No more, no more, no more!

I can't buy any more yarn.  I just can't!  I had a bit of a reality check yesterday.

Wool of the Andes Worsted

I keep my yarn separated by weight and if I have enough of a certain brand, by brand.  My Wool of the Andes drawer was a mess and I'd stashed a few new skeins of fingering in there just for somewhere to put them.  I decided to clean out the drawer.  

And, because I'm currently mad at my knitting and someone recently mentioned wanting to see my stash, I thought it would be fun to spend the day sorting and straightening all my yarn and taking photos of it.

Bad, bad idea!  I must not buy any more yarn!

Okay, so the Wool of the Andes pile is not that bad.  Thank goodness I knit that shawl a while back because that used up a lot of my WoA.

Worsted

My non-WoA worsted collection wasn't too bad either.

Sweater Quantities

Oh, that's where most of my worsted is - in the Sweater Quantity box.  There's enough there for nine sweaters and all but two will be knit with worsted.

(Don't you like that confident way I said those sweaters will be knit?)

DK and Sport weight

My DK/Sport collection is embarrassingly small.

Knit Picks Hawthorne fingering weight yarn

Yeah, okay, okay.  I might have a slight addiction to Knit Pick's Hawthorne.  They don't show up well in that photo, but there are some Gorgeous colors in that pile!

Stroll and Paton's Kroy sock yarn

I obviously like dark and/or blue socks.  That's my Stroll and Paton's Kroy sock yarn collection.  Thanks to the blanket I knit last summer, my Kroy pile is much smaller than it used to be.

Palette

Yes, the Palette collection is ....  Well, let's just say, I probably don't need to buy any more for a while.  I didn't dump them out all together because I have several projects started and I didn't want to mix up the skeins.  The blue box is holding 22 skeins of various shades of reds, oranges and browns.  To the left of it is a pile that will one day be a striped cowl. Under it is a pile of browns and a few greens that will be a scarf.  To the right of the blue box is a container of blues and "watery" greens.  Under that is Christmas set - Peppermint Icicle, I think it was called.  It was going to be a Kaffe Fassett Coins scarf but I don't really like the way it was turning out so...  Who knows about that one.  Then to the right of that is a big drawer full of mostly whites, blacks, grays and greens.  Under that is the scrap pile.  Yep, I think it's safe to say I don't need to buy any more Palette for a while.

Fingering weight

Obviously I like knitting with fingering weight.  I'm actually a little bit embarrassed by this photo.  Good grief!  The grouping at the bottom is from "people" while the top section is "store bought."  That's a whole single bed covered in yarn.  Ha!  And I thought I had a problem with Hawthorne yarn.  (Let's just don't think about the fact that the giant pile of Hawthorne yarn way up there in the list is also fingering weight.)

So that's my yarn stash.  It's all of my yarn.  Well, all of my yarn that's not in one of the 8,000 project bags I have.  Or the two big boxes of scrap fingering weight that I'm sitting here looking at as I type.

Good grief!

Oh my Lord!  I just remembered that I have another sweater quantity coming if the post office ever finds it.  It's currently lost.  Perhaps the post office is actually looking out for me.

No more, no more, no more!  I really mustn't buy any more yarn for a while. 

Baby Things

I wanted to thank all of you who commented on the other day's post or emailed me regarding my panic about knitting The Big Baby Thing.  So many of you offered kind reminders that knitting happens at its own pace and that trying to force it to happen quicker can be damaging to both me and the project.  And for that I am thankful.

I had already come to terms with the fact that The Big Baby Thing would be tossed into a gift bag moments before entering the baby shower, that I'd ask the mom-to-be to open my gift first, then I'd quickly snatch it back from her and spend the rest of the party knitting on it. I was okay with that.  If the mom-to-be is going to be part of our family, she better get used to that type of behavior from me.

random photo of the sun setting on the trees 

But, my real concern is, the baby may be here much sooner than expected.  Nothing to be overly concerned about, the doctors simply adjusted the baby's due date by multiple weeks.  Multiple weeks!  Doesn't the doctor know how important something like that is to a knitting grandma?  I mean, come on!  I've got a knitting schedule!  A one week adjustment is one thing, but weeks, with an "S" ...  Yikes!

But, whenever she arrives, the baby will need a Big Baby Thing and dag gone it if this first time grandma is going to be late with baby's Big Baby Thing.  

But, and here's where I'm extra thankful for all the suggestions to let the Big Baby Thing be late and perhaps knit a small baby thing instead...

Mint Green Stroll Small Baby Thing

You all reminded me of an important small baby thing that I'd planned to knit and had completely forgotten about.  Needless to say, it's on the needles now.  In fact, it's almost off the needles!  

And I promise it isn't dirty dishwater colored in real life.  In real life, it's standard, genderless, mint green. Mint Stroll from Knit Picks to be exact.  I'm holding two strands together to make the knitting go faster.  I'm pretty stoked about this design.  I'm making it up as I go and so far, it's working as planned.  Knock on wood!  Anyway, I'll be able to tell you more about it next week. 

Knit Night Knitting

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I feel like a bad grandma, but I put down the newborn sweater and have been focusing on my Out of Winter shawl.  It's amazing how much more you can accomplish when you knit monogamously.

Knit Night Knitting - Out of Winter Shawl, Sock Labs Stroll yarns

A couple of hours spent knitting rather than eating and drinking at Knit Night and I'm ready to start the lace border.  My goal is to finish it before Labor Day. 

I'm excited to be done with the shawl so that I can move on to knitting All the baby things, but at the same time, I'll be sad to put this yarn away.  But that's okay - I have more!

Assuming the lace border doesn't take a full skein, I should have enough of each color left over to knit either two very tiny baby sweaters or a larger striped one.  And, I've enjoyed knitting with this Sock Labs Stroll yarn so much, I ordered more.  

Sock Labs Stroll

I'm pretty sure there will be a baby blanket using the green set on the needles soon.

And while I was ordering the green Sock Labs set, I may have ordered a few skeins of plain Stroll sock yarn and perhaps a skein or two of Stroll Tweed sock yarn too.  I'm all things Stroll these days and currently on a mission to ensure my grandbaby stays toasty warm during his/her first spring.  I also want to make it easy for the new mama and papa and want everything I knit to be easily washed.  I may not have the best memory these days but I do remember how much laundry a newborn creates.

But what I really wanted to talk about today was why I love the Sock Labs so much.  First of all, it's machine wash and dryable.  Who doesn't love that??  

It's unbelievably soft.  Even my daughter who has become THE world's most picky person regarding wool around her neck, says it's soft and she'd be happy if Mom would knit her a speckled cowl.  

And the colors!  Oh, the colors!  The colors are so bright and cheerful and slightly less harsh in real life than they are on my screen.  

The yarn glides through my fingers and across my needles, even when it's 98 degrees outside and I'm hot and sweaty.  

The yarn isn't the least bit splitty and while it's hard to tell from my loose gauge and stockinette shawl, I have knit when I should have purled a few thousand times and based the appearance of those accidental stitches, the yarn has fantastic stitch definition.  

And best of all, or worst of all depending on how you look at it, the Sock Lab yarns are limited editions so not everyone in your knitting circle will be knitting with the exact same yarn.  I like that.  But I do feel the pressure to grab some more while it's available.  The purple set has already sold out.

Out of Winter

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Another super short update....

Out of Winter knit with Sock Labs speckled Stroll

I didn't get a day from work this week so not much knitting has been happening, but I have made enough progress on my Out of Winter shawl to know that I LOVE this Sock Labs yarn.  I love it so much I just ordered a bunch more even though I already had the rest of 2019's knitting planned out.

You know what they say about plans...

Stay tuned.  I'll share what I plan to use all the speckled yarn for next week.  I have some pretty exciting news that deserves it's own post.  A post that I spend more than three minutes writing.

Meanwhile, happy knitting!

Out of Winter

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My plan for today was to show you a photo of my finished Reyna.  I finished it on July 31st and planned to at least have it on the blocking mats if not already blocked and dried.  But something got in the way.

Out of Winter knit with Sock Labs Stroll

I mentioned yesterday that Knit Picks had sent me a two skeins of their new Sock Labs speckled yarn to play with.  Knit Pick's timing couldn't have been better.  Mr. Mailman was leaving the yarn on my porch as I sat in the dentist's chair across town, frantically binding off Reyna.

As soon as I got home from the dentist, I tore into the package, photographed the yarn and began searching  Ravelry for the perfect pattern.  I couldn't decide.  I started with a list of eight designs which I narrowed down for yesterday's Three on Thursday post.  I asked for your opinion...

And then couldn't stand to wait.  I chose Out of Winter, which was odd because it was my least favorite of the three.  But the moment I started knitting it, I was hooked.  I'm loving the pattern, it's super simple.  And the yarn!  I've knit with Stroll before so I knew the yarn would be a joy to work with.  And the speckles!  It's so much fun to watch the speckles appear.

Sock Labs Stroll

This gorgeous limited edition yarn is selling fast so if you're interested, go take a look right now.  You won't want to miss the chance to stash some of this gorgeous yarn!

And on a woo-woo note, at the beginning of this post I mentioned I'd bound off my Reyna shawl on July 31st.  Guess what I was doing exactly three years ago.  Yep!  You guessed it.  I bound off my first Reyna on July 31, 2016.  How freaky is that??