yarn

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!

The Knitting & Crochet Blog Week is over, and as much as I loved posting every day, I just can't keep it up. So here I am returning to my 2-4 posts per week.

I'll start by showing a recent, very happy FO or actually two - the recycled green baskets! Why are they recycled? The yarn which I made them from is called Novita Flip Flop and it's made out of 80% recycled plastic bottles! The rest is acrylics. And why are they green? Well, because they're recycled - and beause they actually are lime green! Here are the specs:

Oh, yarn. How do I love thee, let me count the ways! As you can see, a lovely yarn is the last theme of the great Knitting & Crochet Blog week.

Now this is a really difficult subject - I have so many lovely yarns I could present! But I took a long hard look at my Ravelry stash and decided to choose Marks & Kattens Eco Ull.

I first was introduced to this yarn some years back, as I received two balls of it in a swap. I ended up making Nick Dashing mitts out of it. He didn't like them so much, so mostly I wore them! But I had noticed I like the yarn, plus it was not dyed and organic as well, that is representing my values rather well.

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!

EDIT 20.01.2010: I got an email from the owner, and the fur has been removed from the shop. As it turns out, the owner is a vegetarian herself, and answered my mail in a nice manner. I have no problem anymore with buying from Wollkontor Erlangen.

I've been a pleased customer of the German online yarn shop Wollkontor Erlangen - they have a really nice selection of yarns and their service is good.

Last week a few of regular Essen knitting group "members" met at one knitter's home for some knitting (obviously), chatting and ball winding! One of us has a swift and a ball winder and she was kind enough to bring them with her. I brought half my skeins with me and wound them all to pretty center-pull balls!

Here's a little film I took from the process. Just German audio, but you'll get the point just by looking (and notice the interested cat!)

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).

Two weeks back me and a few friends from the Essen kniting group went to one member's place to have fun and dye.

She had set up everything at the back yard, so we won't mess up the house. There was also bread and salad to eat, plus chocolate of course. How lovely!

So we got started and everything went fine, before it started drizzling and the weather got quite chilly. We persistantly kept on dyeing, and the rain pesistantly kept on coming down, so at the end we were almost as wet as the yarn! Just take a look at the sun parasole in the microwave picture! (press Read more if you can't see it)

In the end, the results were gorgeous, as you can see. Everything got dyed, and after three pots of tea we started to feel dry too, and sat around talking for several hours more.

I take part in activity called "Random acts of Kindness", mainly through the groups on Ravelry. One posts a wish list of things one wishes for, and some one else can then send these items (or thoughts or anything) to the wisher, without getting anything back or getting money. Someone else might then send something for this person.

I've been really blessed with two gourgeous big gifts lately. First, Clarissa from US/Italy sent me a skein of banana silk yarn, and KoolAid. I only took a photo of the yarn though, it's so gorgeous! I don't know what to do with it yet, though. Any ideas?

The second beautiful packet arrived from Finland, from Muoriska and contained four (!) balls of Novita Wool, which I like a lot (it's great for hats!) and a box of chocolates - on the cover it says "Life is like a box of chocolates". I found that lovely!