And Still No Knitting

I have been knitting but I don’t have any finished projects. I have been working two rows per day on my New Year’s Day cast on (OK sometimes I have to play catch up at the weekends) but I already know I am going to add more rows to use up all the yarn so it won’t be finished this month.

Sewing to the rescue again.

I have wanted to participate in a block-a-month quilt. But they have always cost more than I can justify spending. Last time I was in Jo-Ann, I noticed one of the quilting magazines included a 2018 planner with a block design for each month. Bingo! As it was near the end of January when I purchased the magazine, I waited until February to make the first block. January's will be made next year. This is not a problem as there will be quite a bit of finishing to turn the finished blocks into a quilt so I am not aiming to finish it this year.

February was not a hard block to make and I was able to use all scraps. My intention is to use scraps as much as possible but I do not want adjoining blocks to have the same fabric so there will be a little bit of purchasing going on.

First Two of 2018

And they are both sewing projects. And the first one is almost a cheat as all that was required for finishing was cutting threads and sewing down a sleeve on the back.

It’s a slightly delayed Christmas project. Although it depends on definition of slightly. It's a project I started last year so not too long from start to finish; but the pattern and fabric were purchased many years ago, so a long delay between purchase and finish.



This was not hard but did require care.

The second sewing project is a bag. Yes I know - another bag. But there truly is a good reason for this. I was given a code for a free class on Craftsy and this included the Start Up Library. I chose the Sewing Class. Although I know how to sew, I thought it would be an opportunity to learn different or better techniques. The class covers two projects, one being a bag, and if I was going to do this class properly I was going to make the bag. I used tracing paper for the first time and added darts which I haven't made for a long time and finished seams with a zigzag stitch again something I haven't done for a while.

I have thought it would be fun to have a bag with a Christmas theme so that was the fabric I purchased.



There won't be any finished knitting projects for a while. Verdon is big and I'm not quite half-way through. I have been working two rows per day on my New Year's Cast on. So if I keep that up it won't be finished until the middle of next month. If I could muster some enthusiasm for crochet I could pick up those projects and finish them. I should set up a reminder as I could have a finished project for this month if I worked on the hat.

I Jumped On That Bandwagon

A knitting bandwagon that is. I have made four of the five patterns on Ravelry with the most projects. I have no plans to make it five out of five but I have started another popular pattern. It doesn’t show up in the most popular as there are many variations – free and for purchase. I have started a mitred square blanket, also known as a sock yarn blanket or cozy memories blanket. I find it interesting that with so many variations out there, people are still publishing patterns for purchase. I’m not saying they shouldn’t charge for their patterns, just that I cannot see the need for more of this particular design.

I have not wanted to make a blanket with my left overs as either you have to sew a lot of squares together or you are working on a large blanket. I think that is why many people are gung-ho at the start when there are few squares but give up when you are picking up stitches on a heavy blanket. But I do have many leftovers from all the socks I have knitted. And there are many socks made before I started blogging and Ravelry only has projects from when I joined not older projects.

What to do with unused yarn? When there are so many sock patterns and I had so much yarn, why use remains to knit socks? Although one month I did join the challenge of making socks from left overs and I do wear the socks.
(And weird aside, I noticed in that post I used the expression gung-ho. I didn’t know I used it that much in writing but obviously when I talk about left over yarn.)

I make notes about ideas for my crafting. This may be things I would like to make on vacation or ideas for the next year. At some point I had written “Knit Wrap minis one a month/week”. I have no idea what “knit wrap minis” means. Had I seen a pattern for a wrap that used mini skeins? Anyway, I took that as a nudge to do something with my partial skeins of yarn. I had written that note a while before I started the Advent wrap, where I used 13 partial skeins but not completely used up any of them. So I needed a big project to make a dent in my leftovers. But I didn’t want to knit or crochet a big blanket. Let’s make it clear, I have nothing against the big blankets people are knitting or crocheting, I just don’t want to make one. But I do want to use my scraps.

On a podcast a presenter had made a combination mitred square/log cabin blanket. She had made blocks of mitred squares, edged them as a log cabin blanket and then sewn them together to make a blanket. As I want my blanket to be at least double-bed size so that it is usable this method will be easy to work and only become unwieldy when I sew the squares together. I just had to decide two things, how big to make each individual square and if there was going to be any thought to which yarns I used. Oh and which method for the center decreases.

I grouped my yarns by colour and will work squares based on a colour/shade. I wanted squares to be approx 4 inches and calculated how many stitches to cast on. I looked at various patterns and chose the knit 2 together and SSK decreases. I also started out with a knitted cast on as written in one pattern but have changed that to a cable cast on. The other thing I calculated was how much I would have to knit to have enough blocks for a blanket by the end of the year. I estimated that I would need to knit a block of nine squares every week. Having completed the first block, I am not going to keep that pace as I found that my other knitting is being neglected. So I won’t have a finished blanket by the end of the year but by the end of 2019?

On The Twelfth Day of Christmas

There were projects.

Initially I was just going to show the project I started on Boxing Day. As I had knit an Advent project – started on 1 December and finished on Christmas Day - I thought it would be fun to start a project on 26 December and knit for Epiphany. Of course, it would have made sense to choose a project that I had a chance of finishing in 12 days and not to start another project on the first of the year. But I did neither, choosing a project that uses four full skeins of fingering weight yarn and as already reported a new project was started on New Year’s Day. But, as with the Advent project, it has been enjoyable working on just the one project.

With the new cast on, I have six projects on the go. Here they are, saying choose me.



And look four are in my own-made project bags.

The bag on the left contains my epiphany cast on.



The pattern is Verdon. It looks a bit strange at this stage but will end up as a rectangle. The first set of garter stitch stripes are from the ArtFil yarn I bought on the Yarn Crawl, the dark magenta is Caper Sock by String Theory which was a gift and the grey is Iachos by A Hundred Ravens which I bought especially to go with the three colours to make Verdon. This is the project that I was working on exclusively until the start of the year and is still my main project.

Working from back to front, the back bag contains Nexus.



I really liked the variegated yarn but did not know what to make with it. When I saw the Nexus pattern I knew that was it, but I needed solid yarn, which I purchased on the Yarn Crawl. This project is now on the back burner until I finish Verdon.

The next bag is a new bag that I was given for Christmas. It contains my new year cast on. Not much to see here.



I started on a long cable so that I didn’t have to change during the project but it is a bit annoying at this stage. If I can work two rows per day it will be finished in less than two months and I can still work on Verdon Of course that becomes a very big IF as the rows get longer.

Next there is a crochet project. Again with yarn I bought on the Yarn Crawl – the baby yarn. It was purchased with a specific pattern in mind, a baby cardigan, which was abandoned after working one front. As it was supposed to be a gift I quickly started another project but then I wasn’t sure if I’d finish it in time for Christmas so it was forsaken for projects that I had a chance of finishing. I think this will have to be a charity project as postage is so much to the UK.



The next bag is another crochet project. This is a hat for charity that I chose not to rush to finish . It is a new pattern to me - Dream Weaver Beanie. It is written for bulky yarn and I am using up partial skeins. Of course I would be further along if I hadn’t run out of yarn while I was out.



The front bag contains the shawl I started for a mystery knit along. I got to the end of Clue 3 and then stopped. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue with this project but clue 3 was a lot of work and I didn’t want to pull it out. I’m glad I let it sit for a while as I do want to continue with it but I'm not sure when I will pick it up again I have so many plans for yarn in my stash; maybe this is my new never ending project.

On The Eleventh Day of Christmas

My plans went awry.

I had these 12 days nicely planned out and then I added something which meant combining other ideas which left me with a day without plans. In my notes I have written frogged. But I have no idea what I was telling myself – write about the last project I frogged, the projects I frogged this year, all the projects I’ve ever frogged, the projects I might frog? So many possibilities and still the brain is blank.

Looking at the list of possibilities, the last project I frogged was this which was third time the charm but I had already written about it so why would I want to write about it again?

I undid six projects this year. Two of them being the aforementioned shawl, two are also attempts at using the same yarn which did eventually become something else, one is the sock I started, and the last is a crochet project which I restarted as another project.

Since joining Ravelry I have frogged 34 projects. Although the number is actually higher than this because I do not make a project page until I am a few rows in and I know there have been a few projects that have been redone after a few rows. Mostly socks – just consider it a gauge swatch. Looking at those projects there are only two yarns that have not been used in new projects.

And as for projects I might frog. Was this really what my notes were indicating? I know I was considering frogging the (no longer) mystery shawl but I do like what I have done so far and I put a lot of work into it that I don’t want to pull out. So it is still a project.

So sorry about this post and the multiple uses of the verb to frog. But I think I covered all the bases.

On The Tenth Day of Christmas

More presents.

Having made gifts for my nieces and one’s boyfriend, I was on a roll to make more presents. When I was putting away new yarn, I came across yarn left over from the last hat shown in this post.
And knew it was ideal for another hat. As it is colourful and variegated, most patterns would not show but I did not want to knit a plain stocking stitch hat. I had already downloaded a free pattern that was simple stocking stitch interspersed with rows of garter stitch. (Although as this is knit in the round, rows of knit with a row of purl.)

I think you will agree that the yarn and pattern work well together. I worked the brim of the hat in the yarn left over from boyfriend’s hat for two reasons.:- I was not certain I had enough of the yarn to make a complete hat and as this is the part that goes next to the face I thought a plain colour would work best.



This hat was for my brother-in-law so I decided my sister needed a hat too. (These are not the parents of my nieces.) I had been given one skein of Anzula Cricket in a dark blue. This yarn is a merino/nylon/cashmere mix, lovely and soft and ideal for a pattern. Thanks to the joys of Ravelry I was able to search what others had made with this yarn and I opted for Beeswax Hat.
I don’t have a very good photo of it.

On The Ninth Day of Christmas

There were some Christmas presents.

Last year I made my niece and her boyfriend a hat each. This year I made them gloves. I was very organized and made them in the middle of the year. Because of this I was able to send them back with my sister when she visited so saved on postage.

I have already shown the first present I made way back in April, but here is a picture of it.



I made the hat as part of a KAL and having one completed gift (this for my other niece) is what I think prompted me to start some more; I’m glad I did because I made a few presents without any stress.

For my niece’s boyfriend I decided to use the same yarn as for his hat but I only had one full ball left. I didn’t think that would be enough but it was discontinued so I found someone selling it on Ravelry. I only needed one ball but she added in an extra ball for just a little extra. I now had three balls of yarn and I used not quite one and half. The pattern is Garter Stitch Mitts a pattern I have made before that I thought would be ideal as it is a stretchy pattern.



So having made something for her boyfriend it was time for my niece. At 2016’s Vista Fiber Fiesta I purchased two skeins of Candy Skein’s colour of the month – Poison Apple. The plan, which I achieved, was to knit a hat with the worsted weight, but there was no plan for the fingering weight. Having made matching gloves for her boyfriend I decided to use the fingering yarn to make gloves for her. The pattern is Podster Gloves.

And I love how they turned out in this yarn.

On The Eighth Day of Christmas

Having mentioned charity knitting in previous Christmas Tide posts, now is the time to show the last hat that I made as it never got its own post although the start was shown in the August post of all the projects.

The pattern is Better Late Than Never Beanies and is the same as the one for the hat shown in this post. It is an easy pattern but the different colours provide some interest.



I sent 5 hats in total to Operation Gratitude. I could have waited until I had finished the hat that I was working on but decided not to put myself under that pressure.

On The First Day of The Year

It’s a new day, a new year and I would like to start a new project. I want to cast on with some luxurious yarn I bought at Vista Fiber Fiesta in October. Which I never showed on here. It seems that I am not very good at showing the yarns I buy at Vista.

The yarn is from Knitters Brewing Company a local dyer that I have never used before. A few days ago I said that I liked gradient yarns to be in a big enough skein to make something useful. This yarn is 870 yards so I will get a nice sized shawl out of it; added bonus the yarn is already wound.



I don’t know why I want to start a new project for the new year as I have five projects already on the needles. But I really want to start this yarn so I waited for 1 January as a sort of special occasion.

(Of the five projects on the go, two are take along projects and one is the annoying KAL. The two remaining projects plus this new one (if I cast it on) use yarn from either the yarn crawl or Vista Fiber Fiesta and my aim is to use all the yarn bought at those events before the end of the year.)

On The Last Day of the Year

I enjoy this round up of the year because it makes me realize I have knitted more than I thought and reminds me of the lovely yarn in my stash. This year I am even more excited because I do not have any unfinished projects that were on my needles at the beginning of the year. My oldest project was started on 1 August and has languished because the whole KAL experience was annoying. I have decided to continue with the project because I do like it and it will not become another never-ending project.

What haven’t I done this year? Socks. I haven’t knitted any socks this year. Although I did cast on a sock at the beginning of the year but decided the yarn and pattern did not go together. And it has been frogged. Although I have enjoyed knitting socks it was nice to take a break from the knit-alongs which were certainly beginning to feel like a chore and not pleasure, making the theme fit even if I’d rather be knitting something else. This does not mean I will not knit more socks.

Not knitting socks has made me much more mindful of the sock yarn in my stash. Single-skein shawls can turn out too small. Although the first one shown in this post is a lovely shawl and nice size, I didn’t want to make one-skein projects just for the sake of it. Yarns were paired to make this shawl an extra skein of yarn was purchased to make this shawl and extra skeins were purchased on the yarn crawl to go with yarns in my stash.

In the fall of 2016 I said I was going to take a break from charity knitting. I did not take a complete break and made 6 ½ hats. I am happier that I am not stressing myself to complete something every month. I am going to use up all the “hat” yarn I have in stash and then decide where I would like to put my efforts. I am also abandoning KnitMeter. I liked it as a way to record amount knitted and comparing it with amount bought but it stopped working for me earlier this year. i.e I could not log in and contacts to the owners were not successful. I have the information in a spreadsheet, I just have to decide how I want to show all the information.

I am very excited to report that by the end of the year, the number of skeins/balls of yarn started in new projects was more than the number of new skeins added to my stash and the total length knitted was more than the total in. I’m not sure when I was last able to say that my stash was going down.

Interestingly, looking back at 2016’s post, the number of projects in that year was low, but 2017 was about the same number. I had 30 projects started this year and I frogged 6 of them. And of those frogged projects there is only one where the yarn has not been used in another project. This may not be a year for a high number of projects but it was a year for finishing things. I started the year with eight projects on the go all of which I finished and even the frogged project was restarted and finished. It feels so nice to have new projects that I want to work on.

I am starting the new year with five projects on the go including the project mentioned at the beginning. Two of these I started in December and the other two are crochet projects for charity. I am enjoying working on all of them and I am looking forward to another year of stash reduction.

And another wonderful year with my husband.

On The Fifth Day of Christmas

Why yes it is another shawl. But it is the last one of the year. I had this lovely skein of sock yarn that I could have knitted into socks but I just really didn’t feel like doing but I did want to use the yarn. I put out an ISO on Ravelry and was offered a skein at a good price.



Next, find a pattern. I considered Waiting for Rain - but was not sure about all the garter stitch, and then a friend suggested Wake and gave me the pattern. I love it. And it was my favourite until the blue and white one came along.

I worked extra rows to use up all the yarn and then there was a two month gap before I worked the bind off. Yes – two months. It’s because I thought the bind off in the pattern was new to me and I wanted to set aside a good chunk of time to do it. When I finally had that time and looked at the bind off in detail I realized it was my standard YO bind off so I hadn’t needed to wait after all.

On The Fourth Day of Christmas

Another shawl – and not the last. This one has appeared in previous posts as it was a Pi Day cast on and it was one of the many projects featured in August.

Let’s talk about the yarn first. I purchased it at the Vista Fiber Fiesta in October 2016. Apple Tree Knits was the featured yarn on the Yarnover Truck and they had some lovely gradients. As lovely as they were they were normal size skeins so I couldn’t see what I would make with them but they did have a lace weight yarn in 756 yard skeins – definitely enough to make a shawl. The difference with the lace weight was that it was a silk/linen/flax mix so the colours were muted. I chose my skein based on the colours of the wool skeins (which were very vibrant in the darker colours) instead of asking to see all of their lace weight skeins. Oh well.

Of course a gradient yarn needed the right pattern. And when I saw this pattern - Quadratische Decke Shawl I immediately wanted to make it and I wasn’t disappointed. The pattern also had the advantage that rows could be added in two places so I could make sure I used up all the yarn. Although I was conservative as there was no way I wanted to undo rows if I ran out of yarn. The pattern had an option to include beads but as I had just finished Shipwreck I was shying away from beads but I did add beads on the last rows.

Although I was unsure about the colour I love the finished item. The pattern is show cased really well.



I have now used all three of the skeins I bought at Vista in 2016.

On The Third Day of Christmas

Today is my favourite shawl of those I’ve finished recently. And there are a lot of them as that is mostly what I am making at the moment.

The shawl started off as this.


And the blog post about it is here. I loved the yarns but did not really like the finished object for two reasons. The top of the shawl had a big hump. This can be a problem in varying degrees in many shawl patterns but was particularly pronounced in this pattern. The other reason is that I had quite a bit of yarn left over which I wanted to use and also meant that the finished shawl wasn’t quite big enough.

I did not want to rip out this project until I had found another pattern as I did not want the yarn to sit in stash; at least as a shawl I had something I could wear. The first pattern I tried did not work with the yarn as there were areas of two stripes of each colour and they blended rather than contrasted. I then chose Tokerau Shawl by Francoise Danoy which happens to be a free pattern on Ravelry.

The blocks of colour with different patterns were ideal for my yarn. I used the left over yarn first and then just knit straight off the previous finished object. Sure it was crinkly but I knew blocking would help. I still had blue yarn left over so I worked another pattern repeat with it and used the other colour for the garter stitch edge and bind off. Instead of picot bind off as the pattern, I worked a row of YO, K2tog before the last knit row and Icelandic bind off with a strand of each colour. The final result is what I wanted: a pattern that shows off both yarns, an item I can wear and no leftovers in stash.

Here is a photo of the shawl pre-blocking as there is quite a difference between off the needles and the finished object.

On The Second Day of Christmas

After yesterday’s obvious choice, should I know show the Christmas presents or other projects?

Today is for my oldest WIP. Which is no longer the oldest as it is finished. Three cheers for me. This is a project I started at the end of 2010 with yarn I purchased in the summer of 2009. The yarn buying itself has a little story. For my birthday, my mother-in-law asked her son (my husband) to purchase a gift card from a yarn shop. He never managed to do this so when we visited in the summer she gave me cash. I said to her you really wanted me to have yarn, is there a store we can go to? Once there, there was too much choice – I actually put back a sweater’s quantity of yarn and opted for a yarn that I would be unlikely to buy for myself. And this is how I ended up with 1000 yards of 100% silk lace-weight yarn.

I’m guessing I didn’t cast on straight away because I didn’t have a pattern but I don’t know if the cast on happened because I found a pattern or because I was ready to cast on the yarn. The yarn is Andrea by Schaefer Yarn Company, who are no longer in business, and the pattern is Dogwood Blossom Wrap from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders. At this point I am going to say that I am disappointed that even after adding extra rows I did not use the full skein.

I don’t know why I stopped working on this. But looking at my projects for 2011, I was still knitting twice-monthly dishcloths, monthly socks and rows on charity blankets. So I’m guessing it kept being set aside until it was almost forgotten. I do remember that once I found the right needles the knitting was more pleasurable. Metal needles were too slippy and wood needles too grabby. Karbonz just right.

Anyway, here it is in all its glory. Started on 28 December 2010 and completely finished on December 19 2017.

On The First Day of Christmas

During this Christmas Tide I am going to take the opportunity to catch up on all of my finished items. Some of which I couldn’t show until after Christmas, some I didn’t have pictures and the one which was the advent knit-along.

It seems appropriate to start with the latter as I did finish it yesterday. I have many photos -not 25. I started taking photos every day but then changed to every other day after I had completed a colour. I worried that I wouldn’t finish on time as I got behind at one point but caught up when the rows got short again, so towards the end when I had some free time I worked ahead.

The pattern is ADVENTurous Wrap by Ambah O’Brien. There are two version, a fade and a striped. My friend bought an advent yarn kit to work a fade and I used stash and left overs to work a stripe version. I was able to completely use a ball of unused yarn in my stash and I used up a couple of left overs as well. I needed 12 different skeins of yarn. First time through my yarn I ignored those that I knew would bleed; I then paired colours so the colours on each triangle were the same but different; next I placed them in a pleasing order making sure those with lower yardage were at the start. Finally, I cast on both triangles with a black yarn.

As I finished the first triangle I was worried that the final project would not be very big but it is big enough to wrap around and wear as a shawl. I am pleased that I kept up with the knit-along and I like the finished item.

No Photos; No Blog Posts

I knew it had been a while since I posted but I didn’t realize how long. There have been finished projects but I have wanted decent photos before posting and then time just slips away.

Since the last post I have finished two shawls, a pair of gloves, and three hats. I won’t be showing the gloves and two of the hats just yet as they were Christmas presents.

I have also finished the knitting on the never-ending-project and it is now at blocking stage.

Since my last post I have started and re-started two projects and started a hat for charity. On 1 December I cast on an advent knit-along, and have managed to keep up with it, and cast on another project to work on when I have completed the day’s knitting for the advent.

I haven’t picked up the no-longer-a-mystery project for a long time as I can’t bear to take out what I have knitted but I don’t think I am going to like the finished item. Oh well.

There has been some stash enhancement. I bought some yarn at the Vista Fiber Fiesta



and I bought some yarn recently at a pre-black Friday sale to go with yarn already in my stash.

Two Items Finished and One Still on The Needles

Let’s deal with the latter first. Last time I mentioned how close I was to finishing the never-ending-project. And I did finish it – almost. I got as far as the bind off and decided as I had quite a bit of yarn left I should knit at least one more repeat of pattern so I pulled out the 12 rows of garter stitch and continued the pattern. A good thing that I didn’t put it away until December.

The first finished item to show is this shawl which was my vacation knitting. I started it on a trip in June, continued in July and finally finished in October.



The pattern is Spring into Summer Shawl, by Knitting Expat. It was perfect for the three 50 gram skeins of different coloured sock yarn that came as a set but I did not want to make into socks and the grey sock yarn in stash. Thta's five skeins of yarn out of my stash. I am very happy with this shawl.

Which I can repeat for this shawl. I bought the yarn way back in April last year specifically to make a shawl but I didn’t have a pattern in mind. I knew I didn’t want to stripe the yarn, one skein would be the body and the other the edging. This pattern, Longbourn, was released in July with a knit along started in August and was just what I envisioned for the yarn. I knit with the black until I could work no more complete pattern repeats and then started the edging. To a certain extent I was running a risk as the edging is knit sideways so I did put in a lifeline before starting although I didn’t really think I would run out of yarn as the pattern used just a skein for the main part and a skein for the edging; albeit a different weight.



I have started a new project; a crochet item for working on in the car on our latest trip, so I still have many works on the go but two items are at bind off stage and another is just a few rows away from finishing. I really want to cast on some of the yarn I bought recently but I am holding off until projects are fully completed.

Autumn Equinox

happened at 1.02 p.m. yesterday and I made a decision. I am going to work on the never-ending-shawl. At the beginning of the summer I was hopeful that I would finish it during the summer concert season and then I went and broke my foot so no more concerts. (They are held in various locations and involve park-and-ride and walking which would have been very hard on crutches plus husband would have had to carry everything and most of the fun of these concerts is the outdoor picnic.)

I was so close to finishing; there was always next year. But I was really beginning to believe that this was the never-ending-project. Husband suggested that I work on it on Friday nights but I decided that it would become fall knitting. I was very busy yesterday and I considered picking this up on the winter solstice - winter being the opposite of summer - but I didn't want to be scrambling to finish before the end of the year. This really being my aim - not when I knit on it - to have it finished by the end of the year.

I finally managed to pick it late last night. I didn't sit down to knit until after 9.00 p.m. and I wanted to cast off something first. It was only 32 stitches of a sideways knit border but I did it three times before I was happy and then I sewed in the ends. At last I could work on the shawl. I looked at the row counter; I counted the repeats; I shook my head in disbelief. I am so close. 21 rows of pattern, 12 rows of garter stitch border, bind off and block. This thing is going to be finished before I know it. (And yes I was really tempted to put it away until mid-December.)

2017 San Diego Yarn Crawl

This weekend (Thursday to Sunday) was the fifth San Diego yarn crawl. I went to the first two but missed the last two years as we had been away.

My plan this year was to get yarn to go with variegated yarn already in my stash and any other yarn I bought had to be project ready – no single skeins. We did our main crawling on Friday but on Thursday we went to the two closest yarn stores and the Yarnover Truck.

My first purchase was two skeins of ArtFil yarn. Three of us bought the same yarn (different colours) so we joked about a knit along.



At Yarning for You I found the tonal yarn to go with my variegateds. I am really excited to start the first combination but I will finish some projects first. Although I had said I wasn’t bothered by the number of projects I had on the needles I do not want to increase the number.



From the Yarnover Truck. I purchased a skein of yarn to go with yarn I had bought earlier in the year. I have a pattern lined up for it – just need the time.

On Friday we went all the way to Yarns at Border Leather. This is a great shop and we wish it was our LYS. A great selection of yarn and very friendly people. I purchased yarn to crochet a cardigan for one of my great nieces. From there we went to South Park Dry Goods. This used to be The Grove but has split into two stores with one concentrating on books and papers and the other having yarn and fabric and clothes. I didn’t buy any fabric although if I ever need any for a quilt I should certainly buy from there. I ended up buying a stitch marker and a skein of sock yarn. Yes I know I said I wasn’t going to buy any single skeins but they had Candy Skein’s colour of the month. I have been really good at resisting Candy Skein’s monthly selections. I joked that at next year’s yarn crawl I would have the skein with me to try to match yarn.



After a bite to eat we decided to check out a couple of yarn stores that weren’t on the crawl. One is very small and unfortunately was closed for lunch so we didn’t get to see inside. The other is a store that has been opened just a couple of months. It was not a part of the crawl as, apparently, a store has to be in business for a year before it can participate. I have to say it was probably a good thing that it wasn’t part of the crawl as stock seemed very limited. I hope this shop is successful but they do really need to get more stock. At the moment it is not a store that I would go to because I specifically wanted to buy yarn.

After that we went to Yarn and Thread Expressions. This is another store that had a variety of yarn and a large number of store samples. I was able to try on a Hitofude. I really liked the back view but despite my friend saying she really liked it on me, it confirmed what I thought from seeing it on Ravelry, the front is designed to hang at the sides and not provide any coverage.

Neither of us bought any yarn at this store; I think we were a bit burned out and tired at this point. We did not go to the two yarn shops we had visited on our recent yarn buying expedition. Additionally we did not go to the yarn stores in Ramona and Julian and three alpaca farms.

This is a picture of everything I purchased.



I love all this yarn and I have plans but I am not going to start anything new until at least two of my existing projects are completely finished. I have updated yarn in but how much has been knitted/crocheted is not correct as I have been having problems with KnitMeter.

A Tale of Two Yarns and Three Patterns

Oh my gosh I started a post about yarn and then I looked at an older post to see what I had written about a pattern and that post started off almost exactly the same as the post I was writing. So I am just going to refer you to that post for information about the yarn and the first two patterns I tried and now bring you up to date about what happened to the yarns eventually.

In that post I mentioned the yarn was going to become a Clapotis. As soon as I frogged the hairpin lace project I knew I had to start something new with the yarn otherwise it would sit in my stash forever. I had looked on Ravelry at other projects made with this yarn and decided that I could make a Clapotis with both, rather than finding one-skein projects. I also decided to alternate the balls of yarn I had made even though one of the balls was bigger than the others. And decided to make it slightly narrower so that there was enough length in the final project; a wide but short scarf is useless. Also as I was working on it, I knew I was very unlikely to wear this myself so I will save it for a present for my mother.

And then half-way through, I came across a two-colour shawl pattern that I thought would look lovely in this yarn. But I stopped myself. I didn’t know if I had enough yarn for a decent size and I didn’t want another unfinished project with this yarn. I resisted, carried on with Clapotis and finished the knitting at the beginning of August; finally blocking and sewing in ends at the end of August.