Knitting by Zen

Annie Modesitt (designed of amazing garments such as is having a small family crisis at the moment and has become the family’s breadwinner. If you feel so inclined (and love, as I do, some of her creations!) then please visit the Red Carpet Convertible site and donate a small chunk of change, then download the pattern for a gawjus top!

Money raised goes to the following cause (from the website): The money we raise with this pattern will go toward non-medical needs such as transportation to & from the Mayo clinic for Gerry & family members to care for him, mortgage and expenses while both of us are devoting our time to fighting this disease, and child care expenses for our 9 & 10 year old children, Hannah & Max.  Once again - thank you! 

And apart from that - how is everyone doing? I am so busy it’s amazing that I still have my health / partner / sanity . I am on "holidays", which means that I have yarn dyeing coming out of my ears, new products that I want to get out the door, women giving birth so days that I planned on using for dyeing turned into a 14 hour day in hospital, work work and more (paid) work (for an employer that I enjoy working for but still! I needs me some time off), and somewhere in there I’m supposed to do things I love.

So today I did - I went and had a long massage to get some of the kinks out of my hip and back. It worked wonders but I think I’ll have to keep up the regular visits . 

I have almost finished knitting a new scarf for myself out of this gorgeous yarn:

which I swapped some other red yarn for, as I discovered in putting my stash on Ravelry that I have a lot of red yarn! It’s a very simple 20 stitch scarf with a nice little keyhole in it, and I’ll post pics when I’m more done. I am also knitting an eye mask for sleeping in:

I got some very exciting stuff in the mail recently:

and I’m going to turn them into kits with my yarn shortly!  

This is my repost of my response to a thread on a knitting list I partake of, about stash organisation:

1) Do you buy yarn for a specific pattern or do you see yarn and fall in love with it then buy it in the hope that a suitable pattern will emerge? (this is me!).

2) Do you fall in love with a pattern from the USA and then struggle to find an equivalent yarn in Oz (even after swatching)?

3) Do you buy yarn from the USA? If so, who do you find to be the most reliable and with the best freight charges?

4) Do you sort and store your yarn by colour, ply, synthetic/non synthetic or how?

5) Do you store in plastic/paper bags or loose in boxes?

6) Do you keep a written record of what yarn you have? I’m about to do this so that I won’t have to drag everything out from under the beds, out of cupboards etc in order to know what’s in my stash.

Organising your stash is very personal. Do you think in terms of colours? Or in ply? Do you have enough yarn in your stash that you can browse through it when a cardigan or wrap pattern catches your eye, and use what you have there, or are you like me and more conservative in your stash, so major projects require shopping but you always have lots of 8ply on hand for a scarf, shawl, stripy project or scarf? Do you keep odd balls left over from a project, thinking you’ll use it later (usually for stripes, or tea cozies or throw them away? Do you use acrylics and nylons and novelty yarns in the same way as you do wool and cashmere and cotton? Do you have fiber and fleece to store as well as yarn?

You can buy plastic storage tubs for many spaces from Kmart, Target etc and even Bunnings. These are great for moving stash around or storing it in one place, and you can always stick a plastic sleeve to the outside with a simple sheet on it describing the contents. Put it on the side facing you so you can browse easily. Or get a polaroid camera and take a photo of each yarn and stick it on to the side - smarter to do if you swap yarn around regularly.

Sort the yarn how you want to be able to search for it. If you have more than 2 balls, get some plastic ziplock bags and put them into the bag, then label the bag with what it is, and what you intended when you bought it. So one of my bags might say "8 x 50g balls navy cotton, Bendigo Sept 2006, tshirt or camisole". Put the different types of yarns together into piles and then into the plastic tubs - try not to overfill as you want to be able to toss through each one without having to empty stuff out.

One exam down, one to go… I’m taking today to wind all of my tasty new yarns into skeins for sale. Very pretty yarns!

I mentioned earlier that I’d seen someone wonderful with a scarf made out of my sock yarn and I actually found it today! It’s over here at Bell’s Knits!! 

Hello blog readers - I am still here, kindof! I am in the land of ExamRevision, so I am not knitting much or blogging much. I have new glasses which makes life a lot more pleasant!

I have finished Sonnet though! And it is very warm. Photos as yet not done. I have been doing lots of dyeing though and have some very exciting new products on the horizon! I also have a few new exciting business things up my sleeve - being an indie dyer is hard work sometimes but then again, life occassionally drops lots of lovely things in your lap all at once.

Examples of the latest dyeing (including some new colourways!): 

Toffee Apple: 

Shin kicking cowgirl:

Bees Knees:

And some very exciting new yarn, a cotton/lycra/wool blend perfect for socks:

Pink Lemonade:

Sunset: 

For sale soon!!