I HIDE YARN

Thank You Scarf

This is my thank you gift for my mail carrier. She goes way beyond the call of duty to bring me copious amounts of packages (all knitting related).

PATTERN: Shape It Scarf from The Knit Stitch

YARN: Lion Brand Alpaka in camel

YARN SOURCE: Smiley's Yarn

NEEDLES: US size 10

Although my yarn was not quite as bulky as the pattern called for, it worked up very nicely. The scarf is super soft, but warm. As such, I decided I liked the slightly ruffled look of the unblocked scarf.

This was a quick knit, and I am sure I will be knitting more of these.

Chery asked if I will be knitting something for my UPS man, too. I am in a quandry over that. Al is such a super sweet person who spoils me AND my dogs. He always brings dog biscuits for each dog with every delivery. However, he is always in total uniform, including jacket and/or hat. He doesn't seem to be the scarf wearing type. What to do?

From Christmas to Valentine's is Finished

The scarf that was to be knit for Christmas and will end up being an early Valentine's present...

The happy recipient.
(yes, Greta, that is the BOOKMOBILE MAN)

PATTERN: My own compilation with help from Lisa on striping ideas, and charts from Knit Christmas Stockings

YARN: Wool-Ease Sport in White Frost and Ranch Red (1 sk of each)

YARN SOURCE: Lion Brand Yarns

NEEDLES: Bamboo US 5

SIZE: 7" X 66" not including fringe

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Yesterday I started a thank you scarf for my wonderful mail lady. She spoils me rotten, delivering several packages a week to my door regardless of weather. My mailbox is about a 1/2 block from my house because we live across from a church. She will often stop and check the mailbox for mail we have not picked up and bring it along with the packages. She knows of my limitations and brings the packages right to the door, insisting on bringing them inside if they are heavy. She and my UPS man are so good to me.

The scarf is the Shape It scarf from The Knit Stitch. I am using Lion Brand Alpaka in camel. Although not quite as bulky as the pattern calls for, it is still knitting up quickly. I should finish it today easily.

Speaking of the mail...look what came today all the way from England!

5 skeins of Colinette mohair yumminess.

The colorway is Jamboree and is so bright with shades of Orange, hot pink, fuscia, teal, turquoise, bright blue and purple. This will go into my Cuff-To Cuff.

Stash Management?

I decided to organize my Stash in the new stash storage bags I talked about before. You would not believe the amount of yarn these bags hold. Some of these bags weigh over 70 lbs now! And I was afraid I wouldn't be able to use all six bags. HA! By the way, you can buy the bags individually, but they are cheaper in a six pack.

I am EMBARRASSED by the amount of yarn I have on hand. WOW! Wanna see?

You know you do.

C'mon in and snoop my stash...

I have marked it so I can identify for you what is in each bag, etc.

1)Wool/acrylic yarns like Wool-Ease and Spectrum
2)Scarf yarns, fancies, baby yarn, sock yarn
3)Cascade 220, Maine Wool and Pinquoin. All 100% wool
4)Noro (kureyon, shinano and cash iroha)
5)Red heart and other acrylics
6)Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky
7)two small cones of slubbed cotton yarn
8)tweed coned wool in grey from Web's for a ribbie cardie
9)cone of cream n sugar cotton
10) Classic Elite Lush...yea!!! approx 2000 yds in a soft pinkish/lavender
11)two cones of cotton chenille in ivory and old rose
12) more wool yarn already wound into skeins

The arrow is showing you Bunny's sweaters piled on the bottom shelf of the fax machine table. Actually it is an antique butler's tray with matching tables under the drop leaf table. The wood-trimmed glass tray lifts off, the drop leaves go up, the little tables come out from under and it's TEA TIME!

I hate to say but that is not 100% of everything. I just remembered a cone of white rayon slubbed yarn, some sock yarn in another drawer and a clothes hamper full of red heart yarn!

SICK HUH?

Can you keep a secret? There are 5 skeins of Colinette Mohair on their way to me from England.

So for those of you feeling guilty about your stash, you can bring your husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends, family and other assorted naysayer's over to my blog and say...

"LOOK, it could be worse, you could be stuck with HER!!"

Just The Fringe

The Valentine Scarf is complete. It is blocking at the moment and then I will attach the fringe. Here is a pic of kiddo modeling it. We are having another icy/snow day here.

I'm overall pleased with it I think. It has a few "design elements" (flaws) in it. Hopefully blocking will help the overall look of the fair isle part.

Joy of the Process

Have you ever found yourself knitting and being in such a deadline mode that you lose the joy of knitting in the crunch?

Since before Christmas, when I overloaded myself with an impossible list, I have felt behind when starting or knitting every project. Each new project reminded me of the ones still waiting in the wings and the shrinking days left to complete them. I thought things would get back to normal after Christmas.

I started and completed a couple of things, but my husband's requested scarf was always in the back of my mind. He was supposed to get it for Christmas, but graciously agreed to defer his project so I could stay on track and complete all the others in time. Whenever I picked up something else, I felt rather guilty for leaving his on the back burner.

Finally I decided to bite the bullet and get started. After a few starts, had to rip a couple of times, I was on my way. Somewhere along the way, his constant interest and attention to it made me knit like a demon. I held off starting other projects. Well, actually I did start a couple of scarves but he would give me questioning looks - so I dropped them and went back to his.

Even though his has been the only project I have knitted on per se, I have made slower progress than normal. I think that can be attributed to a couple of things.

1) I have found that having more than one project on the needles helps to alleviate boredom. It is great to have a mindless project to pick up when a complicated pattern gets tedious. Or it is relaxing to pick up big needles if you have been slogging on row after row on tiny needles and feel like you are spinning your wheels.

2)Since I was not allowing myself to alleiviate my boredom by knitting other projects, I spent way too much time online reading about knitting or window shopping Ebay and yarn shops. Well, there was more than window shopping going on. Cough...cough. I received some nifty stash storage bags today, Six of them as a matter of fact. Perhaps when I get them all filled with my yarn, I will work up the nerve to photograph this gluttonous mass of stash.

Anyway, back to what I was blogging about. I find when looking back over this scarf, it is like arriving home and not remembering the drive. I zoned out too much I think in my haste to complete and did not enjoy it as much as I normally would.

What tricks do y'all use to keep yourself interested, on track and not so pressed by schedule (self imposed or otherwise) that you lose the pure joy of yarn moving through your fingers, onto the needles and coming out as a thing of beauty?

I do not want to burn out. I want to keep knitting and knitting and knitting...

There is only the heart motif panel to complete on the scarf and the fringe. Getting down to the wire. I had planned to give it to him for Valentine's Day, but he is not going to be able to wait. He asks every day if he will be able to wear his scarf tomorrow.

What kind of knitter are you?

You may not be a granny, but you've got the
mentality. Hard work and artistic vision lead
to your beautiful knitted results.


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Banff Decisions

The scarf is coming along, but since kiddo is home from school due to weather, I decided to swatch some color combinations for her to choose from. Since she is youthful and likes fun colors (hey I'm old and like fun colors), I am changing the design of Banff considerably. I hope the designer does not go into shock.

I could not find a nice tweedy yarn at the right weight for the sweater. It would either be beyond my price range or sold out. I have tons of Lamb's Pride bulky on hand, so that's what it will be. I love the design of the sweater, but it has too much ease for my kiddo. So I went down 2 needles sizes to an 8 and will knit it at 16 stitches for 4". That should be about right and still allow plenty of ease.

Here are pictures of the swatches. They are peach/brown and lime green/hot pink. The pink shows up with a lavender cast on my monitor. It is a true hot pink.

Which one do you think she chose?

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Thanks to everyone for your comments on Knitting for Others. I have never been one who wanted to charge fairly for my knitting. I think other people should, but I always put mine too lowball. I think it's time for a change. Put a fair price on it and they can buy or not. If we had more yarn stores around here, I would make them go buy their own yarn and pick up the same amount for me as my fee. HA! Then they would see the cost of quality yarn, and I would have an unending stash.

Oops...I already have an unending stash.

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I have to include this funny today. I purchased some sportweight baby yarn off an Ebay seller I have purchased from several times in the past. I know she always responds quickly with a requested total when combining shipments for shipping costs, etc. When I still didn't have an email from her today, I thought perhaps I should check my spam blocker quarantine queue.

There was her email responding to my request for a total as well as my request for the total. My email blocked my own email!

The reason was what was sooooooo funny. The yarn was titled Bouncing Babes, which my spam blocker interpreted as XXX sexually explicit! Hahahahahah!

I've always told you guys when one gets too much yarn, it becomes like porn and has to be hidden. (Hence the name of my blog).

Isn't that a hoot?

Knitting for Others

It seems since I have decided to knit for my family and made an unprecedented decision to knit for MOI, everyone wants me to knit for them.

Remember the scarf I made for my sister-in-law? She called this weekend to tell me how much she loved it and that about "40 people at work all want one."

Me: I could knit some scarves if they are prepared to pay for them.

SIL: Really? How much would you charge for a scarf like that?

Me: Well the yarn I used for your scarf is $9 a ball and it takes two. So I would charge at least $25.

SIL: TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!

The discussion continued about yarn prices, etc. I told her I could find cheaper eyelash yarns. Non-knitters are not usually prepared for the cost involved in knitting by hand, and I am talking about cost of materials. If we charged by the hour they would faint and fall dead on the spot.

They don't realize that that cute little sweater they picked up at the GAP for $19.95 could very well cost $69.95 if knitted by hand.

This morning one of my helpers has decided she wants me to knit her a vest like the Dominique Vest I knitted for the granddaughter. I have wanted to knit this again in different yarns as it is my own design and I have a ton of ideas.

NOOOOOOOO...she wants one JUST like THAT one.

Sigh.

I have been knitting along on hubby's scarf but I am bored, bored, bored. I know I would do much better if I were switching between projects. He has waited so long, he gives me a bit of an evil eye if he sees me contemplating something else.

I want to cast on for BANFF now for kiddo. She has to help me wind some yarn and pick her final color choice. (It changes daily.) I also will make a few scarves to see if anyone at SIL's work wants to buy. My step-daughter has people interested in more scarves and bags there. I thought this was what I wanted...now I'm not so sure.

At this rate, when do I knit for ME???

Purling Puppies

I couldn't resist. I had to do it. Submitted my application for this:

I've always been a little nervous about joining a knitting webring because people might actually come here expecting some classy knitting. EEK!

Hopefully they will find me up to snuff and approve me to the ring, otherwise the caterwauling will commence.

Inching Along

Not much time to post today, but a quick shot of the growing scarf. Sorry this pic is a little blurry.