Stash Enhancement

Before poor Tigger was beset with a host of rather impolite bacterium, I found myself with that rarest of college resources: a little extra cash. Being a knitterly sort of soul, I funneled said resource into stash enhancement. The package arrived days before the whole emergency veterinary hospital ker-splooey, and while I considered returning it, there are many good arguments against such a course of action. So! This, after much deliberation, is my first go with Knitpicks (and my last stash enhancement before embarking on a full-scale no-holds-barred Stash Diet-with-a-capitol-S-and-D). Now I'm one of those often-formulaic knitters who only buys yarn with a project for said yarn already firmly in mind, and this shipment is no exception. Every ball has an ordained purpose, including the four that I sent in to be exchanged due to color issues (more on that later- aren't you just quivering in anticipation?). Can you guess what pattern goes to which project? Hint: with the exception of one very simple project I plan to design myself, every pattern is hiding in the Knit/Crochet resources list linked to over there on the right.

Behold, delicious yarn porn:

Whatever would I make with such colors?

Knitpicks Wool of the Andes. It's not as soft a wool as their Merino Style (which is to be expected), but will serve my purposes wonderfully. I love how vibrant the colors are. This one is destined for my own tiny no-pattern project. It is not a new concept sort of project- I have seen this idea executed repeatedly in the past- but it's something I've wanted since before I knew how to hold a knitting needle. And it'll be quick. And easy. This yarn is intended for quick gratification knitting.


Cream and Purple makes... ?

Knitpicks Palette. I like this color combination and am excited to see how good it looks knitted up into the intended project (of mystery!!1!eleventy!).


Enough blue for something big-ish.

Knitpicks Shine, which is a cotton blend. I really like the feel of it- very smooth and soft.


These colors make me think of ice.

For a hint: two of these little yarn piles, including the one directly above, are destined to warm my hands. This has been a chilly sort of winter, the sort that so overwhelms with its unrelenting winter-ness that by February you are no longer capable of even imagining an end to the windshield-scraping snow-shoveling drift-slogging agony. It is not necessarily a bad winter -I have seen bigger blizzards- so much as a horrifically persistent one, a kind of chronic misery. Of course, I must admit I'm a bit biased- with the exception of skiing, I've always considered myself a creature of the heat. The point is that this persistent winter has gifted me a persistent fascination with knitting things to keep my hands warm, and that persistent fascination played a definite role in this order- I may even change around the part I'm designing to account for my cold little hands.

Aside from how to clean drool off of a stack of delicious, delicious yarn (is it porn when it's in your stash-box?) my biggest dilemma is choosing what to knit first. I went for a number of small projects on purpose, because I wanted to try out a variety of Knitpick's options on the cheap- though there is a photo missing from that set. Merino Style, four balls in black, not photographed because the corresponding four balls of Strawberry were much more orange than I was prepared for (though all the OTHER colors matched their website pictures perfectly on my monitor and various other monitors- Merino Style's Strawberry is just an stubborn little color to display properly, it seems) and thus I decided to exchange them.

My wisest move, the responsible crafter move, would likely be to finish up the two projects I've got languishing on the needles/hook before embarking on any new yarn adventure. I'm not sure I'll be able to hold to this- the mind is willing but the flesh is weak- but I will try. I'm going to focus on the crochet part first, because it's smaller and does not require I figure out where in the bloody hell my fifth size 8 DPN disappeared to. Behold, a work in progress!


This is a hat. Really.

This is Sassy A, another pattern I've linked to on the little list on the right I keep poking you with. It's from Dot, who offers up the patterns for a multitude of glorious crocheted hats on her webpage and whose style you might recognize from a hat in Stitch n Bitch: The Happy Hooker. I think it is the sort of hat with which I could actually pull off the sassy look, and am thus quite excited to finish it. It's also a milestone in and of itself: my first crochet project. Wish me luck!