Stash Acquisition 2016: Not the last one of the year...

Happy Saturday :)

I've had a couple of items come in recently and, because I'm trying to be crazy transparent about how much yarn I actually buy/acquire, it's time for an update.

Now, to be fair, two of the five items are not my fault. And two I forgot about until I got an email saying, "oh hai, we shipped your things." And the last one...well, that was a purchase for me.

But, let's get on with it already!

Firstly and foremostly, the two items that are totally not my fault:

Two skeins of Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Dove Heather. I have two skeins already so now I have four.

What's the story? Well, maybe a week and a half or two weeks ago, I got a random email from someone via Ravelry inquiring about two skeins of Swish Worsted in Wonderland Heather (which is an aqua color) that was hanging out in my regular stash. She wondered if I'd be willing to swap my two for her two as I had the dyelot she needed for a sweater she was making and the two she had had enough of a difference that you could see the stripe between dyelots. So, obviously, I can do that. She shipped me the two skeins of Wonderland Heather she had.....and these two. Totally not my fault! I'm not complaining.

In addition to that, I had a couple of project bags show up from Slipped Stitch Studios (for those of you keeping track at home, these were the "oh hai we shipped your things" surprise).

This is one of the Bag of the Month Club bags (BOM Club) when they did Severus Snape a few months back. It was a pre-order so I was going to have to wait anyway. It's the Two Skein bag, which is listed as "medium" and I have several. I lurves them.

This one, on the other hand, was left after the BOM Club for Labyrinth had finished and was available "on demand."

I bought them in two separate transactions but I emailed them and asked if they could hold onto the Labyrinth one until the Snape one was finished. So, they arrived together this week and I 100% forgot that they were coming.

Happy surprise?


And lastly.....

Ever since Artfibers closed their doors, I've been snapping up bases that I like. I came across this one in a destash. This is Sylph from Artfibers. It's classified as a DK weight silk, mohair, and wool blend (hence the halo effect you see). This is a full 700 yds, which is more than enough to make a shawl but we'll see how things go.

No idea what it's going to grow up to be....but I have it.


Now, between today and the end of the year, I should only have club shipments coming in (StevenBe Inappropriate and the last few of my Erin Lane Indie Yarn Carnival...October and December...and October is en route)......no other yarn. No nothing.

Hahahahaha. We'll see how that goes.

Have a lovely Saturday!

WIP Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!

Today, we have an installment of WIP Wednesday :) I've not done one of those in awhile...oops. Too many things going on, I suppose.

Anyway, the WIPs.

Wait. What? These look like finished socks.

Well.......they are finished socks. But you'll notice that they're not even close to matching. So, these are still WIPs.

The sock on the left is the first of my Traveling Socks. I started these on December 23, 2014 and I call them my Traveling Socks because they're the ones I have in my purse. They're just plain, vanilla socks done over 72 sts with an inch of ribbing and, in this case, a short-row heel, which is something I've not done on adult socks. I'm not completely sold on the idea of short-row heels but we'll see how I feel about them once I have a finished pair. They fit pretty well, though I think if I ever do short-row heels again, I'll need to make them a little shallower. It's fine, though. The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in Time Traveler, which is discontinued. I have several skeins in my stash so I expect I'll have a couple pairs of somewhat matchy-matchy socks. We'll see.

The sock on the right is the first of my Dragon's Egg Socks. These are my longest-running WIP right now as I started them on September 2, 2013...an entire year before Stormageddon was born. I've made a couple modifications with this one because of issues with fit. If I had made the leg as long as I was supposed to, these would be almost up to my knees...and they wouldn't fit over my calves. So, I shortened the leg. I also had to do some fancy work as I got closer to the toe and during the toe decreases. It worked and I took decent notes so I can replicate it for the second sock.

I've got a couple more WIPs in the works but these are the two I've had the most focus on recently.



I've also decided that it's time to start reading more often. On Monday, I went through my books with a notebook, wrote things down, and decided on a reading list of sorts. It's not in any order (though I do have books blocked off that need to be read together - like the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings series)...I can just pick a book at random, for the most part. So, I picked a book.

The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer.

She's known for a lot of things: Neil Gaiman's wife, musician, TED talk speaker, and she had a pretty horrific and very public "breakup" with her record label, among many other things.

I'm only about 40 or so pages in but I like what I'm reading. I think part of it is because I do actually know something about her so a lot of what she refers to makes sense. But I also like what I'm reading because of the subject matter: asking for help when we need it. So often, people can't ask for help or view it as a failure of themselves, which it doesn't have to be.

I will warn you, however, there is some colorful language and if you've got a problem with f-bombs, this book may not be for you. But, if you can overlook that, it's a good read :)



Also, this happened to fall into my mailbox on Monday...

My new Beetlejuice project bag from Slipped Stitch Studios, along with a package of Beetlejuice stitch markers.



I'll be back on Friday with an installment of FO Friday (it's a two-fer!) and then on Sunday for my Year of Projects post. And maybe somewhere in between. We'll see how things go.

Today, I'm linking up with Ginny :)

Have a fabulous Wednesday!