry, a tumblr, a twitter, and a Facebook and trying to figure out how to integrate them all (or even in part) has been tricky. I mean, I don’t want the tumblr (or the Ravelry) to replace blogging and I don’t want the twitter to replace Facebook. I want them all to sort of support each other. But I haven’t quite managed to solve that puzzle yet. [sigh]

So, what have I been up to, besides not blogging, raveling, tumblring, twittering on occasion, and Facebooking? My last couple of weeks, let me show you them.

1. The Tour de Fleece got finished:

It was seriously fun and I am definitely going to do it again next year.

2. There was a Webs excursion:

I didn’t get much this time. I was mostly along for the ride with a friend who was buying yarn for her holiday knitting.

3. There has been knitting progress:

(click each photo to be taken to the Ravelry project page)

And that’s it, you’re all pretty much caught up now. How has your summer been so far? Keeping busy?

grumble · Knitting · yarn

Now I Remember

Jen3 Comments

This yarn was on a time out. ::grumble::

Everything was just peachy until I got up to 38 stitches for the instep and the pooling turned around stabbed me in the back, just like it did the first time I tried this pattern with this yarn. Clearly this yarn wants to be something else. Plain vanilla socks? Or perhaps a lacy scarf? A hat? What say you, dear internet?

yarn

Webs loot!

Jen3 Comments

ZOMG, Webs. I <3 Webs.

Total for yesterday’s trip: just under $100 bucks. Which, funnily enough, is about the same as our behavioral health copay.

yarn

ZOMG! WEBS!!

Jen3 Comments

This morning I schlepped the kids (along with my friend Adrienne) up to Webs, America’s Yarn store to procure some therapy yarn.

We just got back. I’m exhausted, but happy, and have slightly less money than I started with.

Sadly, I used up the rest of today’s sunlight during the ride home. Sorry about that. Luckily there’ll be more tomorrow, so you’ll have to wait until then for photos of my haul. Webs is awesome. They definitely know what they are doing up there.

Cheers!

Knitting · stash · yarn

Free yarn

Jen8 Comments

One of the moms from our home school group showed up yesterday with an imperial asston of yarn. Evidently a neighbor of hers is a recovering hoarder and was destashing a LOT of knitting stuff. The vast majority of it was grouped into projects, with all of the yarn, the buttons, and the pattern packaged together in a zippered plastic bag. There is an abundance of knitters in our group and we all pawed through it like slathering maniacs. I managed to score some pretty good stuff:

The patterns for which all of this was intended just weren’t to my taste and/or were somewhat out-dated, so I let those go to the universe and will see what trouble fun I can get into on Ravelry. I’m already thinking the Louisa Harding stuff would make a really pretty shawl.

Spinning · yarn

Chasing the Wooly Dragon

Jen7 Comments

Oh my goodness but this spinning thing is addictive. I mean, I knew that from before when I was doing it with my drop spindle, but holy mackerel, spinning on a wheel is like freebasing fiber.

And now I’m out of fiber*. What to do, what to do… Who’s your favorite fiber pusher dealer?

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*Yesterday I mailed my fleece to the Still River Mill to be processed, so in a couple of months I’ll have that… I can’t be expected to wait that long for a fix, though…

Knitting · yarn

6 Months of Yarn Compulsion

Jen6 Comments

Spinning · yarn

Oh, look…

Jen8 Comments

…some singles.

Spun on my Turkish style drop spindle. Technically, this is not my first handspun. My first attempt was with some merino/silk top I’d gotten a couple of years ago at the CTS&W festival. Apparantly merino/silk is not the best choice for a beginning spinner. I was having the darndedst time making it work and nearly gave up on spinning altogether. Luckily, I didn’t and instead picked up this BFL at the NYS&W festival this past October. As you can tell, it’s going much more smoothly. Now, about my plying options… Suggestions welcome.