Happy days

Happy days are those when there's a lot of yarn coming in. 

My postman (postlady, actually) was busy recently, delivering load after load of woolly goodness.  Let's take a look at my haul.

This pretty thing...

is a mixture of alpaca, merino and mohair, with a tiny bit of synthetic thrown in for durability.  It's very thin, somewhere between lace and fingering, and the jury is still out on whether it's scratchy or not.  I bought it for next to nothing, together with this fiery baby:

It's just as thin, but less fancy - half wool, half synthetic.  The best part?

I have plenty of both!

Seriously, that's a lot of yarn in there.  Both red and cream clock some 350-400m per ball, so we're talking of kilometres of yarn here.  Now, what to make?  A shawl (or five)?  A light sweater?  Decisions, decisions...  Maybe I'll ask my Puppy for help.  She seems interested:

The second package is a belated birthday present from my Mum and I smile at the very thought of its contents.  Look at this gorgeous mountain of sock yarn:

There's enough for 9 pairs in there.  9!  Plain colours are destined to become Fireweeds - the pattern has been haunting me for almost a year now.  One colour is chosen by and booked for my Other Half (guess which...) and one will become socks for my purple-loving sister.  The rest?  The rest is all mine, mine, my precioussssss.  For now. 


BTW, you may have noticed how I don't mention specific brand names when talking yarn.  I do this on purpose.  I don't mind sharing fibre content, weight and other details, but I have this thing against brands in general.  If you recognise the make from the picture alone, good for you.  If you don't, but you really really want to know, send me a quick email and I'll tell you.  But I'll let people do their own advertising.  Unless, of course, they persuade me otherwise :)

Shawls, shawls, shawls

They say that good things come to those who wait and once in a while this is exactly what happens. 

I knit a shawl for my sister's birthday back in September last year, and another one to put under her Christmas tree.  I happily posted them off to her address, together with a request to take some pictures for my blog when convenient.  It took a while (could it be that hatred of photography runs in my family?), but the pics are finally here and they are gorgeous!  You will have plenty of opportunity to see for yourself, because for once I'm going to publish a picture-heavy post :)

Without much further ado, here's shawl no. 1:

This is Krokus by Sue Berg, although to be honest, for some reason mine looks somewhat different than the original.  'Some reason' should probably be replaced by 'me not bothering to read the pattern properly' but nevermind, I'm happy enough with my version (and so is my sister!).

It was a lovely, speedy project and I was surprised by how much fun I had working on it.  The whole thing was ready in four days or so and, if my memory serves, consumed a little less than 100 g of fingering weight yarn. 

While not particularly big, it is very versatile.  You can wear it like this:

Or like this:

How about this styling?

Who says shawls have to be worn on your neck?

The other shawl was a bit more fiddly and time-consuming.  Think 'weeks' rather than 'days'.  You've already had some sneak previews (here or here), but now you can see my version of Ardrum Scarf in all of its modelled glory:

I admit, some weeks into the knit I was mightily sick of the pattern.  It's pretty monotonous and seemingly endless, especially when you're in the middle of the project.  Take a look at the detail, though.  It's 100% worth the effort!

Edging is knit at the same time as the body, which saves you from multi-hundred-stitch rounds at the end.

I used some very posh, wool/silk blend yarn.  Being the yarn plebeian that I am, I can't say I'm completely in love with it.  Efficient, yes.  This massive shawl used up just a tiny bit over one (100g) skein.  The fibre is smooth and soft, but it's also a real bitch to knit.  I had to watch my hands constantly to ensure the yarn doesn't split and in general working with it was less joy than I thought it should be. 

Admittedly, the drape in this piece is wonderful and probably worth the occasional curse when the yarn was misbehaving.

 

I worried that the needles I used (2.5 mm) were too small.  What do you think?

Regardless of how stunning it looks, turns out lace knitting is not my favourite technique.  Not with lace weight yarn, anyway.  Lace details worked into a pullover - sure, but scarves or wraps in what is essentially a thread - waaaay too boring.

Having said that, guess what I'm working on at the moment? 

After all, I have two sisters and an almost untouched skein of lace weight to use up...

More details coming soon.

Sock Yarn Bonanza

Over the last 6 months or so, I had been dying for sock yarn.  I've never made socks in my life but I so wanted to learn!  Besides, I was tired of DK weight yarn and eager to try something new. 

Unfortunately, no matter how strong the need, facts were against me:

- I was going through a tight spell financially, and sock yarn tends to be rather costly

- even if I had the money, the selection in my  LYS is rather poor.

To get around these obstacles, I first tried to recruit my Mum's help.  She lives in Poland, so she has access to some rather attractively priced fibres.  After a few weeks, my package arrived:

This is cotton/polyester blend.  It should be great for warm weather lacy socks.  I'm also tempted to turn the coral red skeins (I've got three) into a little pullover...  We'll see how it goes.

Some more time passed and I finally had extra money for yarn shopping.  I raced to my LYS and bought this lovely thing:

As you can see, I'm already swatching for gauge.  The yarn is a very posh mixture of superwash wool with a tiny bit of synthetic fibre added for durability.  It costs almost 10 euros/100 g, so it's pretty expensive in my book, but this is what you can usually expect to pay for sock yarn around here. 

Unless, of course, you find a yarn sale.  Sometimes I have to travel for work and when I do, I never miss the chance to check out local craft shops.  This baby...

...was a steal at 5 euros/100g and it's destined to become socks for my Better Half.  He's not particularly enthusiastic about the idea, but I bet I'll be able to turn him around.  Or else...

Anyway, soon after that trip I found even better bargain.  A discounter in my area got some yarn in stock and after seeing their rock bottom prices (2.50 euros/100g) I went haywire and bought a kilogram of delicious, fingering weight wool/polyamide mix:

AND I might acquire some more - if only there's anything left...

I can definitely say that my hunger for sock yarn is temporarily satisfied.  I am a proud owner of 1.7 kg of suitable fibre.  Now the only thing left is to knit all those socks...