Yarn crack
BSG haulI took a pleasant little road-trip with saoba yesterday down to Eugene for the Black Sheep Gathering, and yarn shopping.
Amazingly enough, it's the first time I've bought yarn in 2009. I've been busy knitting down my stash of sock yarn, and since March, working on the Stockinette Raglan Of Doom ... and, since the Kindle came into my life, reading. I took up knitting in the first place in part to fill the hole in my life where books used to be, so it's no surprise that now that I'm able to read again, I'm not knitting as much.
Still, there are a couple more jackets from Knit Kimono that I want to make, and I've been feeling the lace-knitting itch lately. And some of my earliest hand-knitted socks have frankly outlived their useful life (if I knew then what I know now about pilling and wear, I'd have chosen something other than the softest merino sock yarn I could find). So: BSG, a shopping list, and a budget. Which, mirable dictu, I managed not to overspend.
The thing about fiber festivals, other than the opportunity to look at and pet a lot of fiber and the animals it comes from, is that you can often find great deals on yarn. I got the 3,000 yards I need for one long jacket - in an undyed merino-bamboo blend - for a mere $100. And enough OMG-pettable merino and angora rabbit cobweb-weight lace yarn, also undyed, to make a *big* shawl - for under 20 bucks. Woot!
I skipped a couple of my usually favorite vendors this year. Interlacements has gorgeous colors and some unusual fiber combinations (rayon, silk and linen, for instance), but the things I want to knit right now involve stitch patterns that don't hold up that well to the extreme variegation of their dazzling color combinations. I usually pick up some Socks that Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, but I went across the aisle this time to Lisa Millman of Dicentra Designs, who had some color combinations that really appealed to me (including one blend of purples with a dash of surprising bright teal).
Bottom line: Yarn for two jackets, two pair of socks and two as-yet unchosen lace projects, plus an impulse buy of a butter-soft yarn with milk fiber in it - more than a year's worth of knitting, even if I start now* - and I had enough left in my shopping budget to pick up a new umbrella swift to replace the little tabletop model I've been using for a couple of years, which is fine for winding small batches of yarn, but a bit wobbly for the big hanks I've been working with lately. Ms. saoba will inherit the old swift.
When I got home I discovered that both the new swift and my trusty ball-winder can be clamped onto the broad wooden arm of my comfy futon chair in such a way that I can sit back, relax and wind yarn. That rocks (I've been using the dining table, which is less than satisfactory for several reasons).
* The sweater is taking as long, and proving just about as boring, as I expected (laceweight yarn, size 1 needles, stockinette). I've got the body about three-quarters done, but as Miz. B. points out, that's only about a third of the sweater (sleeves take a lot more yarn than one ever expects). It's been an OK mindless movie-watching project, but it's clearly not going to get done this summer, and it's a summer sweater. I hate putting projects down before they're finished, but my shopping companion/enabler pointed out that should be knitting for winter now, and return to this thing in the fall in hopes of finishing it for next summer. Smart lady. I'm swatching for jackets.