Category Archives: yarn pr0n

Destined for something lacy… all will be revealed!

I am trying to find a way to write this post without breaking my self-imposed rule about no festive knitting til November. But it seems ages since I had some yarn pr0n to share, so bum to that!

I’d been thinking what to make my Grandma for Christmas. She loves the Bertie scarf I made her a couple of Christmases ago, so I thought another snuggly scarf would be perfect. I have a few suitable patterns in my queue, and I was almost going to knit her a Lily of the Valley Estonian Lace Scarf but then Diane published her Beth pattern and like the fickle person I am, it was a case of must! knit! that! scarf! now!

I could have used some stash yarn, of course. But I wanted something soft and slightly fuzzy in a solid, Grandma-suitable colour. As I was sure nothing in my stash would do, I bought this:

Two balls of Angora 50 in sage green from The Little Knitting Company. It’s 50% angora, 30% wool and 20% nylon. The yarn is perfect as it has the softness and slight fuzz from the angora, but is a bit more substantial than pure angora yarns. The colour is nicely muted, too. Not that someone over eighty *can’t* wear shocking pink and luminous green, but I think my grandma is not the sort of person that *would* wear those colours. And the best part? It cost a measly £1.95 per 115m ball. No, the even better part was that the service from TLKC was brilliant. I ordered the yarn yesterday, got a phone call from Ruth in the afternoon to apologise that she had missed the post for it to be sent Recorded and did I want it just sent regular first class, which I said was fine so she refunded the difference!

Now all I have to do is knit it..! Can anyone tell me how to make a 36 hour day?

Diane’s right, of course. There’s been far too much secret knitting going on here of late. And as it’s not just an odd pair of socks, it takes longer to complete, or even longer if I have a bloggable project on the go at the same time.

But I have done other things other than sit with my secret projects and ignoring my blog. A while ago now, Diane posted details of her oven dyeing technique and as it seemed fairly idiot proof, I had a go.

Not having proper dyes available to me, I used Sugarflair food colouring pastes, of which I have plenty. Mainly in garish colours, mind, but I selected Dark Brown and Ice Blue for a relatively harmless and, hopefully, manly combination.

I’m actually very happy with how it turned out. The proof will be in the knitting of course, but it was fun to do and I’m tempted to try with some “proper” dyes next time!

So other than eating muffins yesterday, I also got to fondle yarn.

Diane brought me a gift from her trip to Australia: a skein of Touch Yarns “Exclusive”, a kid mohair/merino blend yarn. It’s like having a little purple curly pet and will make the snuggliest scarf imaginable next winter.

…a pig flying overhead, and a confirmed sighting of the Loch Ness monster. All things I expect to happen today, because this parcel was delivered:

My Rowan International membership gift! I renewed my membership in July last year. A whole nine months ago. I had given up pretty much ever receiving the gift as I was holding out for the purple colourway and it was never in stock. Clearly I’m not alone in my purple obsession. But to give Rowan their due, it arrived!

I don’t intend knitting either the waistcoat or shawl patterns that came with the yarn as the stitch pattern doesn’t appeal to me. But it’s good to know that you can get a shawl from 4 balls of yarn and I might do something lacy of my own instead.

Now off to hunt four leaf clovers and see if that rainbow has a pot of gold at the end of it..!

It’s been a funny sort of week. I’ve been getting older, not knitting much and have been a bit blergh. Fortunately, the getting older part involves presents, so I can cope with that.

There’s a bit of a purply-pink theme running through my presents. I don’t know where people get the idea that I like those colours. Firstly, from Diane, a giant skein of Dream in Color Baby, which is the same squishy gorgeousness as their Smooshy, but laceweight. From Tess, I received two skeins of Jojoland 2ply Cashmere (the pink), two balls of Angel Yarns Cashmere (the purple) and some Tess Dawson Suri Silk. Much squidging has been happening.

But I also got knitted pressies! From Kai, I received a Mary Jane Pithy Hat knit with dreamy alpaca and SOME SOCKS OF MY OWN!

Here they are being modelled. They fit perfectly.

And then Diane sent me MORE SOCKS!

These ones are Baudelaire, knit with Knitwitches sock yarn. I feel completely spoilt and am going to look after my socks and not get holes in them, even if I have to walk on my hands all the time.

Finally, a self-portrait of The Bunny at 33 Years Old. I think the likeness is uncanny.

Some things are a sure-fire way of helping me to forget the trauma of mitten knitting.

Yesterday Diane came round with cake and my Christmas present. Two skeins of the softest cashmere loveliness from Live 2 Knit, which had travelled all the way from Australia.

After looking through my patterns last night, I’ve earmarked it for Ene’s Scarf in Scarf Style (Ravelry link). It’s very subtly varigated, so I think the simple pattern will go perfectly with it. Plus I have almost exactly the right amount of yarn needed. It’s fate.

* * * *

I am waiting for a package from Amazon. I’ll share the photos on here when it arrives; my grandma (with a bit of help from my sister) gave me an Amazon voucher for Christmas so I chose a few knitting books that have been on my wishlist for a while. I chose free delivery, which saved me £5, but it’s taking forever to arrive. However, it does have tracking. At 6.30 this morning, it was in Droitwich. Now it takes about three or four hours to drive from there to here. So the bets are on: will my parcel arrive today?!

Now there’s a title! I speak only of yarn, though. Although some people have storage boxes purely to store their Koigu stash, I have never bought any at all. Ever. While I think the colours are pretty, it isn’t the cheapest of yarns and there are so many other pretty varigated yarns to try and I am only one small red-hatted bunny.

Anyway, I bought an odd skein of Koigu from Cairi last week because it was various shades of my favourite colour and I was curious. There’s not a lot a person can do with one small skein of yarn other than admire it:

but the Koigu Addict came to the resuce again with this pattern. I bought some dried lavender at my local farmers’ market at the weekend, too, so assuming that I can somehow stretch time, I will knit a couple of these sachets as Christmas presents.

So far it hasn’t had any strange effect on me, but maybe I have to start knitting with it to get the Koigu Bug. I shall report back!

I started writing this post yesterday evening, but gave up after about two minutes because I was just too flippin’ exhausted.

Yesterday I met up with Diane, Kai, Meeta, Ali and Jacqui and our little band of eager knitters went to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace.

I will never go on Saturday again. I need to have that tattooed on my forehead or something because it it VITAL that I don’t forget. It was fine when we got there, but after about an hour, suddenly every other crafter in the universe arrived and it was packed.

I wanted to get lots of photos, but instead, you’ll have to be content with one of my haul:

I bought 150g of denim blue hand-dyed bamboo silk and wool blend from The Handspinner Having Fun. The secret parcel (bwahahaha!) and Folk Knitting in Estonia (which has been on my wishlist for ages) are both from Socktopus – who eaily win the award for most beautiful giftwrapping, if there is one. The purple cashmere laceweight is from KnitWitches and was my early Christmas present from Kai. Well, it saves her carrying it all the way home!

Not in the photo is the bag of sweets bought from the stand in the entrance hall which cost almost as much as a skein of sock yarn. Still not entirely sure I wasn’t conned. After all, fat people will pay a fortune for sweets, they are so desperate. Well, ha! Because I didn’t eat any of them. Um, yes…

I also picked up a copy of the new Yarn Forward magazine, which contains the pattern for the Pomegranate Shawl I designed back in Februrary. The Interweave Holiday Knits magazine wasn’t strictly in my haul, but Diane gave it to me on Saturday so it counts as far as I’m concerned.

I should add at this point that despite being overcharged for sweets, aching in places that I didn’t know it was possible to ache, etc, etc, that I had a BRILLIANT time. Highlights include spinning with a potato!

I will be spending today fondling my haul tidying the house ready for a VIP visit tomorrow. Send very overpriced chocolate.

…it saves time. A brief break in the postal strikes meant I could get my Wollmeise order today.

Wollmeise Superwash in Vergißmeinnicht, medium intensity. I was also sent a tiny gift sken of this colourway:

and I need to find out what it is, because I adore it. (ETA: It’s Indische Rot. Now I just have to stalk the site til it’s available!)

This yarn is destined for my festive knitting. I don’t suppose anyone can guess who it could possibly be for..?

Why wait until your socks are finished before you wear them?

This sneaky photo was taken this morning while shoe shopping with Diane. She was buying, not me. I was just there in my role as Fashion Guru. *sniggers* If you’re buying boots to wear with handknitted socks it makes sense to try them on with said socks. But what if you don’t have any with you? Ever resourceful, Diane used the half-finished sock in her bag, and wandered around the shop with a circular needle around her leg, trailing the remaining yarn behind her. I think the sales assistant was slightly bemused by this mad behaviour by people who knit their own socks and don’t just buy them like normal people. Oh, and for the record, she didn’t buy the boot in the photo, but some gorgeous ones with ribbons on instead.

I have yarn pr0n to share too, of course. I have found The Yarn for my noggin warmer!

Two squidgily scrummy balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in pale pink for Grumperina’s Art Deco Beret (Ravelry link for those of you on there). And I don’t even have to knit it myself!

One of the things I like best about being a knitter is that I get to buy myself presents in order to give other people presents!

This is more of Cairi’s lovely 100% merino sock yarn, for another person deserving of handknitted socks this Yuletide.

Alpacas spotted at Chessington today. They must have realised that a crazed knitter was watching them.

Lots of the things I like are purple.

And yesterday was a very purple sort of day.

I met Diane for coffee again. This time she dragged me round graveyards to see dead people and put her feet on the table. Though she made up for her disgraceful behaviour by giving me this:

Her own beautiful handspun yarn, which I had admired on her blog! It is the softest, loveliest yarn imaginable and will be knitted into something gorgeous.

Then the obligatory visit to Stash to ogle yarn, where I bought some Malabrigo laceweight in Purple Mystery (which I keep misreading as Purple Misery…).

When I got home, a tiny parcel from Angel Yarns was waiting for me.

More purpleness! This is for another Molly’s Headband – for my little sister this time.

And though it’s not yarn, I just had to gloat about share my Oxfam find. Four old Rowan magazines for 99p each – numbers 2, 5, 6 and 7.

Yes, the magazines are incredibly dated. And though I used to complain about their titchy sizing, it’s nothing compared to the “one size fits all” thing going on in these. But some of the designs are really beautiful and would look just as nice today. If I can get good pictures, I will share my favourites on here.

Mint choc chip – MINT CHOC CHIP! – self-striping sock yarn from Middle Earth Yarns. If anyone wants me, I’ll be licking my wool…

Gorgeous self-striping sock yarn, hand dyed by Cairi the Wizard and available from Middle Earth Yarns on Etsy.

I got a lovely surprise parcel from Cairi today. This skein of hand dyed aran-weight yarn fresh from her cauldron.

Isn’t it gorgeous?! I can see it becoming a cosy beret or some snug wristwarmers. If I can stop snuggling it for long enough, that is!

Today’s pr0n is all about lurrrrrve and is PINK and RED. Click the link to see hot, nekkid balls of yarn!

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The first in a weekly series in which, with no knitting progress to report, your author attempts to distract her readers with photos of lust-worthy yarn.

This is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the new Flamingo colourway. 20% of all the proceeds from the sales of this colourway are being donated by Lorna’s Laces to Breast Cancer Research. Do I need to mention how deliciously silky and soft and glorious it feels? I can’t see it working with anything but a simple ribbed or plain sock, but it’s so girly and PINK that it doesn’t need any extra lacy frills, does it?