Wonderwool Wales

This weekend is Wonderwool, so Littlest S&S and I tootled off together yesterday to see what we could see. (Littlest S&S slept pretty much all the way through in her sling, oblivious to all the admiration she garnered. By the end of the day I felt like having ‘My baby is 9 weeks old’ written on my forehead, but that’s what happens when you take a cute baby out, I suppose!) I had plans to meet friends at lunchtime, so once I got the knitting needles I knew I needed, I spent the first hour and a half moseying around, browsing aimlessly and taking photos of all the lovely yarn and fibre. So many pretty colours and lovely textures. Want to see? Of course you do.

Pretty coloured fibre:

Purple yarns aplenty at Fyberspates:

Jubilee yarn at EasyKnits:

Lovely subtle colours at Natural Dye Studio:

Gorgeous threads at Oliver Twist:

Gorgeous natural colours at Jillybean:

Recycled sari yarn:

Silk and sequins:

And some lovely natural fibres:

Then came lunch – a Scotch egg from the marvellous Scotch egg man (he makes lots of different types including a gluten-free version, God bless him) and a chat with some friends, and then more ambling and purchasing until it was time to go home. I tried my very best to be restrained as I absolutely don’t need any more yarn, and was moderately successful. If anything I was even more inspired to use up my stash, as I want to go back next year and be able to stock up on new projects. I saw some utterly beautiful needlefelting:

and the most gorgeous crocheted throw:

and some gorgeous yarns which I long to be able to justify buying.

So, are you wondering what came home with me? Well, a relatively modest haul, for once.

The needles and cable I knew I needed:

Some lovely stitch markers I knew I didn’t, but couldn’t resist:

And um, about that not buying yarn… and especially not laceweight because I have far too much. Well. I bought this:

The photo doesn’t do it justice – it’s called ‘Treacle Toffee’, but I think it’s the colour of new pennies and I’d not seen anything quite like it before. It’s silk and merino laceweight and I tried very hard to be strong, but I kept thinking about it and then I figured that if I was actually taking people to the stand to show them the yarn, I had better buy it. I’m already pretty sure I know what I’m going to make with it. Mr S&S is very rude about it and keeps making remarks about the Bristol Stool Scale, but knickers to him; I think it’s lovely and unusual.

I also picked up this magazine in return for a donation to the Air Ambulance:

I like this pattern for a girl’s coat:

And this shawl:

I also bought some shell buttons and a pattern for a very pretty tie-front cardigan. All in all a good day and apart from the yarn, no real extravagances, which is nice.

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Oops.

Remember how I wasn’t going to buy any yarn unless it was on a ‘two out, one in’ basis? Well, I’ve been doing very well. Until now. I’ve been using mainly stash yarn (with a few little balls here and there to finish off stash projects) and starting to feel quite virtuous. And then it all went a bit wrong.

I used a heap of yarn making the crochet blocks I posted about a while back, and then decided what I was going to make with them, which meant that just needed some black yarn to complete the project. Off I tootled to my bargain yarn source of choice and sure enough, they had what I needed at a good price. And if it’s to finish a stash project, it doesn’t count, right? But while I was there, I thought, ‘Well, once that’s done, none of my planned stash projects are really mindless/put downable enough for me at the moment, what with the baby’. So I, um, bought yarn to make a Granny Stripe blanket. I’ve been longing to make one of these for ages and I couldn’t resist this lovely bamboo yarn. It comes in the most gorgeous colours, which all have plant names, so I spent half an hour agonising and chose these:

Top row: Cyclamen, Delphinium, Catkin, Primrose. Bottom row: Lavender, Fennel, Hydrangea. It was really hard to choose – there were at least four other shades I loved, but I wanted a balance of colours and a ‘spring’ palette. I wasn’t 100% sure about the yellow, but I thought it needed something to ‘lift’ it, and I think it works quite well, although I’m going to have to use it with care.

And then, while I was there, I also bought six balls of merino 4ply in the most delicious colours. I broke one of my golden rules here, as I have absolutely no idea what I’ll do with it – the state of my stash is largely due to me buying yarn without having a clue what to do with it, but it was a bargain and I need projects I can work on. It was a bit naughty, but as I said to a friend and fellow knitter, yarn is cheaper than therapy. And look, aren’t these lovely?

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So, the knitting…

I did manage to get my one and only knitted present finished – not before Christmas, sadly, but before my mum (the recipient) went home. Here it is:

It’s an Incus cowl (you can get the pattern – part of a collection of three – here). Mum chose the pattern and the yarn – it’s Manos Silk Blend in Aurora – and I knitted it up. The pattern is lovely – once you’ve got the stitch pattern set up it’s mindless knitting for 9 rows, then a teeny bit of concentration to cross the cables, then mindless knitting for another 9 rows. The yarn is heavenly – absolutely gorgeous to knit with, and a lovely sheen.

The variegated yarn makes the cabling a subtle detail rather than a big style feature – I am tempted to knit myself one in a solid colour for comparison purposes. I have a skein of yarn I’d love to use, but it’s the wrong weight, so I’ll need to do some sums to adjust the pattern and do a bit of swatching to work out if I have enough.

I have some other projects on the go – the monochrome crochet, a nice simple knitting project that is currently not impressive enough to show off, and a more complex one which I can’t show off because it’s for someone who I know reads the blog. But I will say that I have already used more than 1000 metres of yarn this month, so that resolution at least is off to a good start!

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Taking stock

My knitting/crochet mojo, long missing, has resurfaced. I have been looking at knitting books borrowed from the library, and thinking about what I might knit as Christmas presents (yes, I know it’s only August, but I start my Christmas knitting in September, to avoid the ‘knitting frantically on Christmas Eve’ panic I have experienced in the past) and the urge to pick up my needles and hook has returned.

So I’ve been stocktaking. Before the knitting mojo deserted me, I made a pledge that this year, I would use at least as much yarn as I bought. This seemed, at the time, realistic. I wasn’t saying I’d buy no yarn (because we all know how that would work out) and I wasn’t committing to knit with the exact yarn I bought (because that would be stifling). Just that there’d be a bit of a ‘one in, one out’ principle applied.

So, having had a few yarn-craft-free months I thought I’d better see how much yarn I’d bought that was still unknitted. I think, to be fair, I have to look at length, not weight – 100g of chunky yarn is much quicker to knit than 100g of laceweight. And the slightly shocking total is, um, 5649 metres. And that doesn’t include the stuff I’ve already used this year (quite a lot). In fairness, one seventh of this is contained in a single skein of laceweight yarn, but still. I think it’ll be a bit of a tall order to get through over a kilometre a month between now and New Year. But I shall make a valiant effort, and shall keep you apprised of my progress!

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Weekword: Abundance

Christine chose the word ‘abundance’ for this week’s Weekword. What a fantastic word, especially for autumn, with its connotations of harvest and plenty. I was thinking about the things I had an abundance of – books, fabric, yarn, laundry… and was wondering how to convert these into a post. And then, something happened.

The huge stash of yarn I have accumulated is something I refer to frequently on this blog. I really, really do have a lot of yarn. I love yarn. There is something about the combination of colour and texture, added to the wonderful sense promise inherent in the fact that it could be made into almost anything, that I find irresistible. So I have accumulated what could be termed, in both senses, an embarrassment of riches. In the modern sense because I do sometimes feel a little embarrassed by the sheer volume of the stuff I’ve managed to stash away under the spare room bed. And in the original sense (to ‘embarrass’ originally meant to thwart or to hinder, word fact fans) because sometimes having too much of something is stifling. I find it actually hinders my creativity to be presented with too much choice and it becomes overwhelming.

So. What happened this week? Well, somebody gave me several skeins of yarn. This yarn:

It is polyester. It is a novelty yarn. It is something I wouldn’t normally knit with. And heaven knows, I don’t need any more yarn. But I love the colours and it is so, so soft. The texture is something like feathers. I didn’t know what I would do with it, beyond a scarf, and I’ve knit too many scarves lately. So, off I popped to Ravelry. Anyone who uses Ravelry will know about the way you can hop from project to yarn to designer to project to pattern. And so, I happened upon a reference to ‘freeform knitting’. Which is when you gather yarns you like and which look good together, regardless of fibre, type, gauge – regardless of anything, really – take a basic idea, and then just … knit. Just knit with your yarns as the fancy takes you and without any idea of how your scarf/shawl/ wrap will turn out.

This sounded exciting. And a bit scary. And like nothing I’ve done before. And some of the freeform projects on the web were amazing. So, I ferreted through my yarn to find pink and purples that would go with my new feathery friend. And I found several skeins left over from other projects:

And a bit of bright pink mohair that someone gave me, sans ballband, so I don’t know how much I have:

And a few skeins I had gathered on impulse because I liked them, but didn’t really know what to do with:

And so, suddenly, these varied yarns that I had struggled to decide what to do with came together, became part of something exciting and merged in my mind into a glorious whole. As I added each yarn to the pile, it took on a new glow of possibility when put with all the others. The embarrassment of riches became true abundance.

Look! Don’t they look great together?

I am so excited about this project and am forcing myself to finish the one I’m working on before I start.

Pop over to Christine’s blog to check out the abundance of Weekworders this week. Welcome to all the new players (and those returning after a break!).

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Gardens and Yarn

On Friday, we took a little day trip. Some friends were en route to their holiday in Snowdonia, so we met them halfway at Welshpool. We started off at the Dingle, a lovely garden and nursery. I was very good and didn’t buy any plants (I have too many waiting forlornly in containers while I decide what to do with them) but we had a lovely walk around the gardens and I took lots of pictures. It is an amazing space, not least because it is comparatively small, and on a steep slope, and yet it feels spacious and the planting is lovely. It is mainly shrubs, but the many little paths take you to lovely prospects, cute little bridges and shelters, and interesting specimen plants.

I love paeonies, and this one, ‘Bowl of Beauty‘ is a stunner.

There had been some rain, so I was able to indulge my habit of taking photos of water on leaves, in this case, a rather splendid hosta.

The occasional splashes of colour in among the many shades of green could be quite startling:

I loved the colour of these poppies.

Irises:

This was some of the planting by the lake:

And one of the little paths:

After a picnic lunch, my friend and I left our children with our husbands and took ourselves off to the Colinette mill, and more importantly, the sale room. I do not need any yarn. I have alluded many times in this blog to my extensive yarn stash. But I defy any knitter, however steely of resolve, to come out of the millshop empty handed. I adore Colinette’s colours – each yarn is available in solids, heathered semi-solids and the most amazing variagated colourways – and a shop full of the stuff is just amazing. Better yet, there’s a room full of yarn which is discounted – in some cases heavily so.

Look!

This is some of what somehow found its way into my basket – I have a project in mind and I’m quite excited by it.

I now have to do a lot of knitting and whittle down my stash in order to justify another visit…

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Yarn

This is what I’m knitting with at the moment. It’s so gorgeous that I’m doing something mindlessly simple so as to show off the yarn. Isn’t it lovely? It’s Colinette Giotto again. I love that stuff.

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