An Epic Yarn

Well, it's been a while. In all honesty I haven't had much to blog about. Life is wonderful in the new house, though we discovered a damp problem that we should probably have fixed. We have been busy working, and making wedding plans, very exciting.

In between all of that, I have been thinking hard about yarn. Yep. I even dream about it, and as I talk in my sleep, my Mr confirms this. On Saturday last I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. The lovely Hannah from Make, Do & Mend organised the knit & natter gang, and we've been excited about this for months. Ooooh it was wonderful! All the amazing yarns, fabrics and goodies! I spent a decent amount of cash, mainly at the Black Sheep Yarns stall, but I could have spent hundreds if i had it. I loved touching and 'oooh' ing and 'ahhhhh' ing over beautiful soft wool, gasping at scrumptious cashmere, and being inspired by beautiful knits and crochet. I particularly loved the Nest stall, and the lovely Loop ladies, with beautiful wares. Wanna see what I got? OK then...

The two skeins on the left are gorgeous- just £2 each! Perfect for wristwarmers I think. Clockwise then, is the bag of Rowan Cashsoft Chunky, purchased from the amazing Black Sheep stall- bags of bargains! The two beautiful fabrics are from Fabrics Galore- so many beautiful fabrics to choose from. I just got half a metre of each. So the next big bag is Sirdar Escape- just £14.99 for ten balls! I intend to make the jumper pattern that you see there on the left with it. My knitting jedi master informs me that the pattern is a piece of cake, even with my rudimentary knitting skills! I also bought a beautiful Sarah Hatton knitting book called 'Vintage Style Knits' from the Coats Crafts stall. Two (free!) 10mm crochet hooks, a knitting needle gauge...and I think that's it!

All this new stash is wonderful, I was very pleased indeed with my loot. I'm sure I'll share little more later on. However, homing it was proving to be a struggle. I needed structure, organisation. So today, I organised my stash. I took it all out of the various bags, baskets and carrier bags, examined it and re-organised it. and wow! i feel so much lighter for it! the weight of projects-to-be was weighing me down, killing the creative juices. I want to pick up needles and hook, but know not where to begin. So, shall we have a little peek at the stash?

In truth, there is not as much as I feared. A manageable stash, but one that needs direction.

So I organised them into little piles and then assigned the yarn to a project.

So here is a little insight into said stash and projects...

1. rowan pure wool DK- this is the first square of a Jane Brocket/Mollie Makes blanket. I need to go and look at the colours of this to ascertain the best colour combos. This yarn (all four 50g balls) were bought for me last Christmas by my brother, to encourage my knitting. Instead I will use it for crochet!

 2. LOADS of odd wool, including lots of this teal, was given to me by my step-grandmother. There is a bag of slightly odds yarns, I am thinking a traditional granny square blanket?

 3. Some more odds wools, from the Bag of Mystery given to me as above, plus some leftover Sirdar Luxury Soft Cotton DK in a soft orange. So I am crocheting vegetables!!! The pattern was from Mollie Makes issue 5. I intend to invent various crochet vegetables, for no purpose whatsoever.

 4. Some Gorgeous Bamboo DK I got on sale. I used this to make my round cushion, remember? It is so soft and swooshy worked up, it needs to be used for something to wear I think. Wristwarmers?

 5. magazine freebies. The gorgeous six colours there are super-soft aran yarn- which will made into a soft scarf for my new neighbour's birthday. The others there are to make a rose brooch, so I think I will do just that.

 6. This here yarn is being hoovered up by WIP No. 1- the Nico dress from Vintage Crochet. I need to make the body, sew up the skirt panels, crochet arms and make extra panels for the short skirt. Unfortunately the yarn is discontinued- an eBay find. So if anyone has any Debbie Bliss Merino Aran in 325006 let me know ASAP! I will pay good money for it, of course.

 7. Some leftover of my old favourite- Stylecraft Special DK. Also nestled here is WIP No. 2- a birthday moss stitch tie for my man. I'll also make a scarf for him with some of the Rowan Cashsoft Chunky khaki I purchased from the knit and stitch show.

8. And this lovely bundle has been a stash built over time. Expensive, but SO worth it. Again, discontinued yarn purchased on eBay, with some of Saturday's knit and stitch stash added to make a nice contrast to the quite pastel colours. And this will be a ripple blanket! Lucy at Attic24 and Heather at Little Tin Bird have started a ripple-along...so I will be joining in! More of this later in the week...but for now, I do love touching this stash of Rowan Cashsoft Chunky. Mmmm, soft.

So that's it! Only two WIPs on the go, not counting a badly-gone-wrong striped tie I started knitting months ago. Once I've finished the dress I will start knitting a top, then show you the beautiful knits in my sarah hatton book.

WOW that took a long time to write. I think it might be bed time now. can't wait to start my ripply bed blanket! And everything else of course...

Night night natty knitters! And crocheters, of course...