You may recall that at the start of the year I said it was really good I hadn’t resolved to go on a yarn and fiber diet, because I’d already been shopping online. Well, I thought I’d show you what’s arrived in the mail since then.
But first, my lovely cakes of yarn for the Fireworks Festival shawl, which I am as much in love with as the day I bought them:
Luckily, while my kitty is very normal in that she will go after moving yarn while I knit (and the ends of knitting needles), she largely leaves my skeined and caked yarn alone, so they have been sitting out quite safe where I can admire them. The bright colors have been very nice during what’s been an extremely grey and rainy week.
So, yarn purchases were two. First up, I signed up for my first ever monthly yarn club. I’ve never done one before because you don’t know what the colors will be, but I reviewed the yarns from last years’ Clan of Igor and decided odds were good. This year is horror movie animals, starting with King Kong. It’s funny, because the dyer says she’s not normally a fan of browns, but likes how it works in the purple. I don’t normally buy much purple yarn for myself, but I like this purple with its brown and pink tones. I’ve decided not to even think about how I’ll use it until I have a couple months’ worth of colors to see if any go together.
Second is the mohair I ran and purchased from GarnSurr when I found out they were closing up shop. They were on my list to buy from again before we left Germany, but my time table was sped up considerably by their announcement. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I don’t buy lots of mohair and the contrast of the bright pink with the more nuanced darker yellow/browns really intrigued me. I see finding the right project as an interesting challenge.
I also received an Etsy gift card for the holidays, so I went shopping for fiber on Etsy. I feel like it’s been a while since I spun from a batt, so I specifically went shopping for batts. I loved the colors and textures in these batts from Barn2Yarn and think they’ll make a really cool gradient for whatever they turn into:
I’ll be honest – I haven’t ever really spun from art batts with various bitts of fiber that aren’t well incorporated into the batt. It’ll be interesting and we’ll see how I like it. I do think it’ll be a fun change from the miles of fine singles I’ve been doing for TheEnabler’s brioche scarf.
Speaking of that scarf – I’ve decided February is for Fiber, and I’m going to up my game on getting spinning done. My plan: at least 20min of spinning each day, and if I haven’t achieved that before the end of my work day (eg: during calls or lunch), then I have to finish that before I do any knitting that evening. I think knowing I’m spinning some each day will also make it easier for me to vary which spinning I’m working on while knowing that I’m still making progress on the yarn for the scarf. And in turn. this will keep things fun.
Lastly, some bonus pics of my cat trying to get in on the action as I was photographing my new stash:
I think the Barn2Yarn batts have a particularly intriguing animal smell to them. There were a couple small samples of fiber thrown in and she’s been running off with the blue fluff. She only takes it if I’m watching though, which I think is really funny. It’s like it’s no fun for her if I don’t know she took it.