Love is in the air....

or so it seams since it is almost spring, or it might be just the 4 Nora Roberts romances I listened to in a row. Personally I have not even had a whiff of it, so I have been thinking and wondering about those date sites, ma by they have one for farmers in Wales or Scotland, I could work with that I think, and I really, really like to relocate.

I am of course picturing here the dark brooding Heathcliff type strolling along the moors. But then again, I am afraid of sheep's and the brooding types would probably drive me batty in no time.

What I have come up with is a list of things that qualify me as a great catch without interrupting my knitting time too much. The things in the brackets are the things they don't need to know about.

• I can have a hot meal on the table every evening ( why do you think they make all those TV dinners, It doesn't take a rocket scientist to push the buttons on the microwave )
• I keep a clean house ( just give me the number of the nearest cleaning service and I can knit while they clean )
• I am interested in cars ( Is it pretty, is it shiny, is it RED, those kind of questions show a definite interest to me + you can knit while driving around looking at cars.
• I adore men who like to watch football every weekend over the season ( as long as it is far, far away from home in a pub somewhere and I can knit in piece and quite at home )
• I understand completely that men have to go to the pub and meet their mates a few times a week ( that counts towards lots of quiet evenings with my knitting )
• I like men who have hobbies, I am thinking power tools and other expensive things here ( this will kill the Stash discussion in no time )
• I am very mild tempered and sweet ( as long as I get things my way and you don't make me mad )
• I like macho men ( this is just for the fun factor, I like to see a grown men cry after I give them a piece of my mind about that macho crap.
  
• I like S.E.X ( I don't have to disclose that the sex in question is an acronym for buying more stash.

So what do you think, am I a great marriage material or what.

Meet the Stash

Since I have been blogging for a while now I only think it's proper for you all to meet the stash that is the source of my nickname. So here it goes, first I like to introduce the Stash Wall, all the ugly stuff, the average stuff and most of my sweater yarn lives in the Ikea boxes, the plastic ones are reserved for more quality yarns and the one with the top open is where most of my Posh and Yarn Chef stash lives. The bale on the floor is where the FO's go until I decide what to do with them or in the case of lace until I block them.

Next up is the mini stash wall and some of the books, magazines and binders that can also qualify as stash with a little bit of my cross stitch stash spelling out of it's hiding place. There also seams to be a few of my scissors hanging out there with the books and the tiny speck on the floor is a basket with fabric that has the ambition to become project bags when I get the urge to give the sewing machines a whirl.

The next one is the stash that lives in a part of the closet, its very shy and delicate as it is mostly cobweb yarns in silks and cashmere. The stash does take up more closet space but its not housebroken yet so it stays locked up for now.

Last but not the least is the not so tiny wire basket holds all kinds of yummy sock yarn, it stacks 4 balls high so it packs a lot of punch when it is let out of the closet.

Now that you all have been introduced you can safely say hi to the stash in the comments and I will pass it along.

A friendly disclaimer from the Guardian of The Stash:
You may covet The Stash, but if stuff starts to disappear I will be forced to take measures. Since I know who you are and where you life the punishment will be the following, the most horrible yarn in the Stash including the cursed carpet yarn will be sent your way. When you have knitted that up the leftover stock of MCY will appear at your house and we all know how that stuff behaves in the dark, so you will have it on your hands for the rest of your life.

The Garden Party is over

and done with except for blocking of course, I finished the shawl this morning and now it is resting with the six other unblocked shawls in my FO basked. I highly recommend this pattern for those who like lace since it is clear and flawlessly written and charted. There are also other bautiful patterns by it's designer Laura of Fiber Dreams and I am planning on knitting some of them soon.

This is a picture of it in its unblocked clory , this will be a big shawl once blocked I am sure and below is a close up of the part where the leaf section and the rest of the shawl meet.

Now I am off to knit Laminaria from Knitty, in fact I have already cast on, so now I am off to knit on it.

Knitting on the edge

I like to knit dangerously, this means amongst other things that I sometimes start projects without being sure if I have enough yarn to finish them.

I came very close to disaster this week when I knit the Baby Sweater on Two Needles from Knitter's Almanac. When all knitting was done and the buttons sewed on I only had a tiny, tiny bit left.

I have always wanted to make this sweater but I have found it to be a bit wide especially the sleeves. So when I took into account that I would probably not have enough yarn I fudged a bit. I omitted the second pattern repeat increase on the sleeves and body. I like the outcome and it suited the yarn Emily from Posh Yarn and needles #4.5 fine. I even found buttons in my button jar for the sweater.


I am also knitting on the Garden Party shawl and I finished with the body of the shawl and now I have to knit the edging. This shawl is a fun knit and I highly recommend it since it's constructed a lot differently than most shawls. I have been trying out some things whit the start of the border but have not decided on the final solution.

The perfect pattern

has been found for the psychedelic carpet yarn, if this is not a match made in heaven I don't know what is!

The only downside to this beauty is that I don't imagine that it is good for sunbathing since the mesh pattern would give you a very interesting tan to say the least.

For those of you that wish to buy this pattern I am sad to inform you that it is sold out since it was published in Carina a German magazine in 1986.

It might also need some adjustments since it is clearly not geared towards today's fake silicon boobs, but it will certainly showcase any naval piercing the wearer might have.

That said, I have finished the socks from last posting and I have also finished the Baby Sweater on Two Needles from Knitter's Almanac.
So now I can really get the Garden Party shawl going, but as I seam to have a very short attention span something else might take my fancy so stay tuned for the next installment of awful yarns and obscure patterns.

Finally....

I have green thumb's, courtesy of the sock yarn I am currently knitting. I wonder if this will make my two remaining plants feel better since I usually possess what can only be described as the "black fingers of death" when it comes to them.

This yarn is a commercially dyed sockyarn that is designed to stripe in alternate colors of greens, blues and yellow and they must use some heavy duty dyes since I can't get it off my hands with anything. I think I will just keep on knitting until I finish the pair since I don't want this to rub of onto my other knitting.

On the never ending stash logging into Ravelry front, I am pleased to say that I only have two more boxes to go. Along the way I have discovered some really strange yarn in my stash and this is a fine example

I have been wondering what sort of drugs the designer was on when he made it, but hey they must have been pretty good :-)
I am not kidding when I say that the colors and texture of this yarn has lead my to the conclusion that somewhere there was a huge stockpile of psychedelic 70' shag carpets and someone had the great idea to cut it into tiny strings and market it as novelty yarn.

Edited for obvious reasons:
After realizing that the yarn above could put my sanity into question since I bought it, I can only say in my defence that it was in a online sale that just said xx$ for xx amount of yarn on cones.

Knitters and Cats

Since joining Ravelry I have discovered that lots of knitters have cats, why that is I have no idea, I guess furry purring things appeal to knitters.
Since I have the lofty aspirations to become one of those old lady's that were strange outfits and live in a house full of yarn and cats when I grow up I can totally understand this.

Lots of us have our cats as avatars and I love to see them, but when it became my turn to choose an avatar the choice was simple. I had to choose between my ugly mutt and the Cat and of course the Cat is a lot more photogenic than I am, even my mom says so!

But anyway me and the Cat had a photo beauty contest and the Cat won hands down, especially since his highness usually can be found draped over some of my luxury yarns, like the Mongolian Cashmere and the Silks and Merino lace yarn etc. Somehow I don't think that a picture of me draping myself over a large amount of pure cashmere would beat that, it would probably scare off small children and we don't want that do we.

The only problem with knitting and a Cat is that all my knitting includes cat hair, there is no way around it, it just sneaks into whatever I am knitting. So for the "lucky" recipients of my finished objects please note that they are both knitted with love AND cat hair.

That said I have been spending a lot of time on Ravelry and I have been sucked into reading threads that I could not have imagined that I would be interested in, like the dreaded Copyright issue. Someone would say that this would be a very intellectual debate with lots of legal stuff and boring as hell but it is sooo much more. This is usually the treads where some heavy duty mud slinging takes place, it only takes one member to say something like "if the pattern is out of print I see no harm in copying it for a friend" and off we go, everybody and their brother on their high horses.

Personally I like to buy my patterns and I know a lot about the does and dont's of copyrights but I can also understand that not all people have this knowledge and I am not personally offended if someone is clueless about it, but that just me.

I also spend a good amount of my Ravelry time looking at other peoples projects and some days I just want to hide my needles and yarn I feel so unworthy when looking at all those amazing things knitters have made. But usually I just make a resolution to be a better knitter, someday.....

Baby Knitting

I knitted two of those sets and love the yarn, it is Mulligatawny from the Yarn Chef and since the colors of the yarn did all the talking I chose a pattern that would highlight the yarn without taking it over. The sweater pattern is the Seamless Yoked Baby Cardigan from Knitting on The Net and its a free pattern by Carole Barenys

Next up is a Girls sweater in the same yarn but different pattern and color and I have somehow been sucked into join the Garden Party KAL on the Posh Knitters board on Ravelry, this shawl has a very intresting construction and will be fun to knit. I probably will knit it at a snails pace but thats ok by me.

I have also been knitting some socks and here are the lates ones.