stash

First of all sorry for not posting last week - I've been ill! I catched a very nasty cold that forced me to bed for several days, and it's still not quite gone, but I'm trying to take it easy and get well soon.

Anyway, I do have some news for you! First of all, you may notice that the site is now conciderably quicker to browse. I mean, it's really quick! That's because my DH Nick moved the site to a new server with more capacity yesterday. Thanks honey!

And second: I've decided to go "cold sheep" for the rest of 2010, meaning I won't be buying any yarn for my personal use this year anymore! I've done yarn diets before, but not for so long, so I'm quite excited to see how it goes! But fact is, my stash is getting too big so this is a very needed step.

Have you ever gone cold sheep for a longer period of time? How did it go?

There's one annoying thing about Novita, the largest Finnish yarn brand: they change their selection very often! I read about the lovely new yarns on Ravelry or get a few balls from my sister to try them out. I plan to buy (more) of this yarn the next time I visit Finland. By the time I get to visit Finland, they've discontinued the yarn! The bad thing is that I then can't get the yarns or colourways I want. But the good thing is that if I do find the yarns, they'll be in the marked down bin!

As I said in my last post about the WWKIP in Bochum, I also visited the local yarn store there. I have been keeping a strict yarn diet this spring, so I thought a few new nice yarns won't do me any harm, and anyway I just wanted to try some new things. So here they are!

First the lovely Artesano Arans, which were just so beautifully dyed and soft I had to have them, even though they were a bit over the price I would usually pay for yarn (they were 10.95 € each).

Next we have the Lana Grossa Linea Pura Organico (Rav link) organic aran weight 100% non-mercerized cotton. So lovely and soft! I've never knit with cotton this thick, but I'm really looking forward to it!

This is the second year when I'm knitting from my stash (not exclusively though!) with the Ravelry Stash knit down group, in particular the Personal Small Items "club". The idea is simply to (before the year) starts pack one small project per month -yarn from stash plus pattern- and work these projects month by month.

The idea is that by packing the yarn and patterns beforehand you quite quickly forget what you packed and are happily surprised with what lovely yarn and a nice pattern you get to reveal from its bag monthly! Well, that's what happens me most of the time. These here are the two fun projects I've made this year.

Now take a look at these goodies!

I have to tell you about this really nice new yarn shop I ordered the Lollipop and Zauberball yarns from. It's called Mylys and it operates from Hamburg, Germany. The online shop is pretty and easy to use, the yarn is gorgeous plus the service was really helpful and quick (I had a little problem on placing my order, but the owner Naima solved the problem in a minute and actually asked for more feedback so her programmer could see if the shop is working properly!). Plus the yarn arrived in a day or so - shipping cost free (for orders over 40 euro from Germany)

So that much of the new lovely shop where I will certainly be buying again - now the yarns!

I thought you'd like to see the yarn I got from Finland in July. Here it is (and that's all - I didn'z go crazy this time!)

First the Schoeller+Stahl Elfin Color acrylic and mohair mix. I felt a bit silly buying German yarn in Finland, but it was in sale and I haven't seen it here, so I just took it with me. Later I found out it has been discontinued . I bought three balls, even though there were four left in the shop. I still regret not buying the last one! I think I'll be making a shawl out of this at some point.

I also bought some (=three balls) new Sandnes Garn Kitten Mohair, the same yarn I made my Fifi with. I really liked working with this yarn; it wasn't itchy or splitty, and you can knit it with big needles (the Fifi was made on 6mm needles and in my opinion that is a good size for this yarn when making a lacey shawl (which most likely this yarn will end up becoming).

After the Hamster month I think I got a bit carried away ordering yarn... let's see what we have here.

First the actual reason for ordering: Malabrigo lace. I'm taking part in a swap, and decided to send my partner some lace yarn. Plus I've been planning to try some lace myself, too. So two skeins for me in gorgeous green (colour Forest) and two skeins for the partner in another lovely colour!

There's no point in odering just four balls of yarn, is there? So I got some other things I liked too.

Some local yarn in orange, plant-coloured and organic sock yarn in a similar colour. The picture is really bad, the colours are much more orange and stronger!

I went to Germany for Christmas. Germany is the land of sauerkraut, good beer - and sock yarn! Marvellous balls of thin, lovely variegated Regias and Lana Grossas in a broad variety of colours. Not to mention the 50 eur gift card to a LYS there... and the sale in the other LYS... so here the goodies for you. These should keep me occupied trough 2008.

1. Lana Grossa Fantasy in reds and yellows.

2. More Lana Grossa - Mega Boots Stretch in blue and red.

The Kool aid dyed yarn in balls - I can't wait to knit something of them!

Värjäsin lankoja viikko sitten, nyt sain ne kerille! 

The Dublin Knit Collective has announced a Flash your stash -yarn po*n show. I did flash once this year already, but anytime is the perfect time to show your greatest assets - your yarn.

So here it is! I put it all in a nice Flickr slideshow, as I had the stuff up there already. So see my stash!

Or, a part of it... it's missing the cotton yarn (a lot!), pretty much all of the novelty yarns in sample sizes (even more than cotton) and all the balls I'm working with at the moment, which is quite a few as well.

So Laura, go ahead and tell DH that at least one knitter is a worse (or worsted, hehe) stash hamster than you!