Merry Christmas Everyone!

I got a really cool Christmas gift I want to show everyone! ......... It's a yarn bowl!

I think I mentioned wanting one a while ago. I remember trying to use a normal bowl way back when, but I never kept up with it since.. I also needed to use the bowl to eat, and sometimes the yarn bounced out of the bowl anyway. But this is so cool! It's got holes in case you use more than one colour and they won't tangle, and it'll prevent the yarn from rolling out. I love it!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everybody is out there having a really cozy Christmas as well!

Some Knitting related purchases

So lately, my dad has been asking me to knit some baby things for his coworker who is going to give birth next year. So, I went out and bought some baby yarn. 

Nothing fancy- just some soft yarn bought from Wal-Mart (because I'm poor). I really liked the colours! White with a dash of soft yellows, pinks, and blues. I also too my knitting obsession further and spent way too much money on this:

Yes, I bought a little toy baby to be my model after I knit baby stuff. It always bugged me that I had to use my Lumpy bear as a model because Lumpy isn't baby sized or baby shaped. Plus as a bright pink fuzzy knitted bear, he takes away from the knitted piece I actually want to show off. And he also doesn't  make my model pieces look that great. So yea, those are all my justifications of buying a plastic baby. The cashier asked if I wanted a gift reciept.. Little did she know the baby was for me, haha!

Went into a store...

My friend introduced me to a local yarn store that I didn't know was near me all this time! It's called Black Sheep Yarns. 

It's so much nicer and such a different experience than the big box stores such as Wal-Mart and Michaels, and it feels more personal than buying yarn from online. There's a nice lady that works there who also is very knowledgable and was really nice about answering any questions.

Of course, I couldn't leave without buying anything! So I bought... 

I'm planning on making a super slouchy hat. Or maybe I'll make something else, but it was so soft, I had to buy it! 

Beginning of November surprise!

Yesterday was an amazing day! I went over to my friends' house for a sleepover where we engaged in post-Halloween pumpkin carving! It was really fun! We put our finished products up on Facebook and held a contest to see which teams' pumpkin got the most votes! Which one would you have voted for?

If you chose the Olaf pumpkin, then you have good taste! That's the one my team carved! Our prize was an After Eight tin full of mint chocolate! I was already feeling awesome for winning the contest since last year when my friends and I did this, my partner and I came in dead last, but when I got home, I got yet another surprise ....

 

Ta-dah! Look what was waiting for me in my room! It's a gift from my aunt who has been so supportive of my knitting hobby! Inside has six giant balls of Red Heart comfort yarn in beige, white and black! It was bought at such a bargain too! Only $39.00 for the whole thing! With all the yarn I recently received from my boyfriend and my friend, and now this, I feel like I have enough to keep me knitting for the next ten years!



So Much Yarn

So remember how yesterday I received my giant yarn haul? Well guess what! I got even more yarn today! My friend went to Seattle to a placed called 'So Much Yarn', and bought me a hank of yarn!

The color is beautiful! It's hard to tell with my blurry camera, but the color is actually variegated with different hues of brown! It gives a very Autumn feel. I'm not sure what type of yarn it is because my friend ripped the tag off because the pricetag was on there (although I know it is way more expensive than I usually spend on a skein of yarn so I am so grateful they would put such thought for me). It looks like its worsted weight though, and it feels super soft! I love it!!

My Long Awaited Yarn Haul

Finally, something to cheer me up from an unfulfilling work and social life... a giant bag of soft cuddly yarn! Now I can spend more time knitting and watching dramas alone! (Haha, half kidding on the dramatic parts..)

I'm definitely going to knit at least 2 sweaters out of this stash! I had a vague plan of what I was going to do with each skein, but maybe because it was too vague that I forgot the plans for the balls where I only bought one of it. But I'm sure I'll figure something out. It was my first time buying from the website 'Webs'. Previously, I used the website 'Knitpicks' or just bought from Michaels or Wal-Mart, but I wanted to try something new.

 

Unfortunately, there's so much yarn there, six skeins of it cannot fit in my three drawers, so now it looks messy again. I think that's a sign that I'm not knitting enough, haha, so I guess I better get to it! 

A Dangerous Game

Feeling a little nervous ... playing a game of 'will there be enough yarn to finish this project?'

Well intentioned gift, but...

As I look for a new project to do, I've been looking through my yarn stash seeing what I would be able to make. I come across this:

Its eyelash yarn, given to me last Christmas by my aunt and uncle. While I don't want to sound ungrateful, (they definitely had an idea of what I wanted if they bought me yarn) and I'm trying to be appreciative... I do want to say that I honestly have no clue what to do with this yarn. No clue at all. I tried searching it up on google too but the results I get are like 'use eyelash yarn to line a hat/bag' or 'an eyelash scarf!'. These might have been good ideas though if my yarn weren't also odd colors. Orange + dark brown + green makes me think of Halloween. Not something I really want to line a bag/ hat with (and plus I have two balls... I don't want more than one eyelash lined hat existing!), and also nobody I know, including me and my aunt and uncle, would probably be willing to wear an orange + dark brown + green eyelash scarf (which contrary to the last post, two balls of this doesn't seem to be enough to make an entire scarf anyway). So, what can I do? I don't want it sitting in my stash forever (I feel a tad guilty every time I see it there, as if it knows I don't like it or something). Perhaps I should add 'Use my eyelash yarn' to my knitting list. It'll be more impressive than knitting a sweater when I find some use for this!

P.s. In case anyone is keeping count, this is my 50th post! I'd love to do giveaways someday to thank my handful of readers for actually reading my humble little blog (maybe if my audience ever reaches the double digits heh), but the only thing I'm willing to give away from my precious, yet poorly stocked yarn collection is... you guessed it, this eyelash yarn. So ... if anybody wants it... give me a shout!

A Little Neater

I suppose I can cross off organizing my knitting things from my things to do list! This weekend, I went to Michaels and bought this:

It's three shelves that can be stacked neatly on top of each other. I'm pretty sure everyone has seen these types of storage units somewhere before. Although it's not anything fancy, I think it looks quite nice. It's also easy to move around and sort of just blends in with whichever room I put them in.

 

My last two shelves are filled with all my yarn. Originally, I only bought two shelves, but I vastly underestimated how much yarn I have when first buying them. With two shelves, some of my yarn would have to be squeezed into the same space as my needles, which I didn't like the idea of because it would just seem like a hassle that I'd have to remove all the yarn from the shelf before I can sift around for my needles, so that's when I decided I'd go back and get another third shelf so that I can separate them. Plus, it just looks neater that way.

 

The top shelf is filled with all things non-yarn. My needles, and other various knitting equipment are all put here. As you can see, it still looks messy in there, mostly because my size 50 needles only fit in there when put diagonally, so that throws arranging everything in some sort of proper order out the window.

 

Anyway, I'm sure there are neater ways to organize knitting material, but with my current funding, I think this is the best I can do. At the very least, things aren't shoved into random go-green bags anymore. Everything is in one place, nothing just falls out easily, and I can figure out a neater way to specifically organize my needles later. Furthermore, if/when my yarn collection grows, I can easily just keep adding more shelves And, maybe if I have enough yarn in the future, it'll be worth it to organize my yarn by its weight and colour or something. Until then, I think this will work out just fine for now!

                                                              


Ravelling

Oh my goodness! For my scarf I finally finished knitting the first hank (that just took about forever)... now its time to knit the second one! But first....

 That's right... first I must deal with the mess of an unravelled hank, and then ravel it back again. Why why why why why!? I hope it'll be clean with no knots!

P.s. in a previous post I talked about how I kept my yarn in a bowl... and wow, I found out everybody does do this! They even have special bowls made just for this task! .... And now I really want one!

Thinking Pink

More yarn! My sister bought this baby pink worsted Red Heart yarn for me because I helped her do a favour and I'm in love with the color! I have no idea what I want to do with it yet, but I'm thinking maybe a shawl or a regular scarf. I haven't made scarves for so long since I've moved towards the more 'complicated' stuff. But now that I think about it, I think a scarf would be a perfect next project because I think the first several scarves I made weren't that good-looking. So, I could make a really beautiful scarf and compare it to the ones I first made to really visibly showcase my improvements in knitting skill!

Anyway, I'm also loving all the bright coloured yarn I'm using lately. Many projects I made for people requested dark or dull colours and I just want to make something with a sharper colour.

It's so cool how my yarn collection has grown since I began. I remember first complaining about how it was so small and how it needed to grow! I hope my collection continues to get bigger though! I feel like I'll never have enough! I'm addicted!

Homespun Yarn

So, I was reading up some knitting info, and no matter where I go, there seems to be some hate surrounding Lion Brand's homespun yarn. Now, I've used it before, specifically for my most recent hat, Lumpy the bear, and the scarf and earflap hat I made for my sister. Besides the fact that for the scarf I couldn't really see the pattern clearly, I didn't mind using it at all. The bear especially turned out great, and I thought the texture of the yarn made it appear more fuzzy and cuddly. The hats I made with it, and even the scarf were really warm and soft.


That being said, I do understand why people would be frustrated knitting with it as sometimes it likes to bunch up, but personally I didn't think it was a very big deal. I wonder if its because I don't know too much about yarn quality and what's bad and good. I don't want to hate it just because everybody else does though, but I do want to know why its so strongly disliked.

Hi Iceland!

I didn't think I'd update again so soon, but my sister recently came back from a vacation in Iceland, and guess what she brought back for me? ..... You guessed it! Yarn! Not just any yarn, yarn made in Iceland! It says so on the packaging! The ice-blue colour is so fitting, as my sister says it was snowing really hard over there.

It looks really pretty and I'm already trying to research what I should make with it. I never worked with this type of wool before. It's a little rough to the touch (even more so than the dishie yarn I recently bought), and I've only worked with soft yarn, so this will be a good experience for me. I don't think I'd make a scarf out of it though because I think it will make your neck feel itchy. Maybe thick socks? A hat? Either way, I want to make sure it will be something special since its not everyday I get yarn from Iceland!



My package arrived!

Who doesn't like getting mail? Well today, I got an amazing surprise! My package of yarn came! Okay, so its not really a surprise since I bought it for myself, but its still a surprise that I got it so soon. I'm so excited! Usually, I get my yarn from Michaels or Wal-Mart, but at least where I'm from, the selection there is usually not that large, and the colors I want always seem to conveniently have only one ball left or something. So, I wanted to try something different, and with a bit of online snooping, I found that lots of people buy their yarn from a website called 'Knitpicks'. It has supposedly reasonable prices, coupled with great customer service. So, I went crazy (was originally more excited because I thought it had free shipping, but then I learned it did, just not to countries outside of the USA .. boo!)


Above, starting from the left, you can see I have their Coal Swish DK, two Everglade Heather Stroll, Doe Swish DK, Ivory Comfy Fingering, Begonia Dishie, two Tranquil Dishie, and two  Honey Swish DK. At the very top there, I spoiled myself with 3 hanks of their Winter Night Gloss, a beautiful blue color, and will be my first time working with hanks (I read somewhere how you need to unravel them first or they'll get extremely tangled)! To be honest, at the time I had an idea of what to do exactly with each yarn, but now I forgot some, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I definitely know (and am most excited for) that I will be knitting a really cool dish towel! I know I previously never mentioned even wanting to knit one of those, but that was before I learned they had yarn specifically for knitting dish towels! It'd be such a fun experience working with different yarn textures! The hanks are going to be a scarf for my boyfriend, and I think the Everglade Heather Strolls are going to be socks.

 

I really can't wait to start digging in, but actually, right now I've been knitting a hat with some scrap yarn (not the same scrap yarn I was practicing cables with, obviously, as that couldn't even complete a headband). It's the leftover yarn from making Lumpy, the bear. I think its got half a ball left, enough for a hat. I want to quickly finish that up and move onto learning new things!  

Valentine's/ Anniversary Gift

A couple days late posting this, but my boyfriend knew just what to get me for our Valentine's day/ Anniversary celebration (the days are close together so we usually just merge them) - mostly because I told him 'Hey get me lots of yarn'. And here it is! Two large balls of red yarn! He got me an orange rose too, but by the time I got around to taking pics, they wilted already .. but anyway, I am very happy with this, and I already have an idea what to make!

My Proud Collection

I decided to make a post show-casing my humble collection. I'm not sure if this knitting equipment is considered a lot, or embarrassingly inadequate, so if anybody knows, please tell me what I'm missing .. or if you're jealous of the amount I have haha. Anyway, starting off, this is where I keep my knitting stuff and yarn:

 

 

You'll see my knitting stuff is kept in a beautiful Lulu Lemon bag, but not as beautiful as the Staples bag my yarn is kept in. I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm definitely trying to find a way to organize this better, so it looks pro. And yeah, my yarn collection is so small! That bag needs to be filled up somehow.

 

Onto my proud collection:

 

Starting from above is the cute little pouch I got for Christmas last year that I keep the small stuff in, like my stitch markers, knit tally, needle tip protector, cable needle & yarn needle that you see underneath. Those were also given to me for Christmas by my lovely sister, along with the stitch holder and knit gauge you see at the very bottom. As for my needles, most of the gray were inherited from my aunt who used to knit but then later got bored of it (something I pray will never happen to me). Most of the colored ones I bought for myself. I try to buy unique looking needles like the really cool or elegant looking ones I see on Youtube, but too bad they are pretty expensive.

 

Starting from the left is the giant behemoth of knitting needles that I'm tempted to keep under my pillow to attack intruders. I'm not even sure what size it is (clue that it was a gift). It's too big for my knit gauge, but I'm guessing its approximately US 18? I haven't used it yet, and not sure what sort of pattern it can be used for. The blue is US 8 and the yellow is US 6. Beside it is needles that only say 4.0 mm, so I think that's around US 5.5. Next is needles that only say 3.25, which I think is around US 3. My two double pointed needles are US 10 and US 6. Finally, next to those, are my circular needles. You'll see the fat gray US 13, the blue US 10.5, the yellow US 8, and the skinny gray US 6 & US 3.

 

I always thought my collection was big, but I often wish for even more because on some of my projects I didn't have the right knitting needles and had to settle for the closest size one. But hey, I came a long way from back then with my first 4 projects where I only used my US 8 straight knitting needles and US 6 circular knitting needles even when I should have used a way different size because that was all I had. Anyway, I'll continue to post new knitting gear I get so you can watch my collection grow!