Some international yarn hunting

So I am currently in New York, so naturally have to check out some local yarn stores to play with some American yarn...

So far have been to Purl Soho and scored these:

Spud and Chloe Fine Sock in Calypso (which is more aqua than this pic)



Madelinetosh Tosh Merino light in Pop Rocks (awesome deep pink)



And Knitty City where I added these beauties

Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere in Bronzed Lake



And more Madelinetosh...this time the Pashmina in Ink (darker and more indigo than it looks here)



I think most of these are going to end up as shawls for me. I could do some serious damage to my credit card here but it all has to fit in the suitcase plus I have many beautiful yarns waiting for me at home too. Plus I want to have a little bit of money to spend at Bendigo!

Random pretties

Have spent part of the morning playing with my yarn stash and my new camera so I can practice with the latter and get the former up to date on Ravelry so I stop deluding myself that I have made stash inroads. There is still plenty of yarn in the stash! Maybe I need to pic a project for each yarn and not let myself buy more until I have made some of them (er apart from NY and Bendigo and, um, the box I'm expecting from Stranded In Oz, any minute now.

But it's nice to have an excuse to fondle one's yarn. I'm picky about how yarn feels, particularly if I'm planning it to be something that will go anywhere near my face/neck where certain wools make me itch, so my stash is just a big bundle of pretty, nice feeling things. Like a rainbow of kittens that don't bite and scratch (or purr...ooh, purring yarn, that would be awesome! Like the living fur in Brothers In Arms.)

Anyway, having loaded all the pics onto my Rav stash, I thought I'd share a few here too. And I swear there are some things in my stash that are not blue, green or blue green. Really. Just not many. Need more pink.

Stranded In Oz Wool/Merino roving in Dark Matter (Am half way through spinning this, so this is what's left) This is from this year's fibre club.



Stranded In Oz Handpainted Wensleydale top in Bottle (ditto re fibre club)



Stranded in Oz Merino sock



Stranded in Oz Alpaca/Wool sock (have to knit something with this soon, so soft and squishy!) (last year's SiOz yarn club)



Knit Picks Shimmer Lace in Shallows



String Theory Caper Sock (with Cashmere! We likey) Bye Bye Blues (gifty from Melissa, I believe)



And now, back to the non yarny world!

Progress

The second devil sock is about a third done. I can't always knit too long on a sock project as between mucho typing and teeny needles, I get sore hands. So I started a couple of thick needle projects. A nice snuggly shawl for me and a conversion of shawl project to cowl project for friend's well overdue birthday present (yarn didn't want to play nice with the lace). All this signals the usual May/June onset of knitting urge frenzy. I spun far more than knitted between October and April (as overdue present and devil socks will attest to) but, just like last year, as the weather gets chillier, my need to KNIT ALL THE THINGS suddenly gets out of control.

Which is not good when I'm on deadline and also because I have to limit my needle time to keep shoulder and hands happy. Still, progress is being made. I even had a small victory today in frogging. Now, I was taught the basics by my Mum when I was a small thing. The basics being casting on in one way, knit, purl, probably some sort of increasing and possibly k2tog decreases. That's about it. Back then, if I dropped a stitch or something, Mum fixed it for me.

Since taking knitting up again, I've been expanding my repertoire and learning from books and YouTube (all hail YouTube) and websites. I've picked up a lot of stuff, I can knit socks and lace and things but still sometimes feel like I don't know what I'm doing with basics like picking up stitches for heel flaps (I avoid this mostly as I prefer toe up) and yes, while I can pick up a dropped stitch, if I notice a mistake too far back, I've tended towards the "must rip out many rows to get to error and cry if you don't have a life line" school of repairs. I am not a gun knitter when it comes to such things (or anything really). Trust me, my sil is a gun knitter, my Mum is pretty good and my grandmothers both knit like the wind. Me, I muddle through.

But today I was knitting away on the cowl on the train (which I don't often do as most of my projects require too much referring to patterns) and noticed I had purled two stitches that should have been knit about three rows down, two thirds of the way along a row. At first I thought "Frak" followed by "no, lifeline, noooooooooo".Then I thought "pull yourself together, self, it's just two stitched, just drop them down and fix them". Which I proceeded to do. On the train, no crochet hook, just needles. Dropped 'em down, figured out which way made a knit stitch and fixed them. Go me!

Not a big achievement but a small step to understanding this whole sticks and strings thing a bit better. Now I just need to con said sil into showing me some of the other stuff and I'll be set.