It seems that yarn companies are reluctant to make bright yellow yarn.  Few people look fabulous wearing it, and lots of people just hate the color.  Cascade is no exception.  I think they’re being really short-sighted, but then again, I’m not the one who is trying to keep a business going in a really poor economy.

Still I wanted yellow!  Real yellow.  The yellow that my friend Rebecca calls “Eye-searing yellow”.  Because, believe it or not, that kind of color *does* have a place!  If you put an anemic yellow up against hunter orange, bright turquoise, and bright lime green… Well, you know that it’s going to get lost and drag the whole project down.

Enter my knitting pals.  Rebecca just so happened to have some of the dye left over from her dying experiment that left her with “Blazing Sunshine” yellow socks (which, IMO, were stunning for more than their glaring color).  My friend Taya had some too.  (What’s with my friends liking yellow so much?)   I had a skein of undyed, natural Cascade 220 that I’d picked up ages ago with the idea that someday I’d need to make my own color.  It was great planning on my part, it turned out.

I had already wound the yarn into a nice ball, so I had to rewind it into a skein.  As I was doing so, my hubby expressed his yellow-prejudice by saying, “Are you sure you want to use the WHOLE skein?  How often does ANYONE need YELLOW?”  I pointed out that, if I needed it once, I’d likely need it again and that it just makes sense to dye more than enough so that I wouldn’t have to do more work if I needed more bright yellow yarn later.   He relented, but I could tell he wasn’t exactly in agreement.

Hurrrrrmmmppphhhh! on his opinion!  Long live yellow!

With just a little of Rebecca’s dye, I now have a yellow yarn that more than stands up to other bright colors.  If I have to say so, it’s fabulous!  Behold!

I say, “Bunk!”

Many years ago, Mr. Grump purchased a navy cabled sweater from some store or another.  It quickly became my favorite sweater, and I wore it for years, until the sleeves became so frayed that it became an embarrassment.  Oh, let’s be honest… I still wear it at home.  It’s a tad ratty, but I love it!

Anyway, back when I was doing Equal Parts, I wasn’t really happy with the color of blue yarn that I had purchased for the project.  Second-guessing myself, I ordered a second set of blue Swish DK from KnitPicks.  The color that I received was much darker than expected but completely lovely.  It was inappropriate for Equal Parts, but still very nice.  Instead of returning it, I decided to keep it for a later project.

When I heard that my daughter’s third grade teacher was expecting, I knew that I was right to hang on to that yarn.  And I knew just the pattern to use.  I’d seen Trellis on Knitty.com years ago, and after seeing Micki’s version of it, I knew that I wanted to knit it for “that special baby.”

I started it months ago, but being a bit ADD in the way of my projects, I didn’t finish it until yesterday. For the most part, the pattern was straightforward, though the way that the collar instructions were worded had me sending a last-minute panicked PM to Micki to straighten me out.

I’m really pleased with it, despite one big mistake in the middle of the back (if you zoom in on the pictures, you’ll likely find it) that I decided just gives it character.  (At least you know that it was made by human hands!)  The silver buttons cost more than the yarn for the project, but they were worth it, I think!  I love how the sweater looks like a smaller version of a big-person sweater.

The one thing that I didn’t like about this sweater was the amount of seaming.  For such a small project, I couldn’t believe the number of ends to be weaved in!  If I were to ever knit this again, I’d do the body in one piece, pick up the stitches at the shoulders, and knit the sleeves in the round down to the cuffs.

This has also left me feeling like maybe it’s time to make a big girl version of this sweater, maybe in the same color.  My navy sweater isn’t going to hold together forever, and I need nice sweaters in the winter, even in Texas!

It’s kind of neat going through such a large stash.  Most of my stash was purchased on outings with friends, so there’s a bit of an emotional investment in it.   I remember sharing most of it with my knitting group.  Those memories make the yarn worth keeping.   When I pulled some things out, I remembered the feeling that I had when I first saw it listed online and how overjoyed I was when I won it in an auction or was able to buy it before someone else could steal it out of my cart.

Yeah, it’s only yarn, but for those with a fiber obsession, yarn is a very, very good thing.

And then, there are things that I just shake my head over.  Why did I buy that ball of Be Sweet Magic Ball?  There’s so little there!  It’s pretty and I got it at a discount, but the texture is weird.  None of the pictures that I took really represent the weirdness.  But oh… Is it pretty!  (I’m thinking of buying a clear lamp and putting it in the base so I can just look at it.)

And then… There are the regretable yarn choices.  Like this one…

It’s Cherry Tree Hill Potlucky Bulky in the Water colorway.  The first skein (the one in the middle) came in a Cherry Tree Hill grab bag that I purchased on New Year’s Eve three years ago.  (Some people do champaign.  I do yarn.  Got a problem with that?)  When I received it, my first thought was, “OMG!  FUGLY!”

Then I saw someone on Knitty.com who was looking for something else that came in my grab bag that I didn’t want. (That’s the problem with grab bags.  You never know what you’re going to get.)  She had two more skeins of this yarn that she also thought was awful.  So I decided to trade.

So now I have three skeins of almost matching fugly yarn.

I’m considering the idea of a Fugly Yarn KAL.  Make something… Anything… Out of the ugliest yarn in your stash.

I actually have an idea for this one.  I found someone on Ravelry that has two more skeins of this yarn in this color group (Water) that was purchased in a grab bag the same year I bought mine.  I’ve inquired about the cost.  If the price is right, I’ll take it.

Crazy?  Maybe.  Is that anything new?

This year I’m making some 12:01 pumpkin baskets.  The pattern was on MagKnits before the site closed down, but I found a cached version of it thanks to Google.

Last week, I looked into my (way too large) stash and saw that I had half the number of skeins of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in the Pumpkin colorway for the project.  So I ordered the other half (along with some dyes and needles) and waited.  The order arrived yesterday afternoon, and I was excited to start.  Much to my surprise, when I pulled out the yarn from my stash, I discovered:

1) My new skeins of Pumpkin Wool of the Andes were the same dye lot as the old ones.

2) One of my old skeins was not “Pumpkin” at all.  It was Persimmon Heather.

Oops.

My husband looked at the skeins from across the room and said, “They’re the same!  Why do they have different names?”   I had a much better look at them and could see that the Persimmon Heather was clearly darker than the Pumpkin.  (Mr. Grump STILL insists that I’m out of my mind!)

Still, I was in a hurry to start, so I figured I’d use the darker color on the bottom and see how much of a difference it made.  The 12:01 pattern is worked triple-stranded, so there was a chance that it really wouldn’t be all that noticeable.

If you click on the picture and look at the “super-size” version of the picture, you may be able to see that the Persimmon Heather gives it a bit of dimension.  The knitted fabric has little bits of brighter orange and burnt orange that are absolutely gorgeous.

Problem is, I only had one skein of the Persimmon Heather.  Now that I’ve tried it, I like it so much that I don’t want to do half a pumpkin without it.  So I’ll be placing another KnitPicks order!

In the meantime, I think I’ll start Pumpkin #2.  My friend Wendy and I went to the Grand Re-Opening sale at the Knitting Nook this afternoon.  Much to my delight, they had Cascade 220 in a few different shades of orange.   Instead of having the same color of orange for all three strands, I’m going with three different colors of orange.  I can’t wait to see how this turns out!

In some cases, it doesn’t work out.  I recently had a trade where I ended up with a whole bunch of mill ends of varying color intensities.  The person with whom I traded denied this was true, but that’s the only way to explain the mismatched colors.

It’s not the end of the world though.  I could have been ugly and demanded a refund, but I figured I’d keep it anyway.  There’s 1400 yards of it, and most of it matches.  I can certainly get a shawl from the 1200 yards or so that matches or find a pattern where stripes are welcome.  Or, as my friend Jeri pointed out, there’s also the option of over-dying.

In most cases, though, trades do work out.  Sometimes, they work really, really well.

A few weeks ago, I saw a post on a board on Ravelry where NadKnitBlog was looking for teacher stuff from an English-speaking country.  I happen to work in a school, one where the parents and teachers are generous.  I happened to have more of that kind of stuff than what I needed.  I even had a gift package from Christmas that I hadn’t even opened.  So I proposed a trade… Teacher stuff for German yarn.

Now, I’m a pretty flexible trader.  If someone asks me specifically what I want, I’m pretty good about naming a few things, but I won’t call off the trade if what I get isn’t exactly what I want.  After all, if I wanted an EXACT colorway, I’d likely skip the haggling and go directly to my favorite yarn stores.  So I told Nadine that I wanted “German yarn” and that Tausendschön would be nice.  But I let her choose the colorways.

We sent our packages last week.   Her package to me showed up today.

I loved how she packaged it.  The lid has the cutest stamp on it, with little birds knitting.  Inside the package was a cute stitch counter with a little sheep on it and three… count them… THREE!!!… skeins of Tausendschön Sockenwolle!!!

Nadine has awesome taste!   On the left is Perlenfischer (Pearl Fisher).  In the center is Verlfuhruig (Seduction).  These two are from the colorway of the month club for her LYS.  On the right is Wilden Kerl (Wild Guy).  It’s supposedly a “one off” of a Tausendschön colorway.

I’ve been squee-ing ever since I opened the box!  My daughter is nuts over Verlfuhruig.  The pink and black are just…. Oh boy!  My favorite is the Wild Guy!  The colors are SO rich! (My big challenge will be keeping Angeluna from stealing it!)

I previously had none of this yarn in my stash.  Now I’m fighting the urge to go to the Tausendschön site and order one of everything they have!

After the set-back with the broken needle, I thought that I was going to finish the socks in plenty of time to qualify them for the December Sockdown over on Ravelry.  I was about ten rows into the second sock when I realized that maybe it wouldn’t.

Remember when I said how pleased I was with the TV Yarn from White Oak Studio?  Remember how I said it was so squooshy and pleasant to knit with?  The resulting sock was perfect in every way and would be awesome to wear on cold, dreary January days.

Well, the second skein hasn’t lived up to the expectations of the first.  It was good for about 5 rows, but then the weight of the yarn changed drastically.  See for yourself.

Both segments of yarn came from the same skein and were within inches of each other.  The top is nearly three times as heavy as the bottom.  So where I had a nice, scrumptious cuff on the first sock, the second very quickly turned into a floppy, airy summer sock.

Not to be deterred, I frogged it, rewound the skein so that I was using the yarn at the other end (after all, I had more than enough yarn on the first sock), and tried again.  Sadly, I didn’t even get 5 rows of thick yarn before I ran into the anemic nearly-laceweight yarn.

I’ve been in contact with Jana, the dyer, and she assures me that this isn’t the way things are supposed to be.  She buys her base yarn in skeins from a supplier.  I can easily see how one might not notice the weight issue when the yarn is skeined, so I don’t hold it against her.  She has offered to replace the skeins without question, which is all I can ask from anyone who makes hand-crafted items.  I have specified that I’d really, really like a skein with a weight that matched the first skein, and if she can dye them close to the original, that will be good enough for me.  (The yarn is so darn bright that, if the colors are close, no one will notice if the colors pool differently.)

We’ll see what happens.  For now, the socks are on hold.  I’m really hoping that I don’t have to frog the first, which I will do if I must.  In the worst case scenario, I’ll frog and re-knit so that the lighter weight skein is used for the cuff and the heavier weight skein is used for the foot.

In the meantime, I’ll finish off the little grump’s wristwarmers and work on a gift for one of the many up-coming baby showers.

I have to admit that I could not choose just one yarn to be swapped. I love each and every skein of yarn in my stash. I love some skeins more than others, but I generally like and plan to knit each skein. So choosing which of my gems to trade away was not exactly an easy task.

I ultimately narrowed it down to three skeins: one skein of Yarntini in the Designated Driver colorway (selected because it looked almost exactly like the Koigu that I own), one skien of Zen Yarn Garden in the Red Lantern colorway (chosen because the tencel blend resulted in a kind of salmon and gray rather than the red and gray that I had envisioned when I ordered it), and one skein of STR in the G Rocks colorway. I added a note that said that the winner got to choose one from the sack.

I ended up getting some gorgeous Rio de la Plata Sock Multicolor in a “Burgandy – Bison” mix. It’s absolutely gorgeous!

As with many of the packages of yarn, the yarn that I brought changed hands multiple times. Eventually, it ended up going to a woman who fell in love with the STR. I thanked the hostess of the party by letting her choose one of the two remaining skeins. She chose the Zen Yarn Garden.

I was surprised that the Yarntini would be returning home with me. But then one of the ladies offered to trade her gift for the Yarntini. It sounded like a good deal to me, so the Yarntini was swapped for some Socks That Shine.

Overall, it was a really enjoyable evening. There was much stealing, a few playful glares between friends when their yarn got stolen away (I was *this* close to a skein of Raven yarn from BMFA!), and a whole bunch of laughter. Friends and yarn! What could be better?

Before I bought a whole skein of the yarn, I figured I’d check with the Sisters of the Wool. Not only would I get my few yards of odd-colored yarn, but I’d help them get rid of something in their stash that they likely would only use for the odd project. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be huge carrot-orange people either. (They had burnt orange… We do live in Texas after all, but no bright orange.) Julia and Jeri suggested dying my own. They’ve dyed their own on occasion and had fabulous results, and they both assured me that orange kool-aid applied to a white yarn would do the trick. Then Angela, who is likely the biggest fan of orange you’ll ever meet, told me that she had some in the right color that she would be willing to share.

Last night, I ran across some orange Kool-Aid in my pantry, and, where most moms would think, “Hey, it’s time for a tasty, fruity drink.”, I thought, “Hey, I have some natural colored wool but need orange…” Yes, I could wait for Angela’s yarn, but it would be so much faster (and fun) to make my own. Besides, I had a skein of Paton’s Classic Merino in Aran that had been in my stash for eight months, and the last time that I’d bought Kool-Aid was (*blush*) three years ago.

So I wound off the amount I needed and made the most brilliant hunter orange yarn I’ve ever seen. It was amazingly easy. I soaked it in vinegar and a glug (that’s the technical term that I picked up from Lorelei at Heritage Arts) of vinegar, mixed the drink mix with water and another glug of vinegar, and then simmered the yarn in it until all of the orange color disappeared from the water. Then I turned the pan off and let it sit overnight to cool.

Presto! Change-o! Orange yarn! And, as my Sisters assured me, it is the most brilliant orange a person could ask for! (Never doubt the Sisters!) It makes me wish that I’d dyed the whole skein. (Certainly I know a hunter or construction worker that needs a hat!)  Oh well, the grocery store will surely be open the next time I need orange yarn!

First, the yarn from the Socks That Fit co-op arrived. If you haven’t seen Socks That Fit, you should check it out. Beth, the dyer, certainly knows her business. The yarns were absolutely gorgeous. In my defense, I must say that I bought my five skeins back before I knew any of this other stuff was going to happen.

We placed our Socks That Fit order weeks ago. Sometime after that, one of my knitting buddies suggested going to Heritage Arts in Grandview for a day of dying. It sounded like fun, and I had the day free. So why not?

When we got there, I decided to dye two skeins of Kraemer Sterling Silk and Silver, one for my daughter and one for me. My daughter wanted pink… Not just any pink, but screaming blind-you-with-its-brilliance pink. I thought I could do that. I wanted something that would be more Christmas-y. While I was at it, I decided to over-dye the center skein from the picture above. (It looks like peach, but it was more like burnt salmon. It wasn’t ugly, but it was NOT my color!)

The results far exceeded my hopes. The skein on the left is a mixture of teal, evergreen, and black. The pink skein on the right is a mixture of pink and fuchsia. Both colors are so nice! I’m calling the pink skein “Femme Fatale”. I’m calling the green skein “Oh Christmas Tree”.

I didn’t get a picture of the over-dyed skein while it was drying. After soaking, I hit it with some brownish-red (left over from Micki’s dying adventures) and brown. The dried result reminds me of autumn in Ohio, so that’s what I’ll call it.

Somewhere along the line, some crazy person (oh wait… That’s me!) got the great idea that it would be nice to get together with the Brooks Farm folks. Brooks Farm is located in Lancaster, Texas, which is about a half hour from here. A couple of our knitting group has asked them before if they could join us for an evening, but no one had received a positive response. On a whim, I emailed them one night to share my admiration (and that of my knitting pals) for their work.

Much to my surprise, Dena emailed back and said that she would like to get together with us. Since show season is coming up, I really wanted to accommodate their schedule. As luck would have it, their available date was tonight.

Much to my delight, the folks from Brooks Farm showed up with multiple baskets of yarny goodness and a willingness to sell it to us. I tell you that I couldn’t have been more surprised when I showed up a bit early to knitting to find them all set up with samples and everything. Some of my knitting friends were already going through the baskets to see what was available. I just had to join in! I purchased a skein of Acero and a skein of Mas Acero. (I’ll be posting pictures as soon as I have good daylight.)

I have to say that the people from Brooks Farm are absolutely fabulous. They were very curious about the things that we were knitting and interested in our dying adventure last weekend. I’m really impressed that people who are so talented are also so darn nice. They’re the kind of people that I’d like to have around even if they didn’t have yarn to sell.

Needless to say, I have a lot of yarn. I had lots before, but I have much, much more now. I really, really think I need to be done buying yarn for the year. Or find more time to knit. Or both.

If you want to see more yummy yarn pictures, click on any of the pictures in this post.  Before you do that though, you might want to grab a napkin.  In my experience, drool and electronics don’t mix!

I’ve sometimes envied those lucky people who get to work in a yarn store and if they are as excited about a huge new yarn delivery as I would be if I was in their shoes.

This week, I got a taste of what it is like to work in a yarn store and to receive a big delivery.  An amazing 33 skeins of lovely, lovely hand dyed yarn was delivered to my doorstep!  I’ve been waiting for this delivery for what seems like forever, but it’s finally here.

If you’re part of the group that joined with me to order this yarn and don’t want the surprise spoiled, stop here.  Otherwise, click on the picture to see a few pictures that I took of the yummy yarny goodness.