Shell-Shocked

Holy crap. I just spent over $70 at the LYS. I can't believe I just did that. It wouldn't have been so bad if I haven't seen the Noro Silk Garden. Holy, holy crap.

Just for kicks, I took a picture of my school stash:


Not pictured is the laundry basket full of "crappy yarn" and all the stuff I left at home. I don't know how I'm going to sneak all this yarn into Mom's house when I move back home for the summer. Keeping it in my car all summer is out, since my car is already full of crap (including the eight skeins of "wool" I got for 75 cents apiece) and the last thing I need is more insulation. Maybe I'll sneak it in during the night when the house is asleep and hide it in the water heater room.

\o/ (Huzzah!)

Drove up to Madison to see The Yarn Harlot. Forces conspired against me to make me unable to actually buy a book and have it autographed and have my picture taken with my first pair of socks (a present to my mom last November; already there's two holes I have to darn. I don't know if I'm happy or sad about that), but just the talk was so worth it. She's a riot. I felt kinda ghetto, though. All around me people were knitting wonderful things out of yarn so beautiful it would make angels weep, and I was making a belt. Out of Red Heart. Ghetto.

I got my tax return today. $166. I talk big talk about how I'm going to pay my library fines (embarrassingly big) and pay off some debts, but really I'm going to blow the whole thing on yarn, like this and this. And possibly this.

First Post

My friend Fred and I are going to apply for the Summer Craftacular up in Madison. The show's on Saturday, June 28th and the deadline for the application is this Friday. So I dive into my stash (well, about half my stash; the rest of it's at my mom's house) and pull out everything that I could conceivably use.

That's a lot of yarn to choose from, n'est ce pas? And I left out the stuff that I couldn't possibly use this summer, like the miles and miles of thick chenille and the basketball-sized wad of brown boucle... stuff. I'm really proud of the fact that I could identify all of it (the purpley stuff on top? That's from the time I was having a bad day and went to the Beloit LYS "just to look." It's half wool, half llama and I am rubbing it against my cheek as I type. I suspect it might be too hot for anything summery, though) and that I /like/ most of my stash still. Still, there are a few oddballs:

I don't know what the /hell/ I was on when I bought this. You may be thinking "well, the picture probably doesn't do it justice. I'm sure it looks much nicer than that." Boy, are you wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. My only defense is that it was in the $2 bin, and that's a pretty shoddy defense since I bought four balls of it. But I have it, and I don't know what to do with it. Any suggestions?

Conversely, this is what happens when yarn goes right. The name of the yarn is "Fun," and I can tell by the way the skein drapes that it will be. It's so damn pretty! I'm not the biggest pink fan but I still love this yarn. I'd make a tank for myself out of it if I weren't the type of person who really likes sleeves and if I can find the other two skeins. I know I bought four...








So what do I have to show for my day? A bed full of yarn that I'll have to move in order to sleep tonight, and - stuff.

















Half a belt and a God's eye (it's actually the start of a hat, knit from the top down, but it looks like those old God's eyes, dunnit?). I also found a "something" (it's not a very large swatch because I don't swatch that big) that I probably should frog because it's out of Mission Falls 1824 wool, except a) I always get queasy when I rip anything apart, and b) other than taking it in the shower with me, I don't have a good way to unkink the yarn. Maybe when I get back to Mom's....