yarn – Page 3 – Behind the Smile

November 25, 2008June 24, 2010

Less Scratchy Than I Thought

I finished my Silk Garden Sock scarf that I made on my loom.

I know, right, I haven’t talked too much about weaving lately. This is because I encountered a big knot on the warp that threatened to unravel the warp thread every time the heddle crossed it, so I put the loom away until I could figure it out. And I did. And it involved a fork.

I’m happy with it, even the part that is a little goofy because of the fork action. I don’t think I’ll weave with the Noro again though, it’s a little too sticky, and there were a couple of knots. Luckily the other ones were on the weft which doesn’t matter much. Still, it was frustrating.

The new scarf matches my new sweater I got at Target:

It’s rather festive!

Next up, I am going to weave something with Dream in Color Smooshy OR Socks That Rock. Depending on how the Socks That Rock weaves up, it may be worth buying more. I don’t think I’ll be making any other socks with STR considering its huge fuzz factor. Maybe these colorways would be good:

I didn’t have any problem hacking the Silk Garden to bits; the STR won’t be an issue either, I don’t think. Heh.

November 8, 2008June 24, 2010

I am a capitalist

Big surprise: I BOUGHT YARN (post election pick-me-up):

Why yes, that is Malabrigo sock! And it is just as luscious and edible as you would think! It is awesome. The gray one on the right is actually a little more purple than my monitor shows.

With this purchase (from The Loopy Ewe), I finally joined the Loopy Groupies, as this was my sixth time buying from them. I got a tote bag, a very lovely sock pattern, and a skein of Araucania Ranco Multy (!). I knew you got the tote bag and I wasn’t really expecting anything else, so that was a nice surprise, especially since I love love love Araucania.

See? It’s so pretty!:

Anyway, last but not least, here is the yarn I have bought recently but didn’t show because… Well, I have a lot of yarn, and God knows I don’t need any more, and sometimes it seems all I do is BUY YARN and not do anything with it.

1. Mirasol Hacho, 2. Cascade Heritage Sock Yarn, 3. Perfect Day Sock Yarn, 4. Shibui Sock, 5. Scarlet Fleece Tubular x2, 6. Fleece Artist Trail

The thing is, I will shortly be ending my stay in Geezerville, and my income will be focused on paying a mortgage (!) so I guess I am kind of storing up for being poor again. Next year will definitely be year of the stash! I won’t have quite as money to spend willy nilly on the wants, since I’ll have to, like, buy groceries and pay for cable*.

I’m excited, though – the place I’m buying has enough room for a crafting/art studio. I’m really looking forward to getting all my stuff out of storage and my big drawing pads and getting all my furniture back, and buying a washer and dryer (!)… In short I will finally have my own place!

Now I need to get back to writing on my Nanowrimo story – the election really stressed me out and now I’m behind. But! it’s still going strong – I wrote over 4,000 words yesterday, and plan to do the same today.

*not a want, that’s a need.

October 28, 2008June 24, 2010

Mini Socks, Red Scarf Project

This weekend I went on an impromptu yarn crawl with my mom. We headed down to San Jose, where our main objective was to stop at Kinokinuya, the Japanese bookstore chain. They have one in San Francisco, too, but it’s easier to get to the one in San Jose and easier to park.

(Aside: my family has a history of watching Japanese and other Asian television. Living on the west coast, they pipe in a lot of it – last year on my mom’s recommendation, Jason and I highly enjoyed the historical Korean epic Dae Jang Geum. Oh, the hats! Anyway.)

So, I picked up a couple of Japanese books – one about knitted and crocheted purses and the other one was a beading book. For imports, these books had reasonable prices, which was nice. Sometimes they are crazy expensive. I wish they would bring in more stitch dictionaries but so far they only have one (albeit excellent).

After that we got lost and wound up in San Mateo, turned around, got to The Alameda, where we went to Commuknity and I bought some sock yarn (surprise), and then onto Los Gatos, where the signage is suckalicious and stopped at Yarndogs, which was nice, though a little overpriced I thought. However they had those little sock blocker keychains, and I got one of those and a ball of Berroco Comfort, with which to make Sam’s replacement skull hat (with glow in the dark embellishments – he better not lose this one!).

We were pretty tired after that, and then headed back up to the east bay, stopping at our personal LYS, the Yarn Boutique in Lafayette, where they totally have new colors of Shibui and Mirasol Hacho. And copies of the Interweave Holiday Knits.

Then my mom dropped me off and I made little mini socks for my keychain:

These were pretty fun to make! I used leftover sock yarn. Rosie from work snagged the orange one. (“It’s cute! Go Giants!” she said. “Can I have it?”) Currently my keys are sporting the green one, which is Dream in Color Smooshy. They’d make cute Christmas ornaments.

***

I was flattered this weekend to be the recipient of the “I love your blog” award from Jennifer, which I think is the first time anyone has linked to me with a blog award, so that was nice and many thanks! 😀

Rather than link a few blogs I read per the award rules (you can see my blogroll for that on the right of my page), I’d like to step up on a soapbox for a second and point you all towards the Red Scarf Project, which is part of the Orphan Foundation and benefits foster children who have aged out the system and are now attending college.

I’m sure as knitters many of us have already heard of the Red Scarf Project, but I think it would be great for everyone to participate if they can. The Red Scarf project sends a care package to these kids for Valentine’s Day. I think showing these kids that someone, somewhere, cares about them, is awesome.

The deadline has been extended to December 15th as they don’t have enough scarves yet, so help a kid out if you can! They deserve it. 🙂