What I Took Away From the Swap

I was pretty good at the swap last weekend. I brought a lot of stash yarn (I realized I brought quite a bit more than I actually listed), and a lot of it magically went away! The key to swaps is that you should always bring back less than you take with you. For this swap, I really wasn't in much danger of taking back more than I brought with me, but since I'm moving at the end of July, I really was trying to take as little as possible.

That being said, of course I fell to a few pretties:


Some sort of lace weight silk. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet, but it sure is pretty and soft.


Twisted Fiber Art's Kabam! yarn in Giles colorway. This might turn into a really pretty scarf, or, more likely since it stripes, it might turn into a nifty pair of socks. Maybe Rick from Cookie A's Sock Innovation (I'm kind of addicted to her book right now).

I also picked up some of my friend Malia's handspun yarn:

(click on the images to make them bigger on flickr)

At the party, we also dyed yarn. It was my first time dying at all, and I was really impressed with how the wool yarn took the dye. The yarn I dyed was leftover from my Over the Knee Stockings (the successful ones - Malia dyed the yarn I used for the unsuccessful ones). There's a before and after shot at the end of the post. First, we soaked the yarn to get it ready to take all the dye.

v
The Louet Gems I used is at the bottom of the pot.


I used the Mango Kool-Aid to get an orangey color.


Isn't it pretty!?

Here's that comparative shot I was telling you about.


I think I figured out a way to re-invent my knitting blog. Before Ravelry I used to post all sorts of project stuff. Since Ravelry, however, all of that goes onto Ravelry and then there's not much else to post about. I do a fair amount of fiber artsy stuff, so I think from now on this blog is going to be more about all other yarny stuff I do. Like the dying and swap party, moving the stash, knitterly books I read (I recently read Sweater Quest and rather loved it, so a review of that will be coming up soon), event recaps and such. What do you think of that? I guess if I have issues with knitting I'll still be posting them here, or any triumphs and stuff like that. I'm just having an issue keeping up with knitting and posting about knitting. Posting about knitting actually takes up knitting time, so I think I'll get back to the knitting now, and come back later with a book review!

What I'm bringing to the swap tomorrow

I went through my stash and weeded it out. I'm getting rid of a LOT of yarn. Granted, I still have a LOT left, but still. It felt so good to go through my stash and get rid of the stuff I don't see myself using anytime soon. Here's a list of stuff I'm bringing, so you have an idea:

A Denise Needle set that is missing one size 15 tip (I was using it as a cable needle when I was knitting the blanket for Beth and Erich and I think I dropped it on a Peter Pan bus to Providence).

BOOKS:


YARN (in no particular order):

• 1 skein of Knit Picks Stroll in Navy
• Partial skeins of Knit Picks Stroll in Cocoa and Buckskin
• 1.75 skeins of Misti Alpaca Chunky in teal
• 1 skein of strange teal yarn
• 3-ish skeins of Berroco Suede in grey
• Partial Skein of Berroco Suede in kahki
• 7 skeins of Sublime Cashmerino Silk Aran in Sage Green
• 6 skeins of Mission Falls 1824 wool in green
• 1 skein of Malabrigo Chunky in a dark green, black, blue colorway
• 3 skeins of Rowan Denim in dark blue
• 1 ball of Rowan Kid Classic in white
• 1.5 balls of Rowan Kid Silk Haze in green
• 1/2 balls each of Lacey Lamb in Rose, off white and pink
• 1 skein each of Mission Falls 1824 in black and teal
• 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Grey
• a couple skeins of strange mohair in different colors
• 1/2 skeins of Lamb's Pride Bulky in Blue and Raspberry
• Several Skeins of Karabella Aurora 4 (I don't really want to know - this is from the original attempt at the over the knee stockings)
• 3/4 of a ball of Rowan Calmer in Navy Blue
• 2 balls of JoJo Land Harmony

This has freed up space in the sweater box and in the box of pretty. Actually, that's mostly because at the bottom of the box of pretty is where I generally keep odd balls. Check out Yarn 365 for an interesting oddball photo. So, if Stan's reading this, buddy, at least know that I tried to whittle down the stash. There's a lot of yarn on that list up there.

Also, check out the odd things I found lying around in the stash! How random!


An Alpaca finger puppet, a button from a bag, a stitch marker (!?! HOW!!??), a Paiette from a Sparkle Hat, and a ball band from some Sweet Georgia Speed Sock (Clapotis circa 2007!)

Stash Busting disclaimer

I just realized I posted this huge thing on the enhancement to my stash, after we'd already talked about Stash-Busting 09.

I'd like to assure you that even though that Kraemer Sterling Silk and Silver is of sock weight, I bought it with the intention of knitting a shawl out of it.

kthnx

Stash Busting Clarification

Alright, I realized that there was a bit of confusion on the Stash Busting front from the comments on my post from last week. This confusion would probably be clarified by a couple photos of my sock yarn stash and a few stats as to what percentage of my stash it takes up (honestly, that would be interesting to see as well - I should work on creating a pie chart of types of yarn in my stash from excel). Alas, I've been rather busy as of late and haven't had a chance to do any of that. My goal for this week is to get on that though.

PassionKNIT Stash Busting 2009 is all about the socks. I have a ton of awesome sock yarn. This yarn should be knit. The goal of 2009 is to not augment the stash of yarn. This means not buying any new sock yarn. Katy's right, if I knit the yarn as I buy it, it doesn't hit the stash, however, when it comes to sock yarn, that kind of behavior is not going to help me diminish the stash at all.

And so this brings me back to the gift card to Purl. For Christmas, my aunt gave me Knitted Lace of Estonia, so maybe I'll get some nice lace-weight yarn. Or maybe I'll get a happy cashmere yarn that I can just pet (that's a really compelling argument you make there, Chiara). Anyone want to weigh in?