Cheating on the yarn diet

                                                             ^ This is me.
This is why I don't regularly visit my LYS . Of course it helps that my local yarn store isn't really all that local. It's hopping on the metro, changing lines and then catching a bus unless it's nice outside.

I've been pretty good about my yarn diet. Obviously any yarn that I bought for xmas gifts or yarn that was purchased with xmas cash/gift certificates doesn't count. I've been knitting from stash or slowly selling off yarns I'm not crazy about. But that changed last Thursday when I went to Mouline with T. She needed yarn for a shawl/wrap project, and I tagged along because I wanted to get some Addi turbo sock rockets. We happened to go during their winter sale...it was tough, but I managed to keep myself in check. They didn't have sock rockets but I did get some Addi Turbo Lace circs. (my birthday is coming up so who knows? maybe some sock rockets will find their way to me haha!) I bought two skeins of sock yarn, one skein of Piccolo by Julie Asselin, in the totally stunning Nebula.

And then as I was going to get another ball of yarn for T, I was distracted by some Manos del Uruguay Alegria in Cabaret. Could not resist it.

I have a sock yarn problem.

But hey, yay for sales right??

I also (and this is vry vry exciting to me) bought a Fleece Artist Thrummed mitten kit!
How neat is that? There was a basket on the floor with a couple of these kits, I didn't notice them at first, they were under the Handmaiden yarns (gorgeous but pricy!) that I had walked by like 4-5 times. I'm pretty sure I squealed out loud (i'm so attractive) I was just talking about getting some roving, and it practically fell into my lap-which I obviously took as a sign that I MUST buy the kit.

I don't know when I'm going to get around to knitting the thrummed mitts, next week is a 4 day school week, and B sounded all sniffly today so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a day or two of him at home. Plus I volunteered to make 2 dozen mini chocolate chip banana breads for the bake sale this coming Thursday (or is it Friday).  And I want to make B another pair of mitts, the kid growth spurted right out of his mitts...How does that even happen? all of a sudden his wrists are exposed! and his thumbs are too big!

I'm going through my purple phase. I feel like I have a lot of purple in my stash. Which is odd because I don't have much purple in my wardrobe. There's this weird thing where whenever I buy yarn, I feel like I have a lot of blue and green already in my stash so I stay away from those colours and buy more purple. Meanwhile, there's very little blue or green. I need to expand my palette. I'd like to add more yellows and oranges, but not bright or neons (ugh) I like the darker, earthier yellows and oranges. You don't seem to see much of those colours though, and I'm afraid to order yellow online, i'm worried that the colour will be to acid-y or baby-ish. Overall i'm not a big fan of bright colours or neons (ugh) or pastels.

 Aywhooo, there's been a lot of purple knitting going on. I'm still working on my twilight sock.

Making real progress on it since it's my travel sock and there's been more public transportation taking  than usual over the last week and a half. I'm very charmed by this yarn. The striping isn't perfect, the dye isn't totally even, it looks like it's done by hand (which it is) and I like that-I appreciate that someone did it. It gives the sock character.

I've done a little work on my Vneck sweater knit with Malabrigo Rios in Plomo (from now on, it shall be referred to as the plomo sweater k) Note: ALL THE PURPLE ARE BELONG TO ME!

The arms have been separated, now it's a buttload of stockinette-wheee! I did a little bust shaping with the last sweater, but I lost my notes, so now I have to figure out when/where to do some decreases. As I got to the end of my ball, I decided to learn a new technique-I wasn't really satisfied with my usual "tie a knot in it" way of dealing with joining a new ball. It just doesn't look nice, and since I wasn't coming up with any better way on my own, I looked up the tutorial for the Russian Join by Staci at verypink.com (Fantastic tutorials-my go to) which I had glanced at moooonths ago and bookmarked for such an occasion.
                      You can see the ends and the needle, joining the new ball to the old.

Voila! Look at that? Joined! No knots! No ends to weave in! Who's a bamf? ME!

It's really quite easy to do, Staci explains it so well, and it just looks so darn neat when done! I was vry pleased with myself. I know spit-splicing is the method that suits natural fibres the best, but I can't be arsed to learn another new thing at this moment. Maybe when I stop thinking the Russian Join is cool, I'll want to do some spitting and splicing.


It was my sweetie's birthday yesterday <3. There was cake. (and cupcakes)

Yesterday as well as today-my mother had a little birthday dinner for M and also made cake. om nom nom. However, nomming and knitting do NOT go well together (at least in my case, there may very well be someone out there who isn't a complete slob like me). Sucking chocolate icing off of a sock is not very dignified. I don't know why I keep attempting to knit and snack at the same time. Isn't that the definition of insanity? Repeating the same behavior and expecting different results?

Now, off to bed-B is sleeping at his grandmother's tonight, I may actually have the chance to sleep in!  I just want to sleep in until 8am-maybe 8:30...oh man, that would be sweet...


Random cat picture, because why not?