I'm a little ashamed of the new stash, because I told myself I was going to cut back this year. See, last year was the first year that I really had a yarn budget to speak of, because I had my first real full-time job (but this is only sort of true. I'm in education and live in California. It's a full time job in that I work about 40 hours a week and they pay me money, but there's very little security. But I'm not here to talk about work. Back to the regularly scheduled program.) So I had money to spend on yarn, even if I wasn't at the end of a project. Also, the new yarn didn't have to come from the sale bin or be something I had saved up for. I had a lot more freedom to try new fibers and more expensive brands, and I built up a sizable stash. So this year (since May or so) I've been trying to be a little more discerning in what I purchase, and to buy at a rate that more closely matches my rate of knitting yarn up into projects. Part of me trying to cut back includes a caveat that I am allowed to acquire yarn/fiber from certain sources without feeling any guilt. One of these sources is anything dyed by Adrian of Hello Yarn. So I snapped up these puppies, both from a fellow Raveler who was destashing:
Hello Yarn Wensleydale Fiber: 6 ounces of Mollusc
Hello Yarn BFL Fiber: 8 ounces of Earth
I'm super-excited about these colors, and the other day I saw a fabulous shawl knit from Wensleydale fiber (this from the Verb fiber club, but still fabulous). I think I want to do something similar with my Mollusc, and having 6 ounces instead of 4 gives me a bit of wiggle room in case my spinning isn't as even or as fine as I plan. The BFL I have absolutely no plan for, but I've had striped vests on the brain lately and this would be neat as half of a striped vest (maybe paired with a dark blue or green?).
I also achieved a long-standing goal of mine. I've had this goal since before I got the blog, and I think I've even mentioned it here before: to get into the Hello Yarn Fiber Club. Well, apparently my web-stalking skills have been built up enough, or perhaps things in the universe were just aligned correctly, because I got in! I haven't had time to stop petting the November installment long enough to take any photos at all, but it's gorgeous and I can't wait to spin it up.
Now for the stash that required a sacrifice. It sounds a little more dire than it actually is. Our Tuesday-night knitting group decided to have an unwanted stash exchange a few weekends ago. There were six of us, and we got together with about one large paper grocery bag's worth of yarn each to trade and socialize and eat fabulous cupcakes decorated with red and black frosting so that they looked like ladybugs (thanks thesecitystreets!). There was lots of yarn, and we basically just piled it on the kitchen table and started slowly picking out stuff we liked. I gave up a lot of really really old yarn that I knew I would never ever knit anything out of, and got a few nice things, including a skein of Artyarns Ultramerino, a partial ball of Meunch Touch Me (really soft chenille yarn), and a little puff ball of black angora yarn, all stuff I've been meaning to try. I also scored 4 skeins of Cascade 220 in a lovely blue-green heathery shade that reminds me of mallard ducks. That's where this whole idea for a striped vest came from. The swap was a ton of fun (we really should do that once a year!), and I was very pleased to take home less yarn than I'd walked in with. We'd all agreed to only bring yarns that we really and truly did not want anymore so that there wouldn't be any hard feelings, but that did mean that some yarn was completely unwanted by any of us, so one group member generously took the bag of leftovers to a yarn shop that accepts donations. It was nice to clear some stuff out and be left with yarn that is more likely to get my creative juices going, even if there isn't as much of it as there was before.
I'm blogging during our traditional post-turkey
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