A Little Yarn On The Side

Finally!  First, a picture of the new socks: which I thought about keeping for myself, but if I put them in the gift bin I get to count them as one of my 12 gifts for the year.  Which works for me, as I really don't wear gray.  AND this used up the last of the 3 double-balls of this yarn, which I bought at least 6 or 7 years ago, which put me over 10,000 AND gives me number 65 in the "all used up tab."  I promised myself I could think about stopping Cold Sheeping when I get that tab to 150, and am really trying to be good and not just focus on the single-ball entries.  This one only showed 2 because one was knit up before Ravelry, but there were at least 3 origininally--if not 4.  I am thorough when I go on a yarn binge. I was so excited about hitting my target on time that I whipped out another Tribble: though it doesn't do anything for my yardage.  Because these take so little yarn and it's so hard to estimate, I've decided to just count th...

I just finished the socks, and have tied my best record for when I passed the 10,000 yard mark!!!!!!!!!  Can I meet or beat the 19,000 yards used in 2008???? I do realize that some knitters would be excited about the pair of socks that was just finished and a bit less obsessed about yardage, but they didn't just have to move their entire stash out of the sewing room, then back in again......

I'm trying to reach 10,000 by Thursday and what am I doing?  Working on socks with size ONE needles and fingering weight yarn, with a massive 460-yard ball of yarn.  Oh yeah--I see this going well.

The new scarf is done, which brings me to 9,742 yards of yarn for the year.  I'd like to say I didn't sort through my yarn stash looking for a quick project involving a skein of 260 yards, but I'd also like to be able to eat chocolate without putting on the pounds--and that certainly hasn't happened.  My fantasies obviously have NOTHING to do with the real world. In the end, I opted to cast on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Epaulet sweater: I'm using Lion Brand Wool-Ease, which isn't my favorite for sweaters, but I had bought a couple bags of the stuff when I was trying to convince myself to learn steeking, thinking that I'd rather cut up cheaper yarn than nice stuff, but I did learn to do it anyway, and have had this yarn lurking in the closet for a while.  This is a brilliant but complicated pattern, so the odds of me making a mistake are pretty high, so I thought this would be a good project/yarn match.  It's another of her seamless sweater ideas...

Scorching heat aside, I still love this project.  To be fair, it wasn't until after I started it that I discovered that the "yarn needed" notes on Ravelry aren't accurate, so I made a shorter shrug than the pattern called for, and if it looks odd on the right, it's because my mattress stitching there is so wonky that I'll be ripping it out and starting over, so it's only partially done.  BUT it still counts as finished sweater number FIVE.  Yay!!!!!!!!!!  When we get out of the perpetual state of sweat, I might even be willing to try it on.  It's supposed to "only" get to 104 today.  Whew!  Good thing I have wool in such a break from heat! Aside from having a new finished sweater, I am tremendously proud of myself for this sweater because I used gift yarn for it .  I struggle with using up any really great yarn in my stash--you know, because then I won't have the yarn any more--but I become a positive maniac over gift yarn.  RobinH ...

According to the news, Boise just set a record high temperature today of 108.  I know--that's a refreshing day in Arizona, but this is IDAHO.  We're a northern state.  We get winter and everything.  This is crazy hot for us. I am hosting my knitting group tonight, and I have already notified everyone that the air conditioner is on full blast and that the house is livable, though if it gets any hotter, I may have to relent and make it "clothing optional."  Meanwhile, I need to go find a non-wool project for tonight.  Even with the air conditioning blasting, it is STILL too hot to handle wool.  Argh!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I just say that??????????????????

Okay, so in one light: Tonight, however, when I was showing the sweater to Andy, it looked more like this: NOOOO!!!!  A cheap, mass-produced acrylic yarn had dye lot variations!!!!!!!!  I'll admit, I have gotten very lazy about checking dye lots on big commercially produced yarns, and this stuff is TLC Wiggles which was made by Red Heart--the kings of the mass produced yarn!  I don't imagine ANYTHING in their yarn process is done by humans--how does this still have dye lots? Sigh.......I'm going to send the sweater as a gift anyway and just hope they don't notice.   If they notice, I'm going to blame it on all the nifty drugs.  Or age--does 41 count as old enough to be "slightly batty" to those in their 20s?  Would it help if we got another cat?