Moving Again and Yarn Storage

While I was away, we moved again.  The past few weeks have been spent on opening boxes and reorganising things in the new house.  The house where we currently live is unfurnished, so we're having to make do with what furniture we have to hand. Currently my room looks like this:

I still need to put together a canvas wardrobe so I have somewhere to hang clothes, but I've been able to assemble a bookcase to store a few things and decorate the place a little.  My substantial stash has proven very useful as room decor.  I am using a ceramic bowl that I got in Seville back in March and a glass one from Tiger in order to display some pretty skeins of Hedgehog Fibres and my Boo-Knits Shawl-a-long yarn.  With this rainy "summer" we're having, I need all the shine and sparkle I can get.

The lack of storage space has caused me to rethink my knitting plans for next year.  I don't really have much room to store more yarn other than a bit of space under the bed.  I technically shouldn't be buying yarn anyway since I vowed to stashdown 10km of yarn by the end of this year, which is going rather disasterously I have to say.  It's clear I need to knit up what I've got here before I can bring anything over from the Mother Stash, which rules out all the plans I had made.  I looked at my queue and saw that most of the yarn I had here already were either for shawls or sweaters.  Since it's physical space that is the issue, I decided to "air" the stash and pile up the yarn according to project type to see which was bigger.  The sweater pile looked like this:

The shawl piled up like this:

I think you can tell just by looking that the sweater pile takes up more, but just to be sure, let us compare them side-byside, bearing in mind that I took away a few skeins from the shawl pile before taking this photo:

Yep, sweater pile is bigger.  There are about eight sweaters/tops' worth of yarn in there, so I think I will join IntSweMoDo or International Sweater-a-Month Dodecathlon for 2016.  12 sweaters in a year is a bit nuts to say the least, but I will need sweaters more than shawls next year.  I've also learned that to have a project-oriented approach to stashdown is much more effective than trying to reach a number.  I'll just be having to pick up four more sweater quantities to make this work, which should be easy enough as I tend to go home twice a year.  Most of my Irish Stash is 4ply/fingering weight, so I'm leaning towards my sweater quantities in heavier weights to fill in the gaps.  Perhaps in 2017 when I'm in my fourth year of Ph.D. I'll declare it Year of Accessories as that might be all that I'll be able to pull off while I finish my thesis.  It's the plan for now, anyway.

Of Cuddle Yarn and Yarn Crawls

I am supposed to be stashing down, so where did all this beautiful yarn come from?  Well, that's a story . . .

May 2 was Yarn Shop Day in the UK, but one of the local yarn shops (This is Knit! to be exact) decided to celebrate, too, with goodie bags and special sales.  The Dublin Knit Collective decided to organise a yarn crawl of the city centre, starting at This is Knit! before heading over to Accents Café for the City Centre S 'n  B from 12-2pm.  Then we would pick up lunch at Duck before crashing at The Constant Knitter for some knitting, shopping, and a workshop on making your own stitch markers.  It was all set to be a great day, especially if the notoriously fickle Dublin weather decided to cooperate.

Well, we had a few hiccups.  Dublin Bus went on strike from May 1-2, so unless you lived within walking distance of the city centre or some other form of transport (LUAS, DART, or bicycle), getting into the city wasn't easy.  Then the Dublin weather conspired against us by pouring down rain all day on the 2nd.  The allure of yarn is enough to bring me out even if it means riding my bike in pouring rain, but we were worried that no one would show up.

We were wrong.  Not only did several brave souls drive, ride, or walk in, we even had a group of knitters from Maynooth come in on the train!  We were enough to form a queue outside of This is Knit! before they opened, which tickled the TIK ladies pink.  We even tromped merrily through the rain, high on yarn fumes and tea.  It was a great day and we are already planning next year's crawl.  Hopefully there will not be a bus strike next year and we can hit Winnie's Craft Café, which is south of the city centre.

I ended up high on yarn fumes, so I blew my stashdown and got three skeins of Hedgehog Fibres Sock and a skein of Artesano Alpaca Silk Lace, plus yarn from This is Knit!'s goodie bag.  So what am I going to do with all this yarn?  Well, I already have started a project with a skein from the goodie bag.

This Studio Donegal Tweed will grow up to be a Tea House Theatre Tea Cosy for Titania the Teapot.  The yarn is a little light for the pattern, so I am holding it double to get the right thickness.  It's coming out very dense, so I can't work on it long without my hands hurting, but the tea will stay warm!

These two of the skeins of Hedgehog Fibres Sock want to play together.

                                                (Tremble on bottom and Crystal on top.)

These were an impulse buy.  I do love me some Hedgehog Fibres and I just wanted to plaster myself to This is Knit's Wall O' Hedgehog on Yarn Shop Day.  These two looked beautiful together and reminded me of the Dublin sky.  I think they will become a Salacious shawl.  I originally thought it would be cool to throw in some clear beads in the sections with Tremble to imitate raindrops, but I'm not sure I'll go through with it.

                                (Hedgehog Sock in Vengeance left, Malabrigo Sock Solis right)

I got the this skein of Malabrigo back in February because it was beautiful and Solis doesn't often come in as a semi-solid.  I thought it wanted to become a shawl on its own, but it kept coming up to me singing, "I wanna dance with somebody!" in a poofy '80s hairdo and rollerskates, so I decided to find it a dance partner.  I thought it wanted to be bold and play with an orange yarn, but comparing it to the skeins at This is Knit! did not yield any suitable partners.  I requested assistance in being enabled from the very helpful Lisa, and we decided that darker was the way to go, especially with this dark version of Vengeance.  They are still not entirely sure what dance they want to do together.  Perhaps another Salacious or perhaps try Dissent by the same designer?  How about a Byatt?  We shall see, but I want to make a shawl that has bold blocks of colour so the variegation in the Vengeance is well-displayed.

The vivid purple is Artesano Alpaca Silk Lace and I think it wants to be a Rainshine so it will go with a purple skirt I have.  Clear beads, I think.  If you haven't guessed already, I have a thing for alpaca, so I couldn't leave it behind.

But why buy this yarn anyway?  Aren't I supposed to be stashing down?  Well, yes. I'm keeping tabs on how much yarn I'm buying and I know how much yarn I can knit in a year, so I know how what my limit is before I can't make my 10K net stash loss for this year.  (Let's just not mention how close I am to that limit, shall we?)  That doesn't answer the question, though: why buy this yarn anyway?  Two of the projects I can somewhat justify, but the other one seems pure decadence.  Why bring it into the stash?

Two words: cuddle yarn.

I may be inventing this phrase, or maybe it's out there already, but the way I define cuddle yarn is that it is yarn that is meant to be cuddled and help reduce stress.  Things are rather crazy here at the moment and I am feeling really stressed, but when I look at these skeins of yarn and think about what they are going to be or could be, I calm down a little.  They are so soft to the touch that it's hard to stay angry.  I'm sure other knitters take care of these feelings through casting on projects for themselves, but I'm up to my eyeballs in gift knitting at the moment and can't cast on much else or I won't make my deadlines.  This is probably contributing to the problem, but I want to continue with the gift knits since I already have the yarn and plan differently for next year.  Next year, oh next year shall be glorious.  I'm still debating what plan of attack to take for next year, but both plans are very, very exciting. 

Until then, viva the cuddle yarn!

Ascending from Hades . . . I hope

Apologies for neglecting the blog as of late.  February was a very busy month as I had to submit my thesis proposal, which took longer than expected, and I've also had ongoing health issues.  The health issues haven't fully resolved themselves yet and we are about to plunge forward into finals at school, so I am sure I am in for some more drama down the road.  Nevertheless, I will have knitting with me.

Here's what I've been up to in the interim:

      My Falling Stars pullover continues.  I have finished the body and one of the sleeves, and started sleeve #2 when on one of my medical adventures.

The immense swathes of stockinette are killing me on this sweater and I am definitely discovering the Stockinette Black Hole.  The body was the worst as it took fifteen to twenty minutes to complete a row.  The 1x1 ribbing wasn't much better.  I didn't follow conventional knitting wisdom here and go down a needle size for the ribbing.  There were two reasons for this.  One, I had lengthened the sweater by a half an inch and wanted to make sure it went over my hips without being too tight.  Second, I don't have a 2.5mm needle long enough to do Magic Loop on this sweater and I didn't want to buy another one.  The ribbing looks a little stretched, but it will do.  I've put the body on an extra cable and the sleeve on waste yarn as I'm not sure about the length.  Unless it grows during blocking, I might have to rip out the ribbing on the body and add an extra half an inch to make sure my backside isn't exposed.  Since steam blocking is preferred here due to the humidity, I doubt I'm going to get much growth.  I'll try it on once I finish the second sleeve and see what I think.

 The only other project on the needles are the Jaywalkers for my Mom for American Mother's Day.  I'm knitting them out of KnitPicks self-striping sock yarn Felici, colorway Cochineal on 2.5mm needles.  I'm knitting the smallest size and I'm actually knitting these at a tighter gauge than called for, 8.25 stitches per inch, as this yarn is quite stretchy and, if it's like the Stroll base at all, it will grow slightly after it's been washed.  I did go down to a 2mm needle for the ribbing as the number of stitches cast-on for the zigzag pattern would be way too much for a normal cuff.  I'm almost to the toe on the first sock.

Why socks for Mother's Day?  I'll admit it's not the most romantic notion.  It was actually my Mother who got me knitting socks.  She suggested one day that it would be really cool to knit socks like one of her knitting co-workers, a prolific sock knitter.  She was very kind and got me Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks to get me going.  I'd recommend it for a beginning sock knitter as it discusses yarn selection, techniques, the need for negative ease, and walks you through a basic sock.  It also gives basic sock patterns for various weights of yarn as well, and a few more complicated sock patterns.  I did have to use a few YouTube videos for a few techniques (the Knitpicks Sock tutorial rings a bell) as I have to see something new performed in order for me to get it, but Ann Budd's book is sound.

I'm getting a little stircrazy at the moment with my projects.  It feels like everything has been on the needles too long and I long to cast on something else.  I've got Wendy D. Johnson's Manly Aran socks and the Semi Swedish hat in my queue for my brother, but they are both to be done in grey.  Anne Hanson's Almost Ovals scarf is also in the queue, but for my sister-in-law in a purple silk laceweight.  None of these are appealing to me.  I want something bright to counteract the grey days we are having, and something for me.  Maybe something with this yarn:

Especially when it looks like this inside.

This is yarn my friend Siona gifted me when I visited Spain recently.  It's from Lithuania and it's a bit rough, but I was thinking of making Gail (aka nightsongs) with it.  We shall see.  Time for tea.

It's time for a fort

I really should not invoke the unholy power of evil bacteria and foul Irish weather.  It's been pretty cold here this week, with showers on and off, and I am still sick.  The doctor at Student Health Services has told me that if I am not better by Tuesday, she will refer me to the Ear, Eye, and Throat Hospital for examination.  Since that sounds expensive, I've been trying to stay home, keep warm, and take my meds, or at least as much as it is possible in the first week of classes.  And I wonder why I am still sick. 

This has been good for my knitting, though.  The socks are finished.

These are the Chrysanthemum Frutescens socks by Hunter Hammersen, from her book Knitter's Curiosity Cabinet.  Considering I accidentally knit these at a tighter gauge than called for, they came out really well.  I love the bright color (Foilage, Knitpicks Stroll Tonal), although now it is discontinued.  I found the picot edge a little fiddly, as it's the kind where you have to knit the current live stitches to the stitches held in the provisional cast-on.  Nevertheless, it's a very nice picot edge that lies flat against the leg, so the effort is worth it. 

As the weather is being particularly unhelpful, I've cast on a sweater.  Currently it looks like this:

     It's the Falling stars sweater that Knitpicks originally put out two years ago as a kit.  At the time, they only offered blue and grey versions, and since I love color, I choose the blue.  Now they have a purple and a green/natural version, which you can get as kits here.  The sweater uses elements from the Bohus style of colorwork, which uses fine gauge and purl bumps.  I love it.  The colors change every couple of rows, which keeps things interesting, but the motifs aren't that complicated so you can do it at 5AM while trying to get back to sleep because you are tired and sick.  Not that I would know anything about that. *cough, cough* 
     This sweater will be for the Knitabulls Sweater KAL for January and February.  I love the Knitabulls podcast and try to watch it every week.  I want to adopt the host Diane for my aunt; she is always so happy in her shows and enthusiastic about her various crafts.  She's always a beam of sunshine in my week.
     As I'm housebound for the rest of the weekend,  I'm starting to assemble a fort of yarn and books.  The sweater should be enough to hold me out on the yarn end, and I have plenty of books to read.  In addition to my reading for my normal classes, I've started doing the background reading for my thesis.  My book fort looks something like this:

I'm excited.  This is going to be fun.

A Comedy of Errors

        I have finally returned to Ireland and have somewhat adjusted to the time difference.  Apparently my brain took its vacation early, though, as I said in the last post that I would have WIPS and neglected to include them.  The brain vacation didn't stop there, either.  Take this shawl, for example.

It's Winterchild by Carmen Oliveras which I'm making in Zitron Fil Royal, a 100% alpaca laceweight.  I finished the body months ago and am now working on the knitted on border.  It's my first time doing this technique and I find it somewhat fiddly.  I seem to be making the join too tight and I'm worried this is going to block out wonky.  Maybe I'm also irritated at myself that this thing has been on the needles for over a year and it's not finished yet.  You want to know what's really getting my goat, though?  That tiny ball in the bowl is all the yarn I have for this shawl; I forgot the other skein back in the States.  Grr!  And I love alpaca!

Round Two came with this skein of Cascade 220 Superwash.

I had planned to make it into The Proverbial Cap by Meg Swansen for ages.  I planned on it being my sister-in-law's present for Christmas.  The pattern is pretty and it's got lots of twisted stitches that make my heart sing.  The problem?  I forgot the pattern.  It's back in the US, too.

Round Three came with my Chrysanthemum frutescens socks.

I had noticed since the beginning that everything was coming out tight.  I thought that it was the pattern since I've been getting 8 stitches to the inch on US0/2mm since I started knitting socks with this yarn (Knitpicks Stroll Tonal, Foliage colorway, by the way).  I plowed ahead, still slightly concerned that everything looked tight.  I started the gusset decreases during my long layover in Washington, DC airport and tried the sock on for fit.  It became very obvious the sock was very tight, although I was knitting the large size of this pattern, which is for a 9.5 inch foot.  I pulled out my tape measure and checked the gauge.  It turns out that my gauge has tightened up and I now knit nine stitches to the inch.  I had to add two extra stitches to the foot to make sure it would fit.  They are very lovely socks, but from now on, I'm doing a gauge swatch!  I hope to finish the socks this weekend partly because the weather is currently like this:

Overcast with sides of cold and damp.

And partly because I am sick.  I was fighting a throat bug over the holidays and it came back as a vicious throat and ear infection earlier this week.  Since I've done all of my homework reading for classes, I can knit and start some reading for my thesis.  Should I finish the socks, I have all this to play with:

Knitting, first crochet project, and spindle spinning.  Bring it on, foul Irish weather and evil bacteria!