Wednesday, May 23, 2007

A Lack of Inspiration+Yarn Porn

I am uninspired. I'm not working on anything great right now. I have a pattern picked out to start working on some golf club covers for Father's Day, but I haven't found the right yarn for those yet.
I decided yesterday that I should go through my yarn supplies, and see what I had, maybe divide them up by fiber, and create a "yarn-ventory". I had hoped that would provide inspiration, but sadly, not so much. I thought it was pretty funny how much I had once it was all laid out, so I took a pic:


When it's all re-organized, it looks like this:


Please note my modern and artfully displayed collection of VHS tapes as well.
Much nicer. Since I'm being gratuitous, heres a pic of my needle storage as well:


Those big crazy vampire-killing red spikes are the Speed Stix, size 50's, as previously mentioned. Downright silly, those are. I also have a myriad of circulars, Knitpicks and Addis in sizes 1,2,3 and a Boye set of interchangeable circulars while I save for the Knitpicks set of interchangeabes. Those just aren't as pretty to display, hehe.


On to fun! Two weeks ago I attended the NH Sheep and Wool Festival, in Hopkinton, NH. It was faaaaabulous. So much gorgeous yarn, so many cute Alpacas (my all time fav. animal, even before I started knitting) and so much to see! I was totally overwhelmed with yarn colors, feelings, and fibers. I did cave and buy a hank of the most beeeeeeeautiful Alpaca- its three different colors plied together -but it's 100% natural, no dyes. The pic won't do it justice, but here it is:

It's much richer in person. It's also ridiculously soft- now I just need to figure out what this yarn wants to be- I'm thinking soft and snuggly bear.


During the fest, I took my very first spinning class! It was so so fun, and I've already called my parents and told them the make and model of the wheel I want for Xmas! I can't afford a wheel on a lowly social-worker salary, they start at $300 and increase exponentially from there.

I have to admit, my first attempt at spinning was less than perfect. It's actually pretty scary- what do you think?

The saddest ball of yarn in NH.

It's way overspun in most places, and way underspun in others, in a desperate attempt to compensate for each other. What you can't see is the part that's rolled up into the center, where I almost had tension figured out. In the end, I purchased a cute little drop spindle (pictured in the basket along w/my favorite yarns, above) and I had received a bag full of different rovings as part of the cost of the class, so I'm going to try hand spinning with those until the wheel can be a reality. Stay tuned for the excitement!

And finally, since I mentioned soft and cuddly bears, above, here's a pic of my very first knit stuffed toy. I had paid no attention to the finished dimensions of the bear in the pattern, and I was kinda bummed it was so small. I also think that black was a poor choice of yarn (though it hid all my boo boos so well!) since it limited my eye choices, and left me with scary white button eyes. I do however, love the duplicate stitch heart on his chest:

He's almost cute, if it wasn't for creepy zombie eyes. Ha!


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny thing about Alpacas that Mark and I learned 2 weeks ago. After careful inspection of many, many alpacas, it has been determined by us that alpacas do not, I repeat, do not have sphincters. Just ghastly holes. But no sphincter.

Good looking yarn.

When I'm uninspired I make scarves, and practice newly learned stitches that way. I have a box of them that I give as gifts when I have nothing else to give, or no money, or don't feel like shopping, or whatever. I'm expanding that box to include little easy-to-make handbags, too.

Stacey said...

Wow, now there is an alpaca fact that I did not know about. Jeff and I would yell "jackpot!" every time an alpaca pooped, tho, because it shot out like winning the jackpot at a casino. Except smellier.

I like the scarf idea. Problem is, I get all caught up in "but what if no one has a coat this color?" I'm retarded.