Adding to the Stash

Adding to the stash

My husband and I popped down to Yarnivore Urban Thread at the Spice Village in Waco this weekend. I went in there with one thing, and only one thing, on my mind. I was running low on Malabrigo worsted merino in Pollen, and I needed to know if they had any more. Luckily for us, they had just one more hank of the colour I needed for my shawl project. But then there was something else.

As we were getting ready to check-out, I spotted the clearance bin. It’s not exactly a bin, maybe more like a shopping basket. Anyway, there were some nice yarns in there, but what really caught my eye was this orangey-yellow soft and squishy stuff. It was Mirasol K’acha (which up until then, I’d never heard of as I’m not really a knitter of the world yet) in Sunshine.

If you (like me) don’t know what this is, it’s a blend of merino, silk, and alpaca. Alpaca! I’ve never touched alpaca, let alone knit with it. I must say, though, I was extremely excited. See, the price was down to $7 a hank. I guess I also didn’t realise how expensive Alpaca blends could be. That $7 gets you 98 yards. We picked up two because I really don’t know what one can do with just 98 yards, but 180+ seems a bit more reasonable.

My husband says I’ve officially become a real knitter now. This is the first time I bought yarn without a project in mind. I’m officially adding to a stash!

In other news, the shawl is a bit bigger, and mom did actually get to see it this weekend. We spent a lot of time with my parents on Saturday and Sunday, and I had to work on the shawl. She loves it! The colour is perfect, kind of a greyish purple. Luckily, too, the final product will look so much better than it does now, so there will still be a hint of surprise left.

We also figured out why some people knit and others crochet. Sunday I came over before my brother’s play to learn how to crochet (oh, rhyme!). My mom is amazing at crochet, and I don’t mean those granny square things. She’s making this beautiful baby blanket for a friend, which I’ll have to see if I can get a picture of to show you. It’s so gorgeous (and I don’t usually say that about crochet; sorry to the crocheters out there! I do like to be proven wrong, though!), and she just makes it look effortless.

So yesterday we sat down to try this pattern she’s working on. I couldn’t do it. Well, I could kind of do it, but not very well. My gauge was all over the place, and I kept trying to put the yarn on my hook as if I was knitting rather than hooking the yarn. It was crazy and kind of frustrating, but like mom said, “That’s why some people knit and others crochet.” I guess this means one of these times I should teach her to knit.

I also kind of sort of picked up a small project. With the death of my iPhone and its subsequent replacement last week, I got a brand spankin’ new phone. With it came brand new earbuds. I’d kind of tossed around the idea of knitting an i-cord around my earbuds before, but I didn’t want to fuss when my earbuds at the time were so old. Brand new, though, and yes please!

It took me about 12 or so hours of i-cord (I’m slow and didn’t really know what I was doing), but I finally finished Sunday morning.

Non-tangle-able earbuds

The nice part? They don’t tangle. Not at all. Believe me, I tried! I’m so happy with it. I used leftover Kroy socks stripes yarn. These kept me very busy over the weekend, so other than the shawl, which I worked on during my husband’s bowling tournament, I didn’t work on much else.