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 :)

A Bagful of Yarn

I don't know about you but around here getting the car through a technical inspection is a cause for celebration.  Since my Other Half did all the repairs himself (I'm! So! Proud!), we still had some car money left - rather than giving it all away to assorted mechanics - and I was able to treat myself to a bag full of yarn.

The bag contains enough fibre for two sweaters, which chimes nicely with the changing season.  It's bloody cold around here, y'know?  The gloriously red aran should be just the thing to remedy this. 

Believe me, the image does not do the colour justice.

I'm not a massive fan of aran sweaters but recently I've come across a few nice patterns that I can actually picture myself wearing.  Plus, I've had a curious, aran-themed interaction with a local knitwear supplier which may have (and didn't) resulted in a commission, so I thought it best to be prepared.

You see, I live near Galway and a stone's throw away from Aran Islands themselves.  THE Aran Islands.  There are plenty of tourist-oriented knitwear shops nearby and they inevitably attract my yarnie interest.  I'll leave a detailed analysis for another day, suffice to say that I've come across an interview with one of the local entrepreneurs where the lady (which shall not be named) complained bitterly of advanced age of her knitters.  Aran knitting, she claimed, is a dying art so hurry up and buy your sweater!  Always ready to help out, I emailed the lady and offered my services.  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, partly motivated by genuine interest and partly a test of her sincerity.  I even offered to knit her a sample garment - hence the yarn. 

The lady never got back to me, so I guess aran knitters are not so scarce after all and the aran yarn I bought will be warming my own back, eventually.

The other yarn is some very soft, very fine acrylic, the same stuff that I used for my opera gloves a while ago.

I got my hands on a copy of Alice Starmore's Tudor Roses book and I fell hopelessly in love with the Elizabeth I pattern.  Seriously, I HAVE TO have this pullover.  My yarn is rather finer than specified and Ravellers warn that the pattern needs some serious mods so I predict a long tech editing session before any knitting begins.  I'll get there eventually.  Possibly next summer, or one after that, but I will have this sweater.  

In other news, the Puppy is as always extremely interested in all my activities, including the photo session.

She's over a year old now, so technically not a puppy anymore, but tell me one thing - doesn't she model like a pro?

Happy knitting, guys!

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...

Purring happily - new yarn

I got my hands on a whole lot of new yarn and I'm a very happy creature indeed.  If you happen to be a fellow knitter, you must know the satisfaction of enlarging your stash and if you're not - take my word, or better still, become a yarnophile and experience the feeling yourself :)

Here are my spoils:

Three shades of red may look the same but believe me, it's my camera lying again.

This little baby will join another four skeins already in my stash and one beautiful day they will become a pullover (I think). 
Shade:  beetroot red 
Fibre:  acrylic

Another prospective pullover, or a warm weather vest (depending on whether I have 3 or 4 more skeins stashed away).
Shade: dark magenta
Fibre: acrylic

I love bright colours, but this orange is too bold even for me.  As a one-tone garment it would never do, but I can quite clearly  picture it combined with something more reasonable in a fair isle knit. 
Shade:  eye-blasting orange
Fibre:  acrylic

Another random buy, with no clear idea what to use it for.  The stash must grow, right?  Right?
Shade:  capuccino
Fibre:  acrylic

Finally, my most precious loot in this batch:  500g of pure cotton in my favourite colour of all time.  At some stage it will become a tank top (hopefully before the summer is over...), but for now I'm simply happy to look, touch and sigh in blissful admiration. 
Shade:  red wine
Fibre:  cotton

I'm purring happily, because looking at new skeins and dreaming up patterns for them is probably my favourite part of knitting process.  Anyone out there feels the same?