Finished Monkey Socks

Well, I finished the monkey socks! Technically I finished them earlier this week, but it took me awhile to get around to blogging.

The cool thing, I actually have enough left that I could probably get a second pair of socks out of it. I haven’t decided if I want to knit it up myself yet, or if I feel like selling/giving/trading it. I did list is as for sale/trade on ravelry, we’ll see what happens. If any of you are interested, maybe we can work something out, just send me an e-mail or a message on ravelry.

July Stash Update!

Current yarn in the stash: 23950 grams (+1592 grams for the year)
Current fiber in the stash: 305.2 ounces (+107.9 ounces for the year)

Well I’m still in the Positives for the year (oops) but hey, at least the numbers have gone down!  This month I’ve used up almost 200 grams of yarn!  I also used up 35 ounces of roving.  :)  So hey, it’s progress!  Hopefully there will be much more improvements during July.

I also got my June Spunky Club Shipment.  I think everyone pretty much got theirs before me but just in case I’ll leave some space so I don’t ruin it for anyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m in love with these colors.  It’s called Flowering Weeds, and it weighs 3oz.  It’s a 70/30 Merino/Mohair blend and I can’t wait to spin it.  I’m thinking either socks or scarves.  I’m still waiting to see.

MAJOR BIG SCARY UPDATE.

Yes… I think the title is quite fitting of all the pictures I plan on cramming into this tiny post.

See, my boyfriend got me hooked on some TV show so I’ve spent the past week glued to my computer catching up on all the back episodes.  Well, I’ve finally caught up and I can now have my life back.  hehe.  Last week I had gotten quite a bit acomplished, and took lots of photos thinking I’d do one post a day for each project.  However, because I was too busy watching TV to actually write a post, all those pics I took last week were totally outdated by quite a bit.

First let’s begin with the stuff I got at Great Lakes Fiber Show:

 

Picture #1:  The fleece drying.  Not all the fleece of course, but some of it.  I’ve been washing it in small batches and I’m still not done because so much laundry was done in this house last week I wasn’t able to use the dryer whenever I wanted, so I put off washing the rest.  I have finished a big chunk of it though and I hope to finish the rest this week.  Also note the big gap in the middle of the table where there’s no fleece.  Apparently my beloved cat Oreo things its fun to sleep surrounded by sheepyness.

 

Picture #2:  Creatively Dyed Handspun Yarn.  It’s merino (NOT superwash).  Total Yardage:  565 yds  Total Weight:  228g (about 8oz)  It’s a thicker weight sock yarn, nice and sqooshy.  It soon shall become Monkey socks.  Hopefully very soon because my sis is currently out of town so this is the perfect time to work on them (and hide them) since they will be a birthday present.

Next up!  Stuff I didn’t get at Great Lakes Fiber Show.

I took that picture shortly after getting the yarn to show you all the reason my yarn stash jumped so much in the month of May. So that was the photo from the very end of May, probably about the 30th or so.

Here is the blanket now:

As you can see, it’s come a long long way. I finished the background and am now working on all the little pieces that I will eventually have to sew onto the blanket. According to the directions, I should sew them on as I go, but I prefer to wait till the end so I can make sure everything is arranged the exact way I want it.

I’ve posted pics of this project many times. It’s my first sweater. If you’re awake and still reading this post you may notice that it appears to have shrunk considerably since the last time I blogged about it. I was about an inch from the ribbing along the bottom and didn’t like the way it looked when I tried it on. I got the big girl knits book lately, and after reading that I couldn’t let the sweater slide. It needs to be a size smaller, and it needs shaping. So I shall start it again!

I have accomplished some other things on the spinning front this past week.  Last Wednesday I sat down to spin up some singles and ply them.  I wanted to practice more with the woolee winder.  I’m actually quite happy with my woolee winder which is a big improvment over the hatred I used to have for it.  Apparently I’ve finally gotten the tension almost perfect so that I can use it to it’s fullest.

So I finished the handspun that was sitting on those bobbins.

 

This is some of the lincoln wool I bought back in January of 2007 when I went to the Pittsburgh knit and crochet thingy.  One skein is 205yds and 143g (over 5oz), and the other is 155yds and 120g (over 4oz).  Those are some pretty big skeins.

The last bit of handspun.  This was spun up on wednesday as well and I began plying that night.  Finished up the last bit of plying in the morning.  This was stuff I bought off dragonfibers.etsy.com last summer.  Oh and by the way she just updated today maybe?  She has some STUNNING sock yarn she just started doing… and I mean I’m so tempted to buy it.  And of course she put up more sock batts in colors that I’m currently finding very hard to resist.  It’s merino/tussah silk and I’m completely in love with it.  Yardage on the large skein is 220yds and the weight is 94g.  The oz on the little extra skein is 41yds and weighs 15g.  I’m having serious issues with this yarn.  I love is so much, but I’m still unsure if I want to put it up on etsy or not.  I probably will, because honestly it’d make a great pair of socks.  It’s about a sport weight too so it would knit up sooooooo quickly.  Although I’m in love with these colors and don’t want to see them go (and honestly, it’s self striping which is making it EVEN harder) if this yarn goes, it means I can justify more yarn purchases… lol.

I’ll decide later.  Both the lincoln and the merino/silk still need to be washed to set the twist.  In fact, I think I’ll go do that when I finish writing this post.

 

Last but not least, my evil SP8 buddy strikes again.  I swear, she’s trying to ruin my stash diet… she even said so in the letter!  (I love you Valerie.) 

 

SP8 ended like 2 years ago and I still get random things from her.  Totally makes up for my SP10 pal who fell off the face of the planet after the first package was sent.  This is handdyed merino roving from theyoyo.etsy.com.  Very, very pretty.  And of course, because it was a gift it will be kept forever hopefully spun up very soon.  I have some work spinning stuff that I’m currently working on, but after that, this may be the next thing on the wheel.

 

That’s it… the end.  If you got this far, I’m truely shocked. 

Oh, and if you were wondering Valerie really didn’t kill my stash diet, I did that when I signed up for the Spunky Eclectic Monthly Fiber Club like 2 days before this gorgeousness showed up.  ;)  But I figured since I spun up that merino/silk in less than 24 hours I could surely use up club roving in a day or two.  This is me justifying yarn purchases…haha.

Spin Spin Spin!

Remember the roving I bought on Memorial Day weekend and the Great Lakes Fiber Show?  I’ve started spinning the greenish one that I got from Creatively Dyed.

 

Technically, I started spinning it late Monday night or well…  Tuesday morning.  I kept meaning to take a picture, but it was something I never got around to doing.  The colors, I like them a lot, but they’re not really me and I have no idea how they’re going to knit up.  My sister on the other hand, LOVES them, which is good since I did buy the roving with her in mind.

 

These two skeins were actually finished several days ago, but I started new projects and somewhat abandoned the finishing of the handspun.  But I did pick it back up with a vengence today and hope to finish it tonight, possibly tomorrow so that I can get it washed and make some socks for the sister’s birthday.  (Note: Her B-day is in October!  I’m totally ahead of the game for once.)

Oops.

Well I was online today… and the internet magically took me to the site of my LYS. Well I decided I really needed a skein of trekking since they just got some in, and hey, I survived this year! I deserved it!

So I went, but I didn’t come home with trekking. I came home with this:

I’m in love. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. I’ve been reading about it on Ravelry. People have said good things and people have said some not so good things. But you’ll get that with every yarn. Of course it’s not the typical yarn you’d see for socks, but the look and texture reminds me of handspun, and who would dare say handspun would make bad socks? Not me.
I want to knit it very badly, but I have some other projects that need to get off the needles and hook first. You can bet though that this will be cast on fairly soon, even if it means starting yet another project. Most of the current projects I have started really are too hot for summer knitting anyways.

Handspun Galore!

Well I did finish all the handspun up, and listed it in etsy last Thursday. The link is www.kraftie.etsy.com for any of you who might be interested. In other news: I’ve been knitting! And CROCHETING!

I know exciting!

This is obviously something that doesn’t photograph well. The yarn is busy, the pattern is busy, and it looks good in person, but pictures, NO WAY.

Yet another busy picture. But if you click it, it’s a little easier to see the pattern in the larger picture. I bought this yarn about two years ago because I loved the color and they were discontinuing it. So of course it was on sale for $1.50 a skein! I couldn’t resist. I have 5 skeins in this dyelot and I figured it would make a great baby blanket. So I grabbed a Sampler Afghan book, picked a square that appealed to me, and started knitting away. I plan on doing it in panels which I’ll sew up later. I’ll probably add a border too at the end, depending on how it goes.

And now for a long overdue Stash Update! I was apparently busy and never did one for April. oops.

Current yarn in the stash: 22967 grams (+605 grams for the year)
Current fiber in the stash: 173.3 ounces (-24 ounces for the year)

The reason the yarn stash numbers went up is because of all the recently finished handspun. Since it is now part of the yarn stash, it’s counted as yarn. But, because I finished the fiber off, I removed the fiber from the fiber stash. That explains the decrease in the fiber stash. Also, if you look. 24 ounces is approximately 680 grams. That means that I’ve used up 75 grams of yarn this year! YAY! My stash is getting smaller! If not by much. And if the yarn that I currently have listed in etsy sells, that number will drop even more.
Of course, the fiber festival is coming up soon, which means more fiber will be brought back into the stash. Although I will be buying fiber, I’m trying not to go overboard. The current shopping list for fiber is something superwash to make socks for my sister, dad and boyfriend. I also want to get something for me, as a reward for passing yet another semester at school. I got my grades back and although they weren’t quite what I was hoping for, I’m happy with them. I’m really hoping to find some nice handdyed superwash at the fiber festival. Because it’s a fairly small show I’m somewhat worried I won’t, but I’ve already seen the perfect colors for all the gifts I want to make online so getting fiber won’t be an issue.

January 1st!

Happy 2008 everybody!

Now to start on those resolutions.

The most interesting one to blog about is the yarn stash reduction!  Currently in the stash I have 22,217 grams, or about 49 pounds, of yarn.  That includes all my handspun, all my sock yarn and my mounds of acrylic.  As far as the fiber stash goes, it currently contains 197.3 oz or 12.3 pounds.  That’s a scary amount of yarn things.

So take note in those numbers!  I’ll be back with updates on them as I finish thing and move yarn out of the stash.  :)  I already have tons of project ideas in mind, now I’ll just have to find the time to complete them.

ETA:  I noticed while adding some new handspun to my spreadsheet today that apparently I had one skein that was at the bottom of my list!  Where the yardages and weight weren’t being counted.  So I updated my numbers. 

ETA2:  While looking over the spreadsheet today I found that I had more yarn down than I truely had in my stash!  So I fixed my typo. 

Happy New Years EVE!!

Happy New Years EVE everybody!

So in honor of the new year let’s reflect on the resolutions I made last year:

1. Get yarn down to two bins by September (That was a goal I set last September. I don’t think it’s going to happen but I’m going to try the best I can. As long as the stash goes down a little, I’ll consider it an accomplishment.)   This whole Knit from the stash 2007 should really help with that though. HAHAHA!  In fact my stash has probably increased.  I tried.  I did the whole “knit from your stash 2007″ thing and you know what, sock yarn and roving were exceptions… exceptions that I LOVED.  That’s probably why the whole yarn diet thing didn’t work. 

2. Participate in the KALs that I sign up for. Or at least as much as I can seeing as how college tends to get in the way of my fun. Stupid school work.  I started off good, did it once or twice, then started spinning like crazy and watched my knitting time disappear.

3. Start Christmas presents early (maybe summer), and don’t make things where I have to worry about peoples sizes. (aka. DON’T TRY TO KNIT EVERYONE SOCKS. Scarves are good, possibly some stuff knit out of handspun.)  Did the vegan fox scarf for my sister’s birthday.  Other than that there was no x-mas knitting.4.  Knit with my handspun.  It will not melt if I try to work with it….. I should not be so afraid of it… really.  Hehe… didn’t do that either.  I was planning on knitting with some of it, but it just never happened.Yup… I didn’t really do any of them like I had planed on.So now to make some goals for 2008!

• I will use up more yarn than I bring in.  I’m measuring this by weight since a lot of my acrylic doesn’t have yardages listed.  I’ve made a very detailed spreadsheet of all the stuff in my stash including the acrylic!  I even got rid of 3 of those plastic grocery bags full of acrylic.  I’m not going to say that I won’t buy yarn, because I’m sure I will, I just don’t want to have MORE next January than I do now.
• I’m going to eat healthier and get more active this year.  Not so much a “I will loose weight” goal but a “I’m going to get healthy” goal.
• I’m going to save money.  I don’t make tons with work and I have a scary amount of yarn.  So really knitting up the stuff I already have means less money spent on yarn.

Now for pictures of the scary yarn and fiber stash!  Pictures that will hopefully keep me from buying more this year.

Acrylic! AHH!  Funny thing is some of the stuff in that picture I actually decided to get rid of after taking the picture.  So the fun fur is gone, the pinkish/purple yarn ball is also gone and the blue one by it also left. 

Here is the acrylic baby yarn stash.  Mr. Oreo decided he was going to jump into the photo and since he wasn’t blocking anything I let him stay.  Really it’s not tons.  The stuff that looks really old on the right side is stuff that belonged to my great aunt who died before I was born and that stuff I’m always keeping.

One picture of the natural fibers yarn stash.  AKA non-acrylic. 

2nd picture of non-acrylic yarn. 

Last picture of non-acrylic yarn.  As you can see I couldn’t fit it all in one picture.  Yea… the last picture is mostly handspun… handspun that I haven’t knit with yet. 

Now for the fiber stash!  This one did not need 3 pictures… it only needed 2. 

Picture number 1.

Picture number 2.  Now I’m going to go take all these lovely pictures of mine and make a background for my computer that way I can see my stash at ALL HOURS OF THE DAY! 

YARN!

I gots yarn.

The purple and green in the back is the LimeNViolet colorway of Sock! from Lisa Souza.  Someone I met on ravelry came to one of our SnBs at Panera a few weeks ago and a swap was formed.  She got 4oz of roving, and I came home with that yarn.  It is purdy. 

The one in front is Opal Zirkus 2002 (2002 is the color) and I got it while exploring the BRAND NEW LYS.  Lovely little shop.  The name of it is Yarnia Yarn Shop and Cafe.  It’s located in Canton, OH and it just opened at the end of October.  Lots of sock yarn and other yarns as well.  Really great lighting which makes me VERY happy.  It’s really a cute store, so if you’re in the area you should check it out.

Oh.. and that skein of yarn I bought I was *allowed* to buy cause I had enough points for it.

However, since my birthday is coming up, I may be making another purchase in the near future.  It all depends on if the store has what I want when my friend goes. 

Anastasia Socks

I really haven’t been knitting much when I’m at home.  Most of my knitting happens at friends houses, or car rides.  I tend to knit a lot more during the school year too because I can get a few rows in between classes.

Last weekend we went to Sharon, PA because my sister wanted to go to the Winner and look at home coming dresses to see if there were any great deals.  We really didn’t have much luck with dresses; probably because they aren’t getting in the new stuff quite yet for the upcoming year.  I got a lot accomplished though in the car ride on the Anastasia sock.

They are lovely. My yarn is doing the swirly pooling thing but I always get that because I’ve got wider feet. The colors are so great though, and the yarn is so squishy that I really don’t care. I actually went outside for once and the colors are EXACTLY what they are in real life… I really need more of this yarn. I just have far too much yarn right now to bring any new yarn into my life. MUST DESTASH.

Speaking of stash busting my little “fiber budget” thing. It’s going great. I wasn’t allowed anything until July. July started and I’ve got $10 to spend this month on yarn/fiber, but I’ve bought nothing. I’m saving it in case I need to buy anything for Birthday or Christmas gifts. That and I just have far too much yarn that I don’t need any more yarn for me. hehe… I WANT yarn.. I just don’t NEED yarn.