Knitters at Night!

The bi-weekly get-together:
Jee is working in the dark:
Dark wristwarmers with beautiful cables...

And dark socks, too!   With cables....

Then there are the comparisons...
Before: (6 weeks ago)

Tonight:

That was then:  (6 weeks ago)  What a shame I didn't get the bottom of the shawl!

This is now!

Where will it end??

A WINNER!

Can you believe that my nearest friends were WAY off in guessing my stash?    The answer is: 66. And the winner is Bonnie from Indiana with a guess of 55.  She'd better start counting her stash!
The Contest
I have 66 yarns that I have purchased and not touched.  (Shame on me.) Here's one from SO long ago that I don't have a date...  bought in Durango, CO.

I haven't used the green in the background, either, so these counted as "2" towards my 66.
The really good news:  I have a pattern in mind, and you may see it in the next few weeks if it works out. I love my stash, but I would like to see it used. (It justifies future purchases, doesn't it?)

On the needles

After unsuccessfully trying to finish 3 projects with a toddler, I put those away and have turned towards other things.  Many other things...
Listed not in any particular order:
#1 - Still working on the bolero in orange - sleeves are 1/3 finished.
#2 - A summer top-down T

#3 - KAL Skew socks.  The sock that is farthest along was started and knitted August 2010, put aside and now, since I'm not sure where I left off, I'm knitting the second sock.  Hopefully I'll reach an "a-ha" point where they will be identical (in mirror image).

#4 - Oooo, my fave... Sojourner Cardigan.  Here's the model I saw at WEBS that hooked me:

And here's my status:

No contest here!  I'm in no rush, no deadlines, just pure knitting!

PS: Thanks for stabbing in the dark in yesterday's contest.

FO Shawl

Wow!  Just when I thought it would take forever, I started decreasing.  And suddenly, it's done!
Lovely, Europa Crescent Shawl.

Blankity blank nupps, teeny stitches, 100's of them... Cast on 643 stitches on August 15, and 7-1/2 months later I'm binding off.  All of the tbl (through back loop) stuff and purling 3 at a time, are a distant memory now. I used almost a 1/2 mile of yarn, and the knitting accompanied me across the Pacific and back.  What an adventure!

I'm REALLY happy it's finished.  And the first day I tried to wear it, the temps were in the 70's and everyone thought I was mad...  Well, we'll get a few days this week in the lower 60's, so maybe it will feel good after all.

Pattern:  Europa by Kieran Foley from knit/lab;  Yarn: Cat Mountain (CO), Merino Lace weight 2 ply, 880/100 g purchased at the Pagosa Springs Wool Festival in 2009.  It's light as a feather!

My time

My time with my knitting is the theme of Day 7.  How can I put this mildly and still sound like an intelligent human being?  My best knitting is when I sit at the computer 'watching', and I use the word loosely, my soap.  Days of our Lives is something I've followed for years.  At first it was only on Fridays.  I would tape it on Fridays and watch it whenever.  Then I retired and looked in on it a little more frequently.  It goes nowhere, so even though I miss a week or so (or more) I don't feel like I've missed anything.  And the best part of it, they talk so much, and repeat everything, I don't have to look at the screen.  I watch/listen online because I'm constantly behind in episodes, and it's a great pasttime.  I 'heart' Victor's wit.  I think he's my favorite character.  And I marvel that many of the women have been married to the same two men in the show.  The only time I am surprised is when I haven't been following it and a new person arrives, usually as one of the old characters.  A new face and an old name!  Very clever.
Well, there it is... for all to see.  My knitting time:  50 minutes a day, if I can get it!


I know!  This is as good as it gets!!

Aspirations: To decrease my yarn stash.

A little late.  Day 6 topic on Day 7.

I would like to decrease my stashes of all items found in drawers and closets, and on shelves and in the garage and in the shed, but... one thing at a time.  

My life consists of lusting after yarns.  That’s an overstatement:  I have more of a life than that, but one of my downfalls is that I really REALLY have a difficult time walking away from yarn that is for sale.

The wools, and sock yarns, and other fibers cry out to me.  Their colors dazzle and stun.  But I am resolute!  I will do my best to use stashed yarn until this summer.  Then I will surrender to a plethora of shops in Bergen.  It would be too cruel for me to give up yarn shopping then.  Otherwise, in the past 8 months, I’ve been quite good.  

Yes, and you know what happened 9 months ago?  I was in Norway, and Maine, and WEBS and... I succumbed to the temptation.  

I have a lot of yarn in my stash that I have purchased and not used at all.  All good intentions, mind you, of using them someday, and here goes another “contest”!  You have 48 hours (or until some arbitrary time at the end of Monday) to guess how many stashed yarns I have at this point and haven’t used.  I just counted them up and made my own arbitrary list of those I consider eligible for this distinction... I’m just saying, I have a number.  And GOSH!  I have yarn to award to the person who comes closest to that number, over or under.

And now, without knowing the true count of my yarn purchases in the past 8 months (remembering I had a possum-related lapse in my diet when I was in New Zealand), I will now count up how “good” I’ve been, and therefore deserve to take a vacation in June!

That would be:

Number of purchases since mid-July, 2010:  8

I’ve used 3 of them.

Four of the purchases were made in New Zealand, so those were totally appropriate purchases... And one of the 4 was actually purchased not by me, but by my daughter along with a pattern for her little one.

Summary:  My stash grew by 5 purchases, not saying how many skeins, in the past 8 months.  Have I been “good”?  I certainly haven’t suffered--I stay away from those ^&%**#@# shops!

PLEASE!  GUESS!!

Life at the Beach