stash reduction knitting

It's really insane, the amount of personal stash I've got. I'm putting some of it in the shop, including forty some skeins of Koigu. Just keeping enough to make a charlotte's web shawl, which is now in the new Koigu book. I bought the pattern years ago, but thank the knit-gods that some good editor got her hands on it for a rewrite. As talented a designer the author is, I personally have major problems following her pattern writing.

This is sort of a rite of passage--every knitter makes one at some point, right? Mine will use 6 or 7 colors and be about a third bigger than the pattern. I am determined--stating publicly--that this will be completed in five days. Stay tuned. Here's what I did today.

a couple more pix

I'm liking these shelves a lot. Each section holds 5 to 10 skeins nicely. That's the Louet sport weight merino on top, and the Plymouth Suri Merino on the bottom. I've swatched the latter up — nice yarn. It has that alpaca smoothness, with a springy wool hand. Sweaters made from this blend will hold their shape, unlike most pure alpaca knits, which tend to stretch, and still have that glorious alpaca feel. Its got a nice range of colors too, nothing straight out of a crayon box. Might need to use some of that for me!


These are a set of signs I designed for the shop. That bowl of yarn is the coral Plymouth Royal Bamboo, which is going to be turned into a seriously sexy lace camisole, when I get the time.

We're open!

Finally! After all these months, the shop is open. Here are a couple of pix of the interior.

I made two pairs of these giant needles to display samples and hold our exterior sign. They are made from large hardwood dowels with curtain finial ends, a fun project. The belt sander made short work of the points.


We're stocking about 20 colors of this space dyed pencil roving. I was spinning up a sample during the open house.


I was so excited by the colors, I had to knit up a swatch straight off the bobbin; since it's a single ply, and was spun with 2 ply in mind, it's biasing like crazy, but I needed to see what it was going to look like. Next time, it can be spun looser. I'm loving these happy colors!

Sheep Attack!