Socks to be

I went to yarndale yesterday. It was wonderful, actually. We went very early so we were there when it opened, and we left after a couple of hours, just when it was starting to get really busy.

I picked up a couple of beautiful things. Some lovely fibre, and some yarn. Then today I took pictures of my favourite yarns to put on my ravelry stash page. Lots of things that I've had for a while and haven't put up yet. It's not that I went mad at yarndale - though I think it'll be a while before I get any more yarn.

Here are the fibres I got. I was down to my last 100g of fibre, and I think I've been spinning less because I was worried about running out. So hopefully I can start spinning again now. These are from a company called Laal Bear and they are lovely.

I've also been thinking about sock yarn as I was taking pictures of it. I adore sock yarn, and it's dreadfully easy to justify just one little skein more. I love the colours, and that you can get a whole project out of one skein. Some things I have two skeins of  because I want to knit long socks for Ben. But mostly, I just get the one skein (and think to myself that I can always stripe with black, or add contrasting toes and heels if I knit socks for him).

Above is a colourway called Boisenberry with which I've wanted to knit Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Earl Grey socks.

And on the left is some stunning yarn that Ben happily described as being in Chicago Bears  colours. So I want to knit him a pair of plain socks (maybe with the princess sole that he has requested) in those colours. It's from A Stash Addict who I met at yarndale, and I was really impressed with the yarn she had. She and the person running the stall with her were both lovely. I did very well to buy just these two skeins and not All The Things.



Easyknits do 150g skeins of fingering weight yarn called Big Boy which I think is a glorious idea. I picked one up yesterday at yarndale in the wonderful colourway "Marmalade" - see the picture on the right.






But when it really comes to yarns for me, I tend towards the darker colours, the greys, the blues. Even with socks I tend to go for the more subtle shades.

 On the left is some easyknits deeply wicked sock in a colourway called Deadly Embrace, and on the right is some yarn that is probably destined to become a shawl. It's from Eden Cottage Yarns and the photo really doesn't do it justice.


I finished a sweater the other day, and today the plan is to finish a shawl today. I'm on the edging, which sounds like I'm going to get it done soon, but it's a 500+ st bind off with attached icord edging. There are reasons I decided to take pictures of my stash today!

I'm going to try to blog more often. I started a new job just under a month ago, and it's been taking a lot of my time. The commute is longer than I'm used to, and getting up to speed is taking some time. Still, work/life balance is a good thing, and I like blogging.

Next time I am going to post some pictures of finished things - the sweater, the orchid thief (that needs blocking) and hopefully the shawl that needs the icord edging.