Serendipity

Last week I was browsing Hawthorne Treads' shop, playing around with their Colour Search feature (Go have a look. It's pretty frickin' cool) and um... there was an incident. I don't really know what happened, and I certainly can't explain it, as I'm on a STRICT stash OF ANY KIND diet, but, well... before I knew it there were 10 yards of fabric in my cart and 100$ less in my PayPal account. These things happen.

Anyway, the fabric arrived this week and, aside from making me feel like it's HIGH TIME I break out of my Pink Phase, it's made me very happy.


*Sigh* Isn't that pretty? I mean... forgetting the fact that I've no immediate plans whatsoever for this fabric and that buying it was pure consumerist gluttony on my part... How can looking at that stack not make me happy?

The happy (if slightly guilt-inducing) fabric came with a bit of a surprise, however. It seems that I was so high crazed distracted when I had my falling down accident that I failed to notice that one of the prints I added to my cart was not, in fact, quilter's cotton. It was, of all things, corduroy.


Yup. That there is a wild, funky-ass corduroy. And I'm charmed. I'm smitten. I absolutely LOVE this crazy fabric.


I have no idea what to make with it, of course. I have visions of peasant dresses and bandanas and banana bags and... well. Only one thing is certain at this point. Whatever it becomes, it's going to be awesome.

Happy Knitting, Everyone!

It IS easy being green

As depressing as snow in March tends to make us, rain is worse. March rain isn't happy, dew-like rain that heralds the imminent arrival of Spring. No, this is cold, ice-producing, generally sucking-your-will-to-live wetness. Yesterday's snow storm turned into a steady downpour of rain and sleet mid-morning, turning the roads (and the hearts and minds of every Montrealer) into a slushy, disgusting bog of doom and despair (OK, so I may be exaggerating a little).

Luckily for me, the postman had delivered this month's Solids Club shipment, and it was just the perfect thing to lift my spirits and put a smile on my face.


Green. Glorious, happy, vibrant, symbol-of-renewal-and-rebirth green. I was, to put it mildly, pleased as punch.

I've already earmarked one of the pieces (I got half-yards of each) for my next project: a cute apron for Émilie, as she's starting a cooking class next week at school. It's my first "real" sewing pattern, with those weird paper-thin cutouts that pissed me off to no end in my home economics class way back when, but I'm totally looking forward to it. That green, those flowers.... rain? Bring it on.

Have a great weekend, Everyone!

p.s. : I'm about 5 inches down the leg of the second brown sock. Ooooh. Aaaaaah.

Complex Woman

You know, for someone who felt that knitting was self-indulgent a few weeks ago, there has certainly been a fair amount of self-congratulatory stash enhancement over the past month!

Naturally, there was some pre-Christmas "to me, from me, with love" yarn pron. I totally splurged and bought myself... Wait. Can you guess what it is?


Yup, it's a sweater's worth of SHELTER (Mmmmm, Jared Floooooood). I prefer to call it my Kerrera in the act of becoming, though :) Can't WAIT to knit this up.


I also had a small yarn accident at the LYS when I found out that Mission Falls was closing up shop for good. The idea that I would never be able to buy any Mission Falls EVER AGAIN sort of got to me, and before you could say "yarn diet" I had snapped up their entire selection of 136 Merino in colours I liked.

9 balls of this neutral grey (colourway 003)

5 balls of Forest Green (colourway 016)

5 balls of this lovely Wine Red (colourway 029)

So that's 19 balls of Mission Falls... Like I said, I had a wee accident. Total investment stashage though, and I regret nothing (ask me again when my credit card bill makes a dent in my mailbox).

But that's not all! I mentioned yesterday that Kate-the-Enabler, Émilie and I went on a little shopping expedition this week. It's a trip that's been in the works for quite some time, and we finally got our acts together yesterday. It was glorious, magnificent, great fun, and I think I may have discovered my new happy place. No, I'm not talking about a new LYS or a cashmere warehouse, I'm talking about... the fabric store.

We bought everything I'll need to make my first ever sewing project (the quilted lunch bag you see in the photo above), and I'm totally stoked to get started. Totally. Stoked. I was quite determined to be responsible (what?) and only buy what I'd need for this one project, but... well... everything was just so PRITTY!!!

Yup. I haven't even begun to sew yet, and I've already got a fabric stash.... *Sigh*

Happy Knitting (and sewing!), Everyone!

Modesty

Last week I was browsing around on Flickr, and I came upon this picture of fridaknits' sock yarn stash:

Something about this picture just spoke to me, and while Maxime was napping and Emilie and I were lazing around yesterday afternoon, it inspired me to do my own inventory of the stash.

Have you ever really looked at your stash? I mean, really looked at it? Laid it out in all its glory and taken it all in? I don't recommend it. I've known (and even been proud) of my yarn-addiction, but seeing it all in one pile made me think that this might, perhaps, be getting out of hand now...

Now, to be clear: this constitutes the BULK of my stash. When I first got back into knitting, I mostly bought sock yarn. Not only did I enjoy sock knitting, but I was completely enamoured the idea of sock yarn, especially hand-dyed yarn. And at the time, I thought the idea of getting one project's worth of yarn for 25-30$ was pretty thrifty.

Yeah, go ahead and laugh. Take your time. I'll wait.

So! As I was on a roll, I took pictures of the most recent stash enhancement...




From top to bottom: various single skeins of KnitPicks Palette, to be used for a multitude of mitten projects; 2 skeins of Malabrigo Sock yarn in the Lettuce colourway (I actually gifted one of these to Kate-the-Enabler, super-mom and friend extraordinaire); 5 skeins of Cascade 220 Heathers (which I'll be using to knit the Rococo Shawl)...

And last but not least, one ball of Schoppel-Wolle Crazy Zauberball. Yes, more sock yarn...

Hello. My name is Tara, and I am outta my frickin' mind.

Happy Knitting Everyone!