Sunday we went and picked up our new to us TV. It’s HD but a tube tv since I don’t like flat panels. Also I’m too cheap to spend that much on a television. However he did want HD for his xbox and I wanted another tv for the new house. So anyway a few hours of having *fun* with cables led to the scarf’s growth. I also started a house blog in an attempt to spare you my endless blathering about it. Though I probably will blog about setting up the dye studio in the garage. I added a sink to the garage specifically for it. I still need to get off my ass and do something with my cooking blog and perhaps start updating my not so specific topic blog. Essentially I’m trying to get back in the habit of writing every day since I have that novel I want to finish. I also have another one that’s, at the moment, more interesting to me brewing. It’s rather more Big Idea Sci Fi rather than Paranormal fun though. So I’m better off trying to finish the fun one first since it seems ridiculously easy to get published in that genre these days.

Anyway on to Yarn Pron…

First up we have Sundara’s first seasons club mailing for winter. It’s called Granite falls. I rather like it and was considering Juno for it.

This is classic elite’s water lily. I had wanted this yarn for about a year when it came up on sale at patternworks so I bought a sweaters worth. Of course now I’m not so sure. It’s very pretty in the ball but I’m not sure I’m in love with it knit up. This might become a feb lady. However, Sarkasmo kinda convinced me it would make me look pregnant. I’m thinking since I carry my weight in front and I’m busty perhaps not the most flattering look for me.

This is something I got off destash for like 12 bucks. It’s a sweaters worth of online superwash merino. How could I resist? The color is a bit too rusty for me but it would either look good on my mom or be spectacular overdyed.

Last but certainly not least is Dream in Color’s Gothic Rose. As a not so recovering goth….This is the worsted size and I originally bought it to make another clap. However since then I’ve realized I did buy enough to make a sweater (maybe) so I’m not totally sure.  Meanwhile Justin wants the pillow I’m making him out of it. Can you believe he picked smooshy over malabrigo? Might be for the best since it is superwash. Anyway I was thinking of some kind of woven texture stitch with a plain back. I’m just going to buy a nice pillow form and sew the cover around it though I am going to do it in such a way that I can remove it for washing.

The first up is the 4 oz of Optim I got. Oh my god this stuff feels incredible.

The purple is a merino/silk blend (65/35) in a colorway called Phlox and the green is corriedale in a colorway called Forrest. The noddy came from Little Barn.

This is a Quasi-Solid sock yarn in a colorway called Sangiovose. It’s a wool/bamboo/nylon blend.

Next up was Deer Trace Farm. They have some gorgeous alpaca but I still haven’t used up the 8 oz I bought before so I gave that a pass this time but I did get this amazing 50/50 Merino Silk blend.

Lastly I hit Little Barn. They had FANTASTIC pricing. They sell 4 oz of optim for 9.95. So hell yeah I got more. Anyway compare those prices to other vendors….Anyway from them I got the Noddy I showed you up above and all this.

From left to right is another 4 oz of optim, 8 oz of bfl, and 16 oz of tussah silk. That day seriously felt like Christmas cause when I got home the books I had ordered had gotten there. So now I have yet more stitch dictionaries (Knit/purl and Lace/Eyelets) from the new Harmony guides and the book that hopefully will teach me to sew. The Sew Everything Workshop comes highly recommended and from what I’ve read so far its totally justified. It seems to be the SNB of sewing.

Animals were seen like this cashmere goat:

Fiber and yarn were fondled and bought from Fiber Denn:

Friends were met but I forgot to snap photos.

Overall it was WAY better than last year. Easily twice the size. I think the organizers deserve a great big round of virtual applause for putting that much effort and work into it. My favorite vendors this year were Fiber Denn (as usual) and Little Barn (SUPER FREAKING CHEAP). Plus it’s always nice to see folks I don’t get to see too often since I am just lazy enough to consider Nashvegas a wee bit too far to go to knitting groups there.
So we were there about 3 hours I’d say and then off to plant world we went. I know this isn’t a gardening blog but oh my god did they have gorgeous plants and lots of them! We have nothing like that here. It was almost like being at a botanical garden. I took so many pics. However I’ll only bore you with my two favorites.

Lunch was had and then we took off for home. Next post the Fiber HAUL.

I’m clearly on a green kick. Anyway I love Ultra Alpaca. It’s just such a good buy. I also got the super snazzy electronic row counter. The deluxe model even. It’s so totally awesome. Like way better than even I thought it would be. The one thing I would change if I could would be for there to be some sort of ‘lock’ feature.

Spinning is going swimmingly. I love Siouxsie. I am getting better at making less bumpy yarn and its even getting fairly thin. Predrafting is my savior here. The other day I decided I had done enough with white and tried my first colored roving. This is subject to change but I think I’m going to stick with more one colored rovings in the future.

The body of thermal is done. I just need to do the sleeves. I did start one but after spending two days knitting the same repeats over and over and over I decided it needed a brief time out. However it is further along than this pic would indicate.

Finally the sock. I’ve actually started the ribbing so it’s almost done. I have to say Shibui is amazing yarn.

My goals this month are to finish my wips. I’m not sure where Vee fits into that. I’ll have to see how much time I have this month. We’re staying home for the holidays so that should help out. Also Justin has 22 days of leave so that means more knitting time for me.

So there were Sheep:

Sheep Getting Nekkid:

Anyway like I said if you want to go look at the set.

So I was pretty decent. I mean I had a budget and I only went a little over. I bought another 4 oz of that gorgeous silver alpaca that I got at the last fair (and in my laziness I am reusing the old picture)

I also got two different colorways of bfl from fiber denn.

I also got two spindles also from Fiber Denn. My spinning is much much improved.

And now to the yarn. I only got two skeins.

This is 550 yrds of sock weight. It wants to be something other than socks.

This 880 yrds of wool lace. It actually is more variegated in real life.

So after the festival we hit the Knaughty Knitter and I *shock* didn’t buy anything. I just felt like I had spent enough. However I did meet the lovely Barb. After that we went to lunch at corky’s this really good BBQ place and then we went to threaded bliss. I hadn’t been since it was sold. I’m really glad they brought in some Rowan and I think the yarn selection is improved somewhat. I will miss David though. He was hilarious. Again I didn’t buy anything. Although at one point I had over a 100 dollars worth of yarn in my hand. I was good I resisted the siren call. So after that we tried to hit Haus of Yarn. Now I hate to complain but we had an SUV full of knitters. We probably all would have bought something and they still had people in the shop but they wouldn’t let us in. Exactly how likely are we to go back and drop mega cash now? In my case not very. The service there has ALWAYS been hit or miss for me. We were all rather peeved.

The sock is still a toe hat but I am in spitting distance of finishing the left front to thermal. I expect to finish that panel tonight. I also (because I am a lemming) feel the pull of knit a sweater naswamo or whatever. However NO SOCK WEIGHT SWEATERS. So I’m thinking the cardi version of wicked or the Vee pullover. If I can pick a yarn. Cause you know with family coming for turkey day its the perfect time to totally stress myself out over other things.

Close up of the knitting/netting/tv spot, the bookcase behind it has my knitting books:

Why yes I do have to fight her for the chair.

I did do some dyeing while all this was going on though. I’m trying to break out of my wine comfort zone so I did some more greens and ventured into rusts/oranges. All of these skeins are Kona by Henry’s attic.  I was playing around with different techniques and I must warn you they are not yet reskeined.

I think I’m getting better. If you want to give any of these a new home let me know. I can’t possibly knit faster than I can dye.  Which brings me to another topic I have a tentative offer for a wholesale situation. I keep going back and forth on it. I like dyeing when its me just futzing around but dyeing for other people to buy? That makes me incredibly nervous.

Anyway all this led to little knitting and thus little blogging. Besides lets be brutally honest, thermal is not a good blogging project.  It’s like oh boy another inch that looks exactly the same! Besides it looks a mess now with all the stitches being held on extra needles. Oh one funny thing did happen, the other day I was working on it and watching tv and completely messed up one of my previously finished back shoulder pieces. So now I’ll have to frog back and refinish it. But the good news is that I am on the front so hopefully before the end of this century I’ll finish it. The thing is I do still enjoy the sweater. Its not like other simple patterns where I’d be gouging my eyes out by this point. I also frogged the scarf I had started because I decided it was too narrow so velvet grapes will have to become something else. I did start a sock just in time for the end of socktober;) I’m using shibui sock on 1′s and I have to say I love this sock yarn. It might be my favorite yarn yet. Like more favorite than STR even. I mean the base. It’s just at the toe hat stage and I’m looking for a stitch pattern to plug into my sock recipe. I did attend a fiber fest this past weekend but I’ll try and blog about that tomorrow since I have loads of pictures and stuff.

So the question now becomes to frog or not. By the way the above board is 2 feet wide.

Reasons to not frog: 

1. Umm  the time spent…
2.  All I was looking for out of the sweater was practice finishing and something to wear around the house. I live in cardi’s in the winter and I could wear that instead of some of my beloved merino ones
3. the work involved in rehabbing the yarn
4. I’m a sleeve away from finishing the knitting.
5. Uses up most of that yarn and thus it is out of my stash.
6. Seriously good butt coverage.

Reasons to frog:

1. It’s huge
2. It’s a tent
3. if I made it the correct size I could probably get two sweaters out of the yarn. well ok maybe not.
4. I’m anal
5. If something is worth doing it’s worth doing right.

So feel free to offer opinions. In fact I seriously want them because I am so indecisive on this. Right now the sweater is going into time out cause uhh I need to decide. Also frogged this weekend was the second heel since I forgot to redistribute the stitches and thus it was two stitches too wide. I’m almost thinking I need a new hobby or something!

So last weekend I went home to STL for my cousin’s wedding. I was annoyed by the time I pulled into stl so I decided I deserved needed a stop at knitorious.  I walk in the door and the first thing I see is this incredible silk lace. Now I don’t knit a whole lot of lace and when I see lace I tend to prefer semi solids. But there is something about peachy/pinky, green,  and gold that grabs me every time. So I snatched it up. It’s claudias and I have no freaking clue what to do with it. I have 1100 yards.  I think I might just admire it.

It actually has more green in it but I couldn’t get photoshop to show it off in all its glory.

I wandered around to the sock section and snagged another skein of jitterbug in velvet olive. Jitterbug is gorgeous and I love the base yarn I just have concerns because the skeins are a bit small but we’ll see.

I also rescued the malabrigo I bought my mom to knit with since she’s had it a year and obviously isn’t going to do anything with it. In her defense she is taking care of my grandmother though so…

However in good knitting news I finally thought of something to do with the crap cotton blend I got off of destash…I’m going to make garter stitch mats for the furlines. It should be good tv/snb knitting if nothing else.

I pinned out a piece of the zipper cardi on it and I have to say they block like a *dream* So my wips…well I am past the heel of the sock and I finished the two fronts for the zip cardi and I made it to the waffle stitch on thermal. Things at chez zyllah have been sort of sucking and when I get stressed I read. Since last week I’ve read HP 7 twice and two Phillipa Gregory novels. I also finished off an audio book. Anyway needless to say that has taken up knitting time:) But now that I’m on the waffle stitch I get to use the fantastico row counter Sarkasmo made for me.

So not all of this was bought recently but I finally got a chance to show it off. I got this jitterbug from fleabay for a fairly good price, I will admit the copper beach is sort of meh to me but they’ll be gift socks I guess.

Jitterbug Copperbeach

Omg I love this yarn. I am not sure what to do with it but it just makes my heart happy.

This is some Malabrigo lace weight I traded some unused needles for.

Finally we have the wollmeise I snagged at the last loopy sneak up.

This is Granatapfel.

This is Wilder Mohn.

The base yarn for this feels really unique. Sort of cottony. It’s dense but not as dense as str. (I sound like a wine snob) Also the yardage is fantastic. I should easily be able to get two pairs out of each skein.

This is something I dyed a few weeks ago.

Colorway: Peacock

Yardage: 550 Yards

Base Yarn: Henry’s Attic Kona Superwash Fingering that I got here.

Techniques: just basic hand painting.

Notes: I am not 100% pleased with this. However it isn’t awful, its just not quite what I had envisioned:)

The one in the middle isn’t that accurate as its different shades of pink and red, but the other two are fairly close. The one on the left was sort of a use up old dye run but its so freaking pretty.  I also finished a sock last week that I never got around to posting. I’ll probably start the second one today.

In other news…uhh yeah I’ve been lazily working on kitty pi and Lady E since I haven’t gotten any spring/summer yarn yet. Oh and I’ve been reading way too much to actually get any knitting done.

So first the lovely STR colorway Jasper

Now we have the Cherry Tree Hill in Winterberry and Northern Lights

Here is the Nature wool in different shades of purple the one on the left is the chunky that was mislabeled.

Cascade 220 in ruby and Alchemy in Scarlets Dark Secret. I got enough alchemy for another clap but I am not totally sure that’s what it will be.

And here we have the last of it, To the left is the yarn I got for thermal. It’s rowan’s cashsoft 4ply in loganberry and some Debbie bliss is uhh burgundy I guess. No clue on the debbie bliss stuff but I figure it would make a nice cardigan at some point.