Going Non-Linear

Well, I started Aunt Marilyn's socks. I went with Wiseneedle's "Toe up socks in four sizes" found on her pattern list, here. I'm about halfway up the first foot. It turns out the Sirdar Snuggly is a DK weight, which was not the weight of the sock patterns that I found interesting, and I was not up for doing sock-math. I'm doing a spiraling rib pattern across the top of the foot, and will continue it up the ankle. One of the beauties of knitting in the round is that while the whole pattern is a multiple of four, this part is 22 stitches, which, in my book is almost prime. (1x22, 2x11) There are not many stitch-patterns that would work without a remainder. However, in knitting in the round, I'm always starting from the same side, so it's working out that it's over 22 stitches and not 24, without a lot of thinking. We like that.

I went a little non-linear this weekend. I took Saturday afternoon and went to MetroOrlando's main LYS, a little shop in Maitland. They moved even closer to our house. It's a cute location and they seem like they have a lot more yarn, although it could be an optical illusion. I accidentally spent $170. (4 skeins of Noro Kureyon for a Booga Bag, yarn for 3 pair of socks, a skein of $22 Nepalese rayon for a scarf for Aunt Marty for Christmas, and 3 skeins of some kind of wool that was not quite a solid color and not quite a solid texture, in rust, red, and yellow, and 3 skeins of lamb's pride worsted and 1 skein of Cascade 220, just because I liked the colors for those last 7 skeins, oh and a booklet about sock making).

It would have been one thing if I had "quit while I was ahead" as it were and gone grocery shopping like I was supposed to. But I didn't. I went to Hancock Fabrics where they were having a really good sale. Perfectly good discontinued yarn in for 30% off. I got 3 skeins of wool-ease, 6 skeins of cotton-ease, 2 skeins of something really chunky, and 1 skein of yellow baby yarn (Jamie?) And some fabric too - polar fleece and flannel to make blankies and hooded towels for a couple babies to be. $66 there, which I had to think was a good deal, since they were having 10% off the whole store.

The DH was none to pleased either to discover giant bags of fiber in my trunk nor to hear that I spent $230 on it. Actually, I was a little disgusted too, once I got home and saw the sheer volume of the purchases. Especially when I sat it on top of my box from Elann (of yarn I didn't really need, but just wanted to try out the store)

There's a certain irony in spending an enjoyable afternoon loading yourself up with yarn for projects that will last you probably through next year if you are steady about it or decades if you let them fester.

As a result of this giant purchase, I had to purge my current stash. I threw out a bunch of yarn. It was my Grandma Mercier's. A lot of it was acrylic that cost less than $1 for a large skein in the early 80's. There was some red-white-and-blue colorway that, I swear, must have been from 1976. Fushia with sparkle. Sticky, half-done projects. I kept about 2 cubic feet, in colors that I like of yarn that is still soft and workable. I was a little inspired by Ryan of the Mossy Cottage, who recently threw out a sweater she was working on, because the yarn was icky and she decided she wouldn't wish it on anyone (paraphrasing, perhaps putting words on her blog. I'll see if I can find a link to the post. OK - it's this one from October 10.) Crap. I just realized that I may have thrown out some perfectly good needles. It does make me feel better to know that the stash has a lot less baggage - and more yarn that I like and know what it is, although now that I'm thinking about it some more, I'm feeling a need to catalog it.

I bet I could write something for that....it has a lot of database potential - fields for the content, amount, gauge, intended project, color, washability, other tags/comments.