On the Needles

Yesterday Mom sent over pictures of her many tubs and cones of yarn.

Mom's Bookshelf of cone yarn

She's been reorganizing her yarn again, and it inspired me to work in my yarn closet! We are rearranging our living room, and had an extra book shelf that needed a new home...and it happens to be the perfect width to fit next to the dresser in my yarn closet. What serendipity!

Bookshelf, now yarn shelf!

During my rearranging I found all kinds of yarn that spoke to me, a scarf here, a hat there, and a pile of cat toys. That, I think, is the most wonderful part of cleaning up the yarn room - new inspiration for your knitting!

New Scarf on the Needles

Yarn Love - Nashua Knits

Mom and I (Pam and Kirsten!) like to trade yarn. In the last few years it's been mostly Mom sending me yarn, because her stash is a lot bigger than mine, and I haven't really been able to purchase new yarn! A while back when I was expressing my desire to knit Bobcat themed items, Mom sent over some blue and yellow yarn for me to play with. The Nashua Creative Focus Chunky yarn she sent was a little more purple than blue, so the yarn hung out in my closet for a while (one to two years...a relatively short shelf life around here!) A few months back when I was in the haze of infinity scarf knitting I came across the Nashua again, and holding the yellow up against some gray Knitpicks yarn, I had a spurt of inspiration. The poor purple/blue is still languishing upstairs, waiting for its turn in the spotlight, but the yellow made a beautiful moebius!

The yarn itself knit up beautifully, it is a chunky yarn, but with my knitpicks rainbow needles I never had any issues catching or splitting it on the needle tips. The fabric is lush, soft, fluffy, and warm! (Knit up on size 15 needles I believe, in a checkerboard pattern.) This yarn does have one downfall - it shed a bit while I was knitting. The composition is 75% wool and 25% alpaca, and I fear the alpaca wasn't as fine as I am accustomed to. But overall, this was a fun yarn to work with. If you click the link on the picture (sorry it's so small!) you can see the fuzzy quality of the yarn.


Lavender Heather

I'm honestly not sure where Mom got the yarn, but it is relatively easy to find online. Here are a few colorways on Royal Yarns website.
 

Yarn Storage

A while back Pam and Kirsten both discussed their methods of yarn organization. Well, Kirsten's closet of yarn has evolved slightly and now there is photographic evidence!

My yarn storage still needs some help, and I hope to someday completely reorganize again, but for now it looks alright, and it's relatively easy to find the yarn I am looking for!

Yarn Stored in a Dresser in a Closet

Yarn Hanging from Recycled Shower Hooks

Close Up of Yarn Hanging from Recycled Shower Hooks

Do you get the spring cleaning bug? How do you manage your need to reorganize?

Etsy Weekends - Natural Yarn

I know I share a lot of yarn here, but gosh I just can't help it! This yarn is so pretty! I just want to hug it and hold it and love it forever!

Gray Cotswold from ACL HandWeaver 

White Finnish Wool from Just a Day Dream

Come on by next time to see what other finds we have for you!

How Tuesday: How to Navajo Ply Yarn

Just kidding! I'm not really going to give a tutorial on this, because there are so many great resources online that can teach you ten times better than I could! (And a lot of them can do videos too) Youtube is actually where I learned about Navajo Plying back when I lived in Green Bay. I wasn't nearly as good a student back then, and spent a lot more time on the internet. I came across one of those videos (and of course I don't remember which one!) and I thought, "Cool! I can totally do that!" So I did! Here's a picture of it:

Isn't it pretty? I believe that was Gracie fiber mixed with the white girl's wool. Lori let us use her electric carder one day to card up a bunch of the girls fiber, and this was the end product of one of the batches.

Pam has been spinning a little bit lately, which is a lot a bit more than me. She's gracious enough to send me new fiber though, so I can look at it and touch it and wish I had time to spin. Speaking of which...it's time to head to class. Have a great Tuesday everyone, and remember - no matter how much you know about something, there's always more to learn. Like nifty spinning techniques. :)

Yarn Porn - KnitPicks Cadena

Welcome back to the third installment of yarn porn! If you follow our blog, you already know we love yarn (check out installments one and two!) so today I'm here to share another yarn we have found really enjoyable to work with! KnitPicks Cadena!

This is a yarn Pam purchased and sent to Kirsten so that she could learn how to make Moebius scarves. (She also sent a few sets of the Harmony Interchangeable needles, which are pretty nifty!!) It is a heavy weight yarn with a beautiful sheen. The label says it is 70% Peruvian Highland Wool, and 30% Superfine Alpaca. Superfine indeed! The heavy yarn shows great stitch definition, worked well on needles 9-15, and knit up beautifully! It even grafted together well with the spit and rub method (if you are unfamiliar with this method, when you reach the end of a skein and need to add more, you simply splay the plies apart, then lay them next to the new skeins splayed plies, get them wet with saliva, then rub vigorously against your jeans. It essentially felts the yarn in that small area, fusing the two ends together into one continuous strand!).

Here are some of the Moebius we made with the Kestrel and Currant colors.

Gray and Red Infinity Loop size 11 needles, drop stitch

Red Textured Moebius size 15 needles, seed stitch

Check out their other yarns (and goodies!) in their online catalog!

Yarn Porn - BlackBerry Ridge Lace Weight

I want to talk yarn again today! You can read my original post (where I drone on about my love of yarn) by clicking here. Otherwise, stick around and see what I've got to say about another Lace Weight wool...yes...I will probably talk about Lace Weight again in the future...it is my favorite!

Today I actually have pictures of things I've knit with this specific yarn, 100% Wool Lace Weight by BlackBerry Ridge Woolen Mill. (That's the place we get some of our wool spun into yarn...they do an amazing job!!) The first time we visited, they had all kinds of patterns that Mom and I drooled over. We eventually picked out a pattern and yarn for the two of us, we would make matching lace scarves! Mine in black (oh so sensible black) and hers in a beautiful dark purple. The pattern was actually a collection of seven lace patterns - A Week in the Life of a Knitter's Cat and we could easily choose our favorite pattern, this way we'd have matching, but different scarves.

Lace Weight 100% Wool

I think we bought the yarn and the pattern sometime before 2005, but I can't quite remember when. I ended up with the yarn in my stash, and in 2009 finally knit up Mom's scarf. This yarn knit up beautifully, the yarn itself was a dream to knit with! As I said, this Mill does most of our wool to yarn/roving conversion, and there is a reason we have continued to take our business there: they do a great job! If you have wool that you'd like turned into yarn or roving, I suggest you take a look at their website, or if you just want some gorgeous wool that has been spun into yarn in an old Wisconsin Woolen Mill!

Here is the finished scarf:

Two for Tuesday - Yarn Organization

Hello again from Pam and Kirsten!

We're back to talk about organization again, but this time we're focused in on yarn organization!

Let's face it. If you knit/crochet/sew you know what we mean when we say our stash is a little out of hand. That's because knitters, crocheters, and sewers are all hoarders - at various levels of course.

I wouldn't call it hoarding, so much as preparing for any and all knitting needs!

We have a lot of yarn. Between the two of us, we could almost open a yarn shop! Actually, we've thought of buying one in the future, but I'm not so sure how that would help our sanity.

I have been working very hard lately on my yarn, patterns, and completed projects organization. I've sorted finished projects in recycling bags so I can tell what I have complete. I have my loose patterns in three ring binders. One of my favorite past times is to sort yarn. I try to sort it by fiber and then color. There's nothing like an afternoon with yarn scattered all over the living room and then putting it all back into tubs! Most of my yarn is in tubs, those big Rubbermaid ones you can buy at retail stores. Other yarn is sorted into a big cubbyhole system in the basement, while still more yarn is in drawers in a dresser. 

For a while I had my yarn in huge toner boxes - I had put them there for ease of moving, but we ended up staying where we are instead, but I kept the yarn there out of convenience. The only problem was, that the boxes weren't terribly convenient. If I wanted to find a certain yarn I had to dig around the huge box, and sometimes the softer yarns would start to unravel from their balls. Very frustrating. In the last couple of weeks I've been rearranging the second bedroom (read: catch all room/sewing room/storage room/guest bedroom without a bed) as we are soon to get a new bed in the master bedroom, and will put the old one in the guest room so guests will finally have a bed to sleep on! In my rearranging I decided the big boxes had to go. So I bought a $20 drawer organizer in which to store my Etsy mice (they aren't stitched closed, I stuff the catnip and shakers in after they are purchased just in case the customer wants a bell or a silent "church mouse" instead) which then opened up the dresser. I was able to fit all of my wool balls and lion brand yarn in the dresser, leaving only the cotton and flash yarns to fend for themselves in a mixture of cloth, paper, and plastic bags in the closet...which is also where my wool skeins live. I also added one great feature just two days ago: an organizational shoe rack in which to place my needles and other odds and ends! I haven't even filled it yet, it's so new!

Those are our tips and tricks, how do you store your hoard? Er, stash? 

How To Tuesday: Tarn

While cleaning out the closets this year we determined that Matt didn't need half of his t-shirts anymore. Unfortunately, most of them were in pretty rough shape...not donate-able. So I reached far back into my crafting mind and remembered a demonstration Mom and I saw a few years back - turning t-shirts into yarn! I sorted through Matt's shirts for the good ones, and got out my scissors. Now I have two bags of tarn and a stack of fabric to be upcycled into something soon.

If you too would like to tarn, here's a quick break down!

Start with a shirt that has no side seams. If you don't mind having a bump then use ones with side seams too - personal preference is the most important part of tarning! You will only be using the shirt up to the armpits, so feel free to cut off that part before hand. I usually cut it at the end, just so I have a wider swath of fabric to stretch across my knees...since I cut them on my lap like a weirdo.

First shake the shirt out to get it evened up and flat, then cut off the bottom band. The shirt should look like this:

Next start cutting strips across the shirt, making them as thin or thick or thin and thick as you like! You need to lave about a half inch of uncut fabric on one side however, as this is how you keep it all in one strand like yarn!

Once you've cut up to the armpits, we'll go back and cut across the strips, creating a continuous strand.

Cut up to where you've met the armpits, and you now have a string that can be rolled into a ball!

I'm going to make t-shirt scarves with all the shirts I've cut up! What would you use yours for? Here are some ideas from Etsy!

Infinity Scarf

Cat Bed

Bracelet

Yarn Porn - Malabrigo Lace Weight

I know our girls give us more wool than we know what to do with...and if you need confirmation of that statement, just check out our Etsy Shop to see all the weird stuff we try to make with all that wool...but I still have an addiction to buying other yarn. I've managed to be a good girl over the last few years, only splurging a few times since I left Green Bay in 2008 (the Monterey Yarn Shop in Green Bay was a naughty place for me and I would buy on credit like I had money to pay the bill lol). But I still fantasize about yarn...buying it, knitting it, smelling it...you know, normal yarn lover stuff. I am especially bad about lace weight wools. They are my favorite!! The last time I bought a new skein of lace weight yarn, I came home to find the same colorway already in my yarn bin. Whoopsies! I suppose that yarn stood the test of time though, I still loved the color a year or so after buying the first skein! Anyway, I'm writing this post to share with you some of my favorite yarns! Today I want to share Malabrigo. Of course I prefer to smell and touch and stash in the closet my Malabrigo purchases, so I can't show you anything I've made from it. Maybe someday I'll finish something and update this post ;)

Malabrigo Website can be accessed here.

228 SnowBird

I love the colors! They are mostly kettle dyed, so it is extremely important to get the same dye lots when purchasing more than one skein. Even among dye lots there are differences between skeins. This is what I love about Malabrigo yarn, every skein is different, even when it's the same! 

Locate a Store

246 HummingBird

It is also some of the softest yarn ever, a dream to rub against your cheek, or run through your fingers. Their other types of yarn aren't half bad either ;) Moral of the story is, if you come across this yarn - Buy it!! :)