Acquisitions

I didn't mean to post this yet, I'm clearing pictures from my phone and found some yarn I had added to my stash. There are skeins of Hedgehog Fibres sock in an old club colour (Brick Layer - I LOVE these). Then I have some Merino Aran in the lovely speckled grey Construct colourway, these are just fab and did you know, Hedgehog Fibres source their Merino from farms which do NOT employ the vile mulesing system. I thought 'mulesing' was a word for those joins you get in yarns (dodgy logic from me there!), turns out its a barbaric practice of stripping the skin from around the sheep's backside. Makes my stomach hurt thinking about it.. Another good reason to think before I buy yarns and woollen goods.

This last pair is lovely LITLG, the last instalment of their Winter yarn club. I was offered a second skein as a swap by a lovely Raveller (I was delighted!). The colourway is First Flower and is destined to be a cropped lace patterned cardigan.

August

I'm acquiring yarn a lot less rapidly at the moment, a couple of pretty club skeins and a couple of impulsive buys. It's so easy to buy and hoard yarn and I'm finding that it's not for me, that I feel guilty for wasting money and bad that I haven't the time to knit my stash! 

To be fair, this stash of mine isn't too bad (I think I'm around the 50 mark) but I'm going to work on it, particularly rediscovering yarns I've been holding on to for years. I'm not imposing any purchase bans, just trying to exercise restraint and good sense. I can buy yarn if it helps me knit up some stashed yarn too (I'm planning a big Rowan knit which will use some super old stash!).

I've become very nosey on Ravelry in terms of looking at peoples' stashed yarns, some people have hundreds! One lady had over 1000!! I say, whatever makes you happy - less seems to work for me at the moment.

A skein or two

So, to begin with, here's a beauty I was lucky enough to win in a competition. It's from the wonderful Life in the Long Grass yarn company and is a ridiculously gorgeous little skein. Ha ha, Rich came home from work and I showed him my green skein (see below) and then he caught sight of the LITLG one and was amazed by it (thinking I'd dyed it!), ha ha... Erm, no, that one was done by a professional!

But I'm very, very pleased with my skeins, the yarn I used is very soft and squashy, like a little cushion (BFL + nylon sock yarn). I will probably make a couple of changes when I do the next batch, little things like tying the yarn up myself, it was a little loose and I do like a neat skein.
This will be an excellent and fun way to amuse myself creatively during the day as it's something I can easily do while the kids are around. It's interesting because although I've only been doing it a few days and have only done a couple of batches, it's already feeding back into the studio and helping me with my painting in the evenings (I've been at rock bottom with my painting mojo over the last few weeks).

Stash

It's all too pretty.... So I got a bit obsessed with Hedgehog Fibres recently and went crazy buying yarn from them in dribs and drabs. I do have plans for all of it, three cardigans, lots of socks.

Some of it should be knit up soon. I'm just in the process of finishing my first proper pair of socks - finished one and it was literally the most exciting thing I have done in a LONG time! I was grinning from ear to ear and pretty giddy with this little sock... I have pretty cold feet, so after discovering Hedgehog Fibres I decided I would sort myself a sock drawer out! A good reason to start collecting all those beautiful skeins.