Blame It On the Yarn Harlot...

 Ha ha!  Not really, but maybe...

So if you're reading this you know that I have all of the fiber addictions.  Fabric.  Yarn.  Thread.  Beads and buttons and patterns and rulers and all things crafty.  Paper too.  Cards and stationery dating back to when people used to write actual letters and send actual cards.  

But as far as my yarn went, I shopped at the chain stores and bought the most inexpensive yarn I could find.  My mother and I were Red Heart fans.  NOT that there's anything wrong with that! It comes in lots of great colors, it feels nice in your hands, and it's readily available in all sorts of quantities.

But when in my sewing life I came across American Sewing Guild and was introduced to the concept of using the best materials you can afford, and saw what a difference it made in the things I was making, well, that sort of life-altering concept can transform you.

I researched and found a local yarn shop or two in my area.  A couple of them have since closed but my favorite one, Cream City Yarn, is still in business.  It's a tiny little shop with lots of personality.  It's also where I learned to knit socks the right way(s) and where I learned to do colorwork.

I cannot remember exactly how or when I stumbled across a blog called Yarnharlot.ca on the web.  Probably more than a decade ago... but who's counting?  Anyway, she is Stephanie McPhee, a Canadian knitter of famous proportions, who excels at explaining things to people in clear and concise language which in turn makes them better knitters.  You can tell I'm a fan, right? 

After discovering the blog, I also discovered she's a writer, and I bought and devoured many of her books.  AND she teaches knitting!!  I'll bet you could see that coming.

She has taught (before Covid) at knitting conferences, some of which she runs with friends in Canada. I narrowly missed getting into a class before I retired (not quick enough to react before they were full...)  And now, she teachings via the Web on a site called Patreon, to which you can subscribe during this not-getting-together-too-much time.  I subscribed.  After all, what else was there to do besides watch bad TV and YouTube on any subject known to man and some unknown (and should remain so!)

Also about this same time I discovered Roxanne Richardson, who is a Master Knitter and very knowledgeable and who has a YouTube Channel and a Ravelry thread called Rox Rocks.  Which led me to Clara Parkes and Suzanne Bryant and Barbara Knits and, well, you can see where this is going.

ANYWAY, back to blaming.  These knitters have one thing in common.  They know a LOT about yarn.  Especially Stephanie and Clara.  Clara may be the and I mean capital THE yarn expert.  She now has a place called the Wool Channel.  A. Maze. Ing.

Watching Patreon after reading the yarnharlot blog for years changed my yarn shopping a bit.  I started buying better quality natural fiber yarn, and most of that yarn comes in hanks.  This is a different sort of configuration than they have at the chains.  You need EQUIPMENT!  

You can see that this nicely wound hank of Malabrigo yarn is lovely, but if you tried to knit directly from it, Tangle City.  Take my word for it and don't even try.

You can untwist the hank and hang it over the back of a chair if you want.  In the 'olden days', a child or spouse might be convinced to hold the skein while you wound the up to 500 yards of it into balls for knitting.  Therefore, a yarn winder is required.  Well, not required, but it speeds up the process.  The winder creates what's called a cake (see the top of the picture, the blob in red) which can be used from the outside or from the inside.  A cake tends not to roll away from you or attract your cat.

Using the winder from yarn slung over the back of a chair was somewhat challenging, although I did that for a while.  I graduated to winding from chair to ball by hand, and then winding from ball to cake. (You put the ball in a box or a bowl to keep it from escaping.)  That then, led to finding an alternative to the back of a chair, since my spouse/children/grandchildren were not available for the holding.  My aunt had a yarn swift, made for her by my uncle, who was also unavailable for holding the yarn.  

I searched sites for something manageable both in size and in price.  I found this type.  *It should be noted here that my local yarn shop will wind anything that I purchase there at no additional cost, and so will some on-line dealers although some have a winding fee and many do not choose to do that.

My swift is easy to assemble, use and disassemble, and stores in a flat box in my closet.

The next thing I wanted was a yarn bowl.  It holds a ball or a cake, and the yarn goes from the slit on the side to your needles.  Control is gained, and cats are discouraged.   I had my eye on this shape below for so long... and finally one Christmas my son bought me one.  Until then, I'd used a number of things, including a plain old bowl, a flower pot and an orange juice carton with the side cut out.

The bowl is nicer.  But sometimes you're knitting more than one project.  (What?  You're a monogamous knitter?  OK... skip this part.)  So I became a collector of nice yarn bowls, and I now have, ummm, more than two.

So in my yarn collection I now have yarn, a winder (or two), alpaca yarn, one swift, a couple of bowls, wool yarn, many different types of needles (which might be a future post), also a million knitting markers of different types, cashmere yarn, knitting gauge tools, cotton yarn,, needles gauge tools, mohair yarn, patterns, a Ravelry account where I keep a stash list more or less current, and crochet hooks.  I subscribe to several favorite YouTube channels and a have couple of Patreons I follow.  

My youngest grand has taken a lot of my chain store yarn and is learning to crochet.  She's doing great and her great-grandma would be very proud, as am I.

I also at some point bought a hand-made yarn spindle.  It works fine for cakes but not for balls.  As you knit from the outside of the cake, the spindle turns and viola! No yarn tangles!

If Stephanie McPhee hadn't explained to me the various types of things in her stash, and why to choose one fiber over another, would I have all of this stuff?  Well, probably yes, but it would not have the quality or the value to my knitting that it does if I had not learned the whys and the wherefores.  

So, Steph and Rox and Clara and all the rest, I'm not so much blaming you as showing you homage as I knit on wool and blends and yes, sometimes even my beloved Red Heart.

Knit on...

  

Managing Stashes - Enablers

It's not always my fault.  Really, it's NOT!

Last night my daughter stopped over for a chat.  She had a big tote bag with her which her father was eyeing with suspicion.  After we talked for a while she said "I brought you some yarn."

I said "Oh, gosh" or words to that effect. Eye rolls from hubby.

Understand that my daughter is a talented person.  She does cross stitch like a pro, and knows how to sew but chooses not to.  She also does not cook.  Well, frozen pizzas and stuff in the microwave, but she is best described and most comfortable with the title of career woman.  Lucky for her she married a good cook and her older daughter likes to cook too.  And she hates to shop!

I know...right?

She always tells me it skipped a generation.  So when she tells me she brought me yarn, it could be great but it could be anything!  And she works in a hospital so where did she get yarn??

She took this bag out of her tote. 

"My coworker had to get her mom into assisted living or a nursing home and she was cleaning her house out.  She brought some stuff in, and I said I'd take the yarn."

It's NOT MY FAULT!  The stuff just comes to me like iron filings to a magnet!

She said she only took the stuff that looked new with labels on it.  There were some loose skeins and some individually wrapped packages of kits, yarn and patterns, from Annie's Hook Club.  Like Book Club but for needleworkers??  LOL!

Here's a pattern for fall veggies, beets, carrots and what I can only assume is an eggplant. 

 The package contained green, purple, orange and red yarn.

Then there was this grocery tote bag pattern:

With this lovely green cotton yarn inside:

A purple shawl pattern:

With Caron Simply Soft yarn in the shade of Grape:

A placemat kit, obviously in holiday colors:

Three loose skeins of Cuddle yarn from Joann's in mint green, it's sport weight, so for a baby project, or maybe socks??

And two more skeins of Simply Soft, one in pastels and one in green:

 

More Annie's yarn... this is one brand I did not have in my stash previously.  (I did a google search on Annie's Hook Club, and it appears the value of these kits is about $20 each!) This is worsted weight and feels a bit rough on the fingers.  I wonder if it was supposed to be a kit.  There was a piece of cardboard in the plastic bag, but no pattern.

And last but not least, a big skein of sort of a dusty aqua with no label.  It feels like a Red Heart Super Saver yarn, maybe a 12 or 16 ouncer, one of those "Big Saver" things.  Or maybe it's an off brand, but it is very soft.  The color is truer at the top of the picture.  It was dark when I took it so the camera was working hard in artificial light.

So at least she didn't bring me any UFOs.

Knit on!

One UFO Finished!

I wasn't actually counting UFOs this year.  WHO am I kidding, right?  I never will have a UFO count of zero, that's just wishful thinking.

Remember that stocking I was knitting for the grandson of a co-worker? 

I am happy to report that is it DONE!!

Yep, finished.  Sewn together.  Ends buried, clipped and hidden!

I delivered it yesterday morning, and granddad is pleased and impressed.

 

The pattern was from the Mary Maxim catalog.  Probably purchased in the 70s by his mother.  She knitted the entire family stockings beginning with him, his wife and three children.  She added the in-laws (sons- and daughter-) and then the grands (her greats).  But she developed dementia and is unable to knit anymore.

So I pitched in so the last grandson wouldn't be left out.

My knitting is a different gauge.  My KLEIGH stocking came out much larger than her last 'KREWE' stocking, by about 2 inches.  But at least Kleigh is no longer left out.

I'm feeling kind of virtuous.  I know, I should get over it.

In return for all that knitting, I am the recipient of mom's stash, or at least a good portion of it.  She had about six UFOs of her own.  I'm blown away by her fair isle knitting.  There are several projects with very intricate patterns.

• A blue cardigan with Raggedy Ann and Andy knitted in
• A brown cardigan with an owl
• A pink sweater with beautiful cables
• A pink carriage robe in a lace pattern
• A purple vest
• A white rug with an eagle outline in blue

My daughter voted that I should finish the last one.  We'll see.  Maybe after I read the pattern through.  I will consider it.

So my dears, the lesson here is this:

TRY to finish up some of your UFOs!  You don't want the people who are going to have to deal with your stash to have to take a chance on finding someone who will appreciate your stuff!

So Ruth, when you get to the other side and you know what's what again, know that I appreciated your work.

Knit on...

I Was Trying...

Honest, I was!  I was knitting one more of those little doll sweaters with the hood. 

I was writing down the instructions faithfully.  The yarn seemed a little bit chunkier than normal.  It was a lovely shade of red.

When I finished that one, I thought to myself, better test one on regular worsted weight, in case the gauge is different.  So Friday night, I sat down with my basket and found a ball of brown.  I knew I had a whole skein of that brown somewhere.

The problem was, well, you know what I said in October, I needed to clean up so I could find stuff.

I got down to mid-chest level on the sweater and had about six inches of yarn left.  NOT ENOUGH!!  But that 4 ounce skein was at least three balls of yarn.  So what have I done with the rest of it...

Saturday morning bright and early I started sorting and organizing.  Tiny balls of yarn went into a plastic fish bowl.  I put away all the needles I've dragged out all summer.  I found small quantities that will make doll slippers, balls of various shades of blue, and the Christmas stocking I have to finish before Thanksgiving.

No brown.  Dang.

Saturday afternoon I went into the craft room and started cleaning up and putting things away.  It felt like a bomb went off down there.

I lugged.  I tossed.  I filled bins.  Miss A came and 'helped' me.  We made Miss E a birthday card.  We had a snack.

No brown yarn.  I admit defeat.

Sunday after church, I searched closets upstairs.  No luck.  I give up!  I'm not tearing down that sweater.  I'm just. not. going. to. do. that.  No way.

OK, off to Michaels to buy ONE more skein of Impeccable by Loops & Threads in brown.

This yarn.  I love it... it's so nice to knit up!

In this color brown, but solid, without the flecks.

Stash alert!! It's on sale this week for $2.29 a skein.  I also had a coupon for 25% off my entire purchase.

I spent $32.

Expensive doll sweater??  LOL!

Knit on...

The Shopping Trip

My two best shopping buddies and I recently went on a Fabric Acquisition Road Trip.  Yep, we spent a whole day f.a.r.t.ing around SE Wisconsin!

I picked up a few things at the Ben Franklin in Oconomowoc.  Gosh, I love that place! 


Some yardage for doll clothes and/or Miss A -- think Angry Birds pj bottoms...



Tulle for some tutus.

Then we toddled on over to Gayfeathers in Madison.  I got some olive green twill for slacks and a black and white plaid wool for a jacket -- not to be worn together!!  But I'm tired of wearing black pants all the time, so I got something different -- the olive and a dark gray. 

I love the selection of garment fabric.  The owner, Virginia, is a friend of sewists everywhere.  But be warned, the shop is in an old building, so if it's hot, plan to sweat a little.  She has an air conditioner, but this is definitely not a chain store.  But I believe in supporting the small merchant and she definitely caters to garment sewing enthusiasts. 

I also found a red batik that I need for cornerstones on my red, black and white quilt top, and some cute cotton with hedgehogs on it.

From Gayfeathers -- hedgehogs!!

After lunch, we made one last stop at Mill House Quilts in Waunakee.  They're paving Main Street in Waunakee but we didn't let that stop us!  Thank goodness for back roads and google maps!  This shop is not to be missed.  The display of samples is amazing.  They always have something hanging up that will inspire you. 

From left, four fat quarters and the rest is yardage.

From Mill House I picked up some fat quarters, and four prints from the bargain room, plus Badgers and Packers fabrics. I just realized that in my photo the Packer fabric is upside down!  Oh well... 

The florals and the blue dots and pink plaids were 20-30% off.  If you go to Mill House, and you should, don't go looking for the florals because I took what was left on the bolt.  The black is destined for a skirt for Miss E.  The blue became a table covering for my Sunday School table on Sunday morning but will be repurposed into some cute pjs for Miss A.  She must have grown three inches this summer, soon she'll be as tall as me.

After we got back to where we parked our cars, Marlene and I took a jaunt through the River Boutique yarn shop in Brookfield.  OMG you cannot believe everything that is in that shop!!  Check out their web site.  They invite you to bring your knitting in when you visit... I hope to visit again soon when I have more time.

http://www.riverboutiqueyarn.com/

It's fabulous, even the chairs have sweaters.  I kid you not.  One chair had a sleeve with a hand sticking out of it -- a glove mannequin, I am sure.  But you could spend hours just looking at the displays.  They have a bargain room which I did NOT enter for fear my credit card would curl up if I did.  I did pick up a few skeins of to die for fibers but those are for another post.

Now to get to stitching up all this wonderfulness!

Sew on...