YARRRRRN - acquisitions and, um, de-acquisitions?

I went yarn shopping yesterday. Bought too much, as usual; but oh, was it fun. :)

I finally got my hands on some Lion Chenille (not Thick & Quick, the regular chenille). I am dying to make the vest pictured on the label--so much so, in fact, that I want to make it in all 4 of the colors I bought! *giggle* I will have to see how the first one goes before I really decide to do that, of course. I'm going to start with the red. I don't wear red very often, but this particular shade is so beautiful.

I got many other yarns, too. I bought a good deal of Lion Boucle, which I am now unsure about using because I didn't realize at the time that it was 20% mohair. Argh. I could probably work with it, and probably make something that wouldn't be worn right next to the skin...But I don't think "probably" is good enough. I did find a cute sweater in a back issue of a crochet magazine that I might like to make from it, though. And there's a capelet that uses it as trim that I really like. (I'm not sure I particularly like the capelet, but the trim is awfully pretty!) I guess I won't make a decision about that yarn just yet!

I am considering selling a lot of my Bernat Sox yarn. I am a spoiled brat and don't really want coarse yarn on my footsies. ;D If I sell some on ebay, perhaps I can justify buying something a little nicer. I don't know, though...I've been ebaying a lot, and trying to save that money. I won't sell all of my Sox yarn, of course; I'll probably still want to make some socks out of some of it, since the colors are very pretty. And maybe the socks I am working on now will turn out to be more wearable than I currently think they are.

I'd really love to get some hand-painted sock yarn. Yum.

Oh, I found another sock pattern! It's in the Dec. '06/Jan. '07 issue of Crochet Today! I bought the magazine for a buck at a yarn store a few months back. Well worth it, I'd say.

baby blanket 6-28-07

baby blanket 6-28-07
Originally uploaded by saintlex

I am almost done!! :) Just a few more inches to go.













Here's a close-up pic of the pattern:

first finished sock

first finished sock
Originally uploaded by saintlex

WOOHOOOOO! I finished a sock! :) Didn't take all that long, either--I just hadn't been working on it for a while. I'm not totally thrilled with it. The cuff is a little big, and the seam at the toe isn't great (I think maybe I made the sock just a little too long?). But my mom and my fiance think it's pretty, and some nice people on Flickr do, too. ;D

Guess I'll just have to make another one to match!

I don't think these will be the comfiest socks. I realized, in the course of trying these on, that Bernat Sox isn't the most comfortable to wear. I'll wear them anyway, of course. (Proudly!)

I have a TON of Bernat Sox yarn, so I'll use it and like it, dammit. Heheh.

Here's a pic of it on my foot:

Sock progress and blanket progress

I finally picked up my sock again tonight. I am now almost finished with the first one; I just have the heel and a little bit of the toe left to do. I am pleased to report that it seems like it will fit! :) I've been trying it on at all its various stages. If it does fit, let's hope I can make one that matches. Heheh.

I am not overly impressed with the Bernat Sox yarn I've been using. Yeah, I know, it was cheap. It's probably not the best quality stuff in the world. But the center-pull skein keeps getting all tangled up in itself. I can't get the other end of the yarn to stay awaaaaaay from my WIP! Grrr.

I am also still working on the baby blanket. It's getting close to being done. I had no idea it would take this long! Anything for the baby, though. ;) I got to hold her for a while the other day. ♥ ♥ ♥

I confess that I have been terrible at keeping up with others' blogs lately. I've been selling a lot of things on ebay (mostly jewelry-making supplies), and trying to take care of some health problems. I hope to get some good reading time in soon.

I am such a happy swapper. :)

My first swap was completed today--I got my book in the mail (Encyclopedia of Crochet! Yeah baby!!), and she got her yarn in the mail today, too! :) What good luck. We both sent our packages out on Saturday.

I am verrrry happy with my new book, and can't wait to try out a whole bunch of new stitches. I hope my swap partner is happy with the yarn.

And I'm in the middle of a swap with someone else. I'm giving her a whole bunch of jewelry findings and beads in exchange for a knit & crochet book and (what else?) YARRRRRN. :D Some cotton sock yarn that sounds yummy, and violet Fun Fur! Whee!

I like this swapping stuff!!

We saw my sister's new baby the other day. She is beautiful. (As are all of my sister's children! I am not kidding--they have the most gorgeous kids. I may be biased, but wow, they are cuties.) My sister and brother-in-law loved the booties I'd made, and my sis says she'll take a picture of the little one wearing them. I can't wait to see those little feet in the little booties. Awwwww.

I will definitely be making more of those booties. I can't help myself.

Swap update! :)

I am swapping those 2 skeins of Araucania Nature Wool for Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Crochet. Yippeeeee!!!

It's not a yarn ball winder, but it is a book I knew I would buy eventually, and one I've been drooling over for a while now. ;)

No one seems to be jumping at the rest of the stuff I have to swap, so I guess I will probably try to sell most of it on ebay. *shrug* It gets tiring selling stuff on ebay, though. All that packing and shipping. Hopefully, I will make enough money for it to be worth the trouble.

I went out with my sweetheart tonight, and we happened upon a copy of Total Crochet Fashions by Gayle Bunn while at Wal-Mart (I had to pick up a few things, and of course I had to stop by the yarn section while we were there). ;) It looks like a good book. Have any of you read it/seen it/tried any of the patterns? It got good reviews on Amazon, and it has some nice-looking things in it. I put it on my wish list.

I had a crisis last night--I couldn't find my G hook! ARGHHHH! I got a new one today, but it's a plastic one and the one I can't find is aluminum. I don't really have a preference, but I'm afraid the plastic one will break--it's so thin! Well, hopefully I will find the other G hook soon, and then I'll have 2 of 'em. I should probably have a spare of every hook size. I am way too good at losing things.

Tomorrow, we finally get to see the baby! I am so excited. We were supposed to go last weekend, and then my fiance got sick, and I was worried that I might have what he had and that the baby might catch it if we visited. This weekend, neither of us has anything contagious. *knock wood*

Sorry I haven't been commenting lately. I need to catch up on my reading. :)

swap swap swap swap

I have a TON of stuff to swap. As far as yarn goes, it's just the Nature Wool and a skein of Lion Wool Print in Majestic Mountain; but I'm also trying to unload a ton of jewelry-making supplies.

If you want the details, please click here. :)

Before I forget...

Two groups on Flickr I wanted to post about.

Free Knit and Crochet Patterns - pictures of people's FOs made from free patterns, with links to the patterns! What a great idea.

Yarn Bouquet - pictures of how people have decorated their living spaces with yarn! Lots of fun. I'm still trying to think of something clever to do and post. It would have to be some kind of wall hanging, since it's not like I have any free surface space in my li'l studio. (Though I do have some ideas for temporary yarny decorations that I could post. Heheh...)

yarn for sale or swap

I bought this Araucania Nature Wool (color 47 - turquoise) at a yarn store not long after I first started crocheting. I was just thinking about how pretty it was, not about how I can't wear wool and how no one I know can, either, and how crocheting with it would probably make my fingers itchy. D'OH!

Now, I would like to either sell or swap it. I'd ebay it, but I'm reluctant to do that because I think this yarn deserves better! ;) If you'd like it (I'm giving those who read this blog first dibs), let me know how much you would be willing to pay for it, or what cool non-wool yarn you'd be willing to swap it for. What would be especially great would be if I could swap it for a functional yarn ball winder.

After this post has been up for a bit, I'll probably also post this in some LiveJournal communities; but like I said, first dibs to you folks!

Not much else to report here. Still working away at that baby blanket, which is now more than halfway done.

Successful yarn shopping in RI, and my new jewelry blog

yarn from Yarns at Lace Wings in RI
Originally uploaded by saintlex

While my fiance and I were in RI, we found this amazing yarn store called Yarns at Lace Wings. Oh my goodness. They had really nice yarn, at prices I could actually afford! I went bonkers, as evidenced by the photo. ;)

The purple tweedy yarn in the box is Tatamy Tweed. The photo didn't quite capture the color, which is a gorgeous mix of warm purples. I got enough to at least make a shrug. :) The other yarn in the box is Debbie Bliss Cathay. It was on sale, so I bought all that was left in these 2 colors! Should be enough to make something nice and stripey. In fact, I'm kind of wondering if the spiderweb cardigan would work in 2 colors, since I think I have enough to do that. We'll see.

Outside the box: the sparkly stuff on top is Berroco Jewel FX. I got 2 skeins of 2 different colors (more sale yarn, so that's what they had). SHINY! To the right of that is this AMAZING rayon boucle yarn that my beloved fiance bought for me (in a very sneaky manner, I might add!). I don't think any photo could ever do it justice. It's made by Blue Heron Yarns, and I think the colorway is called Sandstone? Anyway, I will have to figure out what I want to do with 212 yards of it. I want to make something I can wear, but 212 yards isn't enough unless I do a scarf or shawl (which I might), or mix it with another yarn.

To the right of the Blue Heron yarn is Berroco Boho Colors. I have been drooling over this stuff since I first saw the Java Jammie pattern on the Berroco web site. :) I don't think it was on sale, but I want my Java Jammie, goshdarnit! ;D The light green yarn directly to the left of the Boho Colors is a ribbon yarn by Artful Yarns. I'm a little confused about what it's called. The price tag covering the labels says "Cinema 193" and "Norman Bates." The dark green yarn directly below it is a ladder yarn, Berroco Mosaic FX.

Finally, the yarn in the plastic bag is an adorable eyelash yarn from Sweden called Funny, made by Pelsgarn (or is it the other way around? I somehow doubt that the company's name is "Funny," though).

I also bought some pretty buttons and some stitch holders, not pictured.

Then we went to Joann. Boy, was I askin' for it. :P Needless to say, I am now beyond broke (gotta love credit cards). I bought the box in the picture there, and I found the yarn I'd been looking for for the Snuggly Scarf! It was indeed Corinthian, and they had 5 skeins that looked just like the one I'd bought to make my scarf. I snapped 'em up. A pic is somewhere in the near future; right now, my camera's batteries are recharging.

I also bought a lot of beads. I used to make a lot of jewelry. Then I stopped. Now I've started up again, mainly because I am tired of wearing the same old stuff. ;)

If you'd like to see the beaded earrings I've been making lately, please head on over to my handmade jewelry blog at smiling-turtle.livejournal.com.

I also moderate a community over on LJ about fair trade/ethically made beads and jewelry supplies, which I started a long time ago when I first realized that most beads are made by people working in the worst kinds of conditions. If you bead and are at all concerned about such things, hop on over--I just posted a list of suppliers of good fair trade beads. It's a good start, even though the list hasn't been updated in a long time (but I did check the make sure the companies are still around!).

Losing patience with Flickr...

The deal with Flickr: you pay $25 to get a "pro" account and store as many pictures as you want, or you get a free account and you only get a certain amount of storage space. That much, I'm OK with. What I'm decidedly not OK with, is the fact that your old photos "disappear" to make room for the new ones. You don't have a choice as to which ones get "archived" (meaning no one can see them but gee, they're still on the site somewhere and you'll just have to take their word for it).

Are there any free, reliable image hosting services that don't do this crap, but that also do the image resizing for you? (I really like the fact that Flickr makes your images into different sizes for you while still keeping the original.) I don't need unlimited image hosting, but I do want to select which of my photos are kept and which ones are not.

Apart from the fact that I don't have an extra $25 right now, I wouldn't choose to spend it on image hosting if I did. (YARN! Need YARRRRRN! And BEADS!) ;D

black crocheted flower brooch with Czech fire polish beads

black crocheted flower brooch with czech fire polish beads
Originally uploaded by saintlex

Here's the flower brooch I made to fasten the sash for my bridesmaid outfit for my friend's wedding, which was last Saturday. It was a big success (the flower, AND the wedding!). :D


I made the flower with Caron Simply Soft in black, using a pattern from the Lion Brand web site. I sewed the beads on afterward, since I had a limited amount of time to make the flower and didn't think it would be so great to experiment with bead crochet right then. I used Czech fire polish beads. At first, I thought they looked too much like little bugs; but the full effect wound up being very nice. I'm sure I'll get to wear it again, especially if there's any sash-fastening going on. ;)