Thursday 1 March 2007

Pining for a stash . . . this is new.

Not much to report today -- I've made a little progress on the squirrel mittens, and I've decided what to do with them when they're done. My Aunt has a mittens for the needy program at her church - each winter, around Christmas, they give out mittens to families that need them. They may have a few mistakes on them, but now I have motivation to finish! Nothing like knowing there's a purpose to your knitting!

Regarding this stash business - I'm not a stasher. Every knitting thing I own, all my yarns, my accessories and tools, it all fits into one little paper box. Mostly I don't stash because I don't have the money to be buying the yarns I want. Skeins of silk, alpaca by the pound . . . you know it's just not feasible. There's been a lot of stir on knitty over this website, little knits. Well, today I went to just have a look . . . they have alpaca on sale -- beautiful colourways (the cranberry pink one really caught my eye!) for a reasonable price! Of course, once you factor in the rate of exchange, shipping and brokerage, it probably wouldn't be all that reasonable. This is why cross border shopping sucks. Of course there is the stashing deterrent of 'what would I do with one or two skeins of ____'.

Speaking of one skein of ______ , last week I got a fantastic surprise in the mail! A package from my upstream Secret Pal! She sent me some really great stuff - a pattern and wool to try out felting (can't wait!), some other things . . but the biggest surprise: a skein of lace weight Cashmere. Do you hear angels singing? I sure do. I can't even imagine what beautiful thing that cashmere will make. I'm waiting for it to speak to me. No luck thus far . . but I do have a lace book on my Amazon wish list that I'm hoping to get for my rapidly approaching birthday. Maybe there's something in there . . .

2 comments:

KnittingNutter said...

I hear you on the costs of yarn. I have come across a couple of Canadian stores that ship yarn at reasonable prices, especially if you look at their bargain boxes - ramwools and knitwerx. You still have to pay shipping... Once I bought wool yarn at $2/yarn from ramwools.

Tangledbleus said...

Hey there, I just wanted to say hello to another 20something knitty gal. Congrats on starting a blog, I just started one too and I've really enjoyed reading yours. Your FOs are beautiful, can't wait to see more!