Retail therapy

I typically buy most of my yarn at two festivals in consecutive months, which makes for a lovely basket of yarn to knit from. Unfortunately this means I don't aways have that new yarn smell circulating in my house. Sometimes you just need new yarn. But don't ask me how many unknit pairs of socks are in my stash right now. I would have to look shamefully away from you. We're not talking about stash, we're talking about springtime renewal.

You see my LYS (Local Yarn Shop) sent out an email about how we're all longing for spring and technically vernal equinox occurred so it is spring. In celebration of spring they had a discount. Now I tell you I resisted the siren call of Zauberball restocking a month ago. This time? I packed myself into the car and crossed my fingers that a few Zauberballs remained.

They had two colors remaining, so I picked up the blue one. I am trying to resist casting it on, considering still have that sweater on the needles and plenty of socks going too. Additionally I like saving Zauberballs for vacation take along yarn, back up yarn if you will. It is already wound, all I do is make sure I have an extra needle set and I have an emergency sock kit, just add knitter. Hey I even bought a new set of needles too. It is like I planned it.

The other skein is new to me, but I could not resist the color. Totally out of character for me but lovely. It used to be out of character from me, but I've noticed that knitting has changed the way I feel about color. I never would have been caught buying something orange or yellow, but now burnt orange calls to me. No really it almost jumps into my hands these days. Sorry honey I had to buy the yarn it attacked me. It just wrestled the credit card off of me and ran to the counter then the car.Yeah sure, D will totally buy that story.

See I feel better already, I think I'll go measure a sweater to see if I can finish it this weekend.

I bring you more yarn

I know my blog with yarn pictures? How novel. Anyways as you know I like to put a little money into the local economy when I travel. I buy vacation yarn, D likes it because he gets a pair of socks or two and we have way less stuff collecting dust on shelves. I do miss the refrigerator magnets though.

Normally I try to buy local yarns or roving. That way the money stays even more local, theoretically. It at least has a couple of generations of locality to it. Now if you've been to a yarn store recently, haven't we all, you know the stores are as varied as the knitters. A good store in my opinion has a varied selection. I like a lot of sock yarn but occasionally want to knit a sweater. 

We made a run down to the local shop Athena Fibers. I like it because it has a nice mix of yarns fibers and tools. The thing it is not stellar on is the local yarn selection. Now keep in mind that I go there one a year, usually during the summer. It may have a wonderful selection of local yarns that are sold out every time I go. But have no fear I can find lots of not local lovelies. I do find it ironic that I travel to South Dakota to buy yarns from Wales and Germany. What is a knitter to do other than fall in love and bring some home?

Colinette Jitterbug in Raphel colorway. I know it is not a usual color combination for me, but it spoke to me, spoke to me! They always have the 400 yard skeins which I love.

D picked out Jitterbug in Copper Beach. He is trying to pick more subtle colors so he can wear his socks to work without worrying they will burn out some eyeballs. Turns out engineers are a delicate bunch, I kid.

You know I was worried about running out of yarn on the train ride home so I bought an emergency skein of Zauberball. Since it is already balled up it is ready to knit, no swift or ball winder necessary. OK fine that was just a convenient excuse to get another Zball. I do so love the stuff and I realized the green/blue ball I bought in New Hampshire earlier this year is really for D. I may be able to keep a ball of red/pink/purple for me. 

Now the pencil roving I found was local so I was super happy about that. If you look in all the nooks and crannies you will have success. This is corriedale fiber from High Prairie Fibers. I am hoping it lives up to its colorway name of magic.

I've been promising myself some new tools for a while. I finally have a darning egg to repair some socks. I am still practicing using it. I darned a pair of D's socks right before the hole became a hole. I'm sure there is a certain finesse that I have yet to acquire, but I am working on it. My darning is not pretty yet , but it gets the job done, and keeps the socks in rotation.

I passed up the cubic needles on our trip to WEBS in favor of the Carbonz needles. Clearly if I needed emergency yarn I also needed emergency needles too. I am only being logical here. The metal stitch markers my HiyaHiya caught my fancy too. They're thinner than the plastic ones. Oddly enough I got a free one off of a new shirt D bought and really liked it so...

It is getting to be fiber festival time here and I though I better show of my summer purchases before I show off my festival purchases.

I have not tapped into this stash yet but the same can not be said for the New Hampshire purchases. I am down a couple of skeins there. Don't worry I have a replacement idea list. Rhinebeck will be here soon enough. If not Southern Adirondack festival is a tad over a week away. It is all good here.

My feet are on fire

My feet are wrapped in what I am calling my Ember socks. My lovely little Zauberball again knit up into fraternal socks but hey I like fraternities. No wait that is not what I meant. I meant that it does not bother me to wear socks that don't match perfectly, as long as they're both the same colors I am good.

 Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball color 1874 ombre. 

I just love how the ball shows off how lumpy it is at the end. And thanks to a really bad allergy season I went from 2/3 of a sock to finished in about 24 hours. Even with medication all I want to do is breathe normally, but my nose and sinus refuse.

I spent large amounts of time knitting on this sock and watching back episodes of Stockinette Zombies.
Or as D calls it my virtual knitting group. Every time he came to talk to me I was watching an episode. What can I say the way they talk reminds me of home. I am highly entertained. Plus they knit fast so there is much to see.

Not stash

I had my lesson on sweater construction the other day at my local yarn store. It was fabulous remind me to tell you why. But first look what they still had on their shelf for me to buy.

A Schoppel Zauberball

There is just something about this yarn that makes me not be the knitter that I think I am. I don't like single ply sock yarns. This is the only one that I can stand and even enjoy working with. 

I really hate orange, but not this color it looks like fire embers. I'm trying to knit from the stash. This was not even in the house for 15 minutes before I cast it on. OK fine it was here for an hour, I had to make dinner but still it jumped on the needles.

I think the color changes are mesmerizing. I've been on the hunt for another ball for a while now and I think I bought the last ball at my store. You can call it destiny if you like.

The other socks that I made from it are holding up well and I enjoyed knitting them. I do feel weird when I wear them with certain shoes because one shoe shows green and the other shows black. But all I have to do is lift the pant leg to show off how they're the same socks, just in different areas.

Ok it does make me feel like a bit of a rebel, letting people think I'm wearing mismatched socks. Yeah Yarnkettle the rebel, sometimes I even put the milk in my tea after I pour the tea in, scandalous, I know!