Bad Girl Yarn Ready for Fun!

Flirty lace-weight yarn seeking knitter for just a little casual fun. Interests include looking beautiful, creating those pills while being knit with and self-tangling. Seeking that perfect knitter to fight with Taylor Swift-style so you can write about our torrid affair on the blogosphere. No pets please. Pic below...

Preparing for Yarn Disasters

This is probably something I should have posted before the hurricane, but there were a few other things I was a little concerned about. I live in a basement apartment, and it was entirely possible during the storm that we would get a little to a lot of flooding. I also knew there would a LOT of time spent with my boyfriend's family and that knitting might prevent me from harming any of them. Here's what I did to prepare:

When I moved to this apartment, I was worried about what could happen to my yarn, and I needed an easy way to transport it as well. I put it all in clear plastic bins from The Container Store. Amusingly, these boxes were called Sweater Boxes (and they stack on top of each other!). The plastic proved to be a good move, as there were a few boxes on the floor that ended up getting wet, but the yarn inside them is totally fine.

I have a box of pretty yarn that I usually keep on the floor next to the TV. It's in a fabric box because the fabric box is pretty, and it's open. I simply moved this onto a TV table, which kept it above the water and fine.

You may have seen my blog Yarn365. I love taking photos for artistic reasons. However, one of the things I did before I moved last year was take photos of all the yarn I had and document which box it was in. I wanted to make sure that when I got to the new place, I knew that I had all my yarn. This proved to be useful in that, if anything bad did happened to my yarn, I had proof of my collection and how much it was worth in case I needed to file an insurance claim.

I was also worried about being bored, so figuring out what my next pattern would be was instrumental. The project for my brother's wedding is too warm to work on should the power go out and the AC fail. I was going to finish a shawl, but I was running out of yarn and I lost the bead needle I needed to string the beads onto a new ball. If I finished the sock I was working on, that'd be bad. So I started swatching. I settled on knitting a Cosy V Neck Pullover (Ravlink) from Fitted Knits: 25 Designs for the Fashionable Knitter (AMZ Link). It's top down and I finished the V-neck part and was ready to join for the round when I realized that I'd omitted the neckline shaping. So I ripped it all out Sunday night.

However, my issues with the pattern were all mental. I could read the pattern, despite the fact that the lights were out and our transformer exploded because I had a Neck Light. My SNB went in on this. I think we got something like 20 lights alltogether so we got them cheaply. It was pretty awesome to be able to continue to knit despite the dark.

Overall, we weathered through ok. We had a transformer explode on our block and we had to leave our house because of a possible gas leak whose origin they still don't quite know. But everyone here was safe, and I hope you were too.

(photo: Decadent Fibers Creme Brulee from Rhinebeck last year, the yarn of my hurricane project)

New Style

Hey there! What do you think of the new style? I want to thank the blogger team for making this update to the blog as easy as possible! I nabbed the photo from Yarn 365. But then, I guess it's not really nabbing it if it's my own, right?

The next blog project is going to be to cut down on some of the clutter there on the sidebar. I think the main offender is the blog list. It'd be good to cut that down to size. Back in the day, I used to use that blog list to read all the blogs. Now I use google reader, so I'm a little less concerned about it, but it's still nice to show some love to the folks I follow. Trouble is, I read a LOT of blogs now, and I'm not sure I really want ALL of them listed on the sidebar, for fear the sidebar will never end!

I do, however, think you should check out this post by Knit Princess. It's a hilarious comic panel and kind of made my day. I wish I were going to Comic Con this year so I could get a great photo of Darth Vader holding up some nifty yarn for Yarn 365.

At any rate, I'm really happy with the way the redesign of the blog turned out and I'm looking forward to going through that blog list on some other day.

Travelling Yarn Gifts

There's not much to post here. I'm still working on a Christmas gift. It's taking a while, but it's a lot of fun to knit, so there's that. I'll chat about it after it's been gifted.

To prepare for life without Christmas knitting, I feel like I'm bringing an overabundance of yarn with me to Rhode Island for the holiday. Granted, I'll be there for a good week and a half with not much else to do but knit, I still feel like I'm bringing too much. Here's the list:

• I've got yarn to knit another cowl out of (the light blue one is awesome, but it doesn't match my hat!).
• Yarn for a pair of fingerless mitts for me (my hands keep getting cold!)
• Yarn to finish the Christmas project

Once I get to Rhody, I'm going to have to pick up an aran weight yarn to knit a pair of fingerless mitts for my brother's fiancee's mother. She's cool and will actually wear them. You know, looking at that list, I'm not actually sure I did pack too much yarn. Maybe it's the christmas gifts in my backpack that are taking up all the space. I totally should have mailed them instead of bringing them. Maybe I'll mail them once I get to work.

I should send out a public huge thank you to blogless NanLam. She gave me the coolest bit of yarn:


It's Dream in Color Knitosophy in the Superhero color way. It's a really great blend of colors. Kalajoki (RavLink) popped up when I did a search and I knew that the two were meant to be together. I'm stuck now though. Because this yarn would be perfect to tout around Comic Con and use for Yarn365. While I want to cast on RIGHT NOW for those socks, I should wait. I'll have to come up with something else in the meantime.

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Today's Yarn365 shot is of a centerpiece of knitting needles. In order to get this shot, I pulled a bunch of knitting needles out of the tin I keep all of my needles in. I seem to have a ton of needles I'll never actually use ever again. I think 2010 for me is the year of getting rid of clutter for me - liquidating material things that don't need to be around etc. I'll post a list of the needle type, size etc. once I get back from Rhode Island and y'all can see if there's anything you need. I figure I should just donate them somewhere to charity after that. Anyone know of any charities that accept knitting needles?

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I want to post about my visit to La Casita Yarn Shop yesterday, but I've REALLY got to get this damn gift finished!

Yarn 365 Is A Month Old!

That's the most recent yarn photo which looks way better on the Yarn 365 Blog. I want to thank Illanna for helping me out with the project the week I was in London. I think the photos I've been taking of yarn have gotten better recently because of the constant practice. Hopefully that will be helpful with regards to other aspects of photography.

If anyone else is interested in photography like I am, I just found this awesome group on Ravelry: Yarnographers. They have photo assignments every now and again, and I might be taking part in some of them to keep myself challenged while doing the Yarn365 project

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Oh, and just one other thing: I'm loving that the yarnharlot's 365 calendar that Beth gave me last year for Christmas has a note for a Nonknitter Who Loves a Knitter up today. I know it's recycled from a book, but it's the most thoughtful thing ever. Also, since it's written like a note, it's perfect to leave lying around *someone's* house. You could even make copies of it and leave it lying around multiple houses! :-o

I'm noticing that there are a ton of 2010 kntiting/yarny calendars out there. I might have to review them at some point.

Stash Overhaul 2009

This weekend was a little nuts. There was paintballing and getting ready for a business trip to London and amazing BBQ at Hill Country. Somehow, in all the craziness, my first priority on Friday night was not packing for a week long trip to London, but organizing my stash.

90% of my stash has been located in bags. Not necessarily in the bags they were bought in, I did try to consolidate things a bit. All the sock yarn was together at least. All the yarn fit either under a plastic Ikea chair, or right in front of it. First step was to take the yarn out of all the bags so it could be organized into piles by what type of project I had in mind for it. This is what I ended up with:


That's yarn for sweaters to the right, and the sock yarn is next to that. Then there's yarn for tank tops and summer stuff and on the far left is yarn for lace projects.

I had bought some plastic boxes from The Container Store (which were surprisingly cheap actually) and started shoving yarn into them in ways that made sense, trying to keep together the organization I had already put in place. The lace project and the tank top boxes are a little mixed in together since the lace yarn is small enought to fit into small spaces left by tank top yarn. The sock yarn box starts with solid colors at the bottom and becomes more and more multi colored as it gets to the top of the box. The sweater yarn actually had to be split up, so that there's a bag and a box of that (there's also a WIP yarn bag). And here's what I'm left with:


The boxes are labeled on their front and I have a list of whatever yarn is inside the box on top of it (index cards are awesome). It might be a little anal. It might have taken me 2-3 hours to complete all of this. I might have packed last minute last night instead of on Friday night like I had anticipated, however, that corner of the apartment is way neater, and much more organized. :)

Yarn 365

I've started a new adventure!

Ruth and I were chatting on our subway ride back from SNB this week about coffee table books. I mentioned that it'd be really cool to have a book of just really good yarn photography. I started thinking that it might be fun to do a 365 project where all the photos were of yarn. I'll take a photo a day and add it to a flickr website and then to a blog I just created called Yarn 365. There's a few fun categories that I'll be posting into:

• Yarn in the Wild - this category will encompass yarn in places you don't generally see it such as: chilling on a stoop, maybe a green hank hanging out with some red apples in the produce section of whole foods, or even balancing on a sheep's head
• A Close Yarn - this category will be for close ups (macro shots) of yarn
• Glamorous Yarn - this category will be for photos of yarn that strikes a pose in a studio setting
• Puppy-Eyed Yarn - this category is for the yarn that stares at you from the cubby holes at the yarn store. You know, the hanks and skeins that beg you to take them home with you regardless of how much space you have for them or what you'll knit with them
• Yarn Transformed - this category is for photos of yarn that has been knit, crocheted, or played with in a way that makes it no longer string-like

I can use all the encouragement I can get I think. It's really hard to do something every day of the week. I have a lot of momentum going on this project right now and I'm really excited about it, but I'm sure that will fade at some point, and I might need some cheerleaders. Can you help me out? I'll make you some pom-poms if you want them... :)

Let's hear it for the Stash!

About a year and a half ago I went on a date with a guy I started talking to online from a craigslist ad. I told my roommate I'd check in with her at midnight, and that if I didn't make it back, she should find a mariachi band to hire for my funeral.

After reading Stiff by Mary Roach about the secret life of human cadavers (historically and currently - it's a great book you should totally read it) I decided that I want my body donated to science when I die. I don't need it, and it's rather wasteful to just bury it somewhere or to burn it.

It was while reading the Yarn Harlot's newest book Things I Learned from Knitting that I started wondering...what's going to happen to my stash once I'm gone?

I mean, I could die at any time, and what happens if people don't know who should distribute my yarn, and who's worthy of my yarn? Surely, my cousin who just started knitting and can only knit garter stitch scarves (she's mentally disabled so the fact she can knit that is impressive) wouldn't do much of my yarn justice. No, this yarn should be used by someone who would truely understand and appreciate the wonders of the fibers I've bought over the years that I've been knitting.



So, I think I put Ruth in charge of distributing my yarn once I'm gone. I trust her to make good choices. However, there's a hierarchy to my stash (to be explained in a later post), and certain skeins should probably be given to certain people.

But choosing someone to inherit a skein of my luscious stash is more than choosing the person that wants it. It's choosing the person who will see the potential I see in the skein and knowing that they'll help the yarn achieve that potential. Additionally, it's a matter of choosing someone who's worthy of receiving skeins from my stash. So how do you know if someone is "yarnherit" worthy?