My replacement shipment arrived last night (interesting, they sent it to my house, when I had my shipping address as my office).
I received everything that I had ordered, except one skein of Wool of the Andes, which is on backorder. I am going to call today and see if they will replace it with another skein in a different color or just remove it from my order. It wasn’t backordered when I originally ordered, and if they had just shipped my package when they were supposed to, then I wouldn’t have this problem now!
At any rate, here is the yarn I received:
This is the Shimmer, alpaca/silk blend, laceweight. I ordered 3 skeins for my secret pal. This was to be her “Valentine’s” gift, but as you will now note, it’s way past V-day. This yarn is very pretty, and very soft. Although I have bad Madli’s Shawl flashbacks whenever I think about laceweight yarn, some of this may end up in my stash at some point.
This is 5 skeins of Wool of the Andes. The orange, brown, and blue are for me (had to throw something in the cart to get the free shipping), and the gray and cream are for Sara, who I am going to teach to knit in 2 weeks at the Craft Party–she wants to knit a felted bag as her first project. She also ordered black, but it is now on backorder.
I was a little worried that the cream wouldn’t felt, since sometimes, light colors do not. So I asked her if I could do a test swatch. It felted VERY quickly and easily, and made a very firm fabric. And it felted so quickly by hand–I can never get anything to felt by hand! So I am very happy with the Wool of the Andes.
As for the missing skein, I am going to call KnitPicks again today and see if I can either have the skein replaced with another color or have them credit me the cost. They have already charged my credit card for it, since they failed to ship my original order. They are not supposed to charge for items that are backordered until they ship.
The last items in my order are 2 hanks of the dyeable Merino sock yarn. Very soft! I called my mom last night and suggested that she and my MIL (who are coming to the craft party, but don’t really do any crafts, so they are trying to come up with something to do) could each dye their own hank of sock yarn with Kool-Aid. Then I will knit it into socks for them for Christmas. Mom thought this would be a fun idea! She wants the socks to smell like Kool-Aid all the time though. :)
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And an End-of-February update. Yesterday I finished the 2nd ball of Lana D’Oro on my Lichen sweater. I also knit half of a baby blanket square, using up the last of the white cotton. As for projects, I finished 5 projects during the month. Yarn:
15.5 balls of yarn knitted during February!
Stash Update: -1.5 balls listed above. +5 (3 Wool of Andes, 2 Merino sock yarn); 220 in stash. I am not counting the 2 balls of Wool of the Andes that belongs to Sara–that’s not my stash, it’s hers!
Tagged as:
February Contest,
Stash
Yes, it’s time for our second installment of “Hand-knit accessories that Julie will want.”
Today we are introducing fingerless mittens. Again, the yarn of choice is Lion Brand Landscapes, in Rose Garden. I love this yarn. Next time it’s on sale, I’m stocking up. Probably more Rose Garden, and definitely that Autumn colorway that I sent to Madalyn.
Pattern: from the IK fall 2002 issue
Yarn: LB Landscapes, Rose Garden, 2 balls (there is a little leftover from each ball, enough to have made these into real mittens)
Needles: Size US 11
Time: about 3 hours start to finish
In Contest news, Kris called me last night to call off the contest. I’m not sure if she thought I wasn’t having fun since it was pretty much hopeless for me, or if she stopped having fun, but I agreed. So no more contest. I’m still going to track how much yarn I knit up this month though, just to see. Since I have a little left on each ball from the mitts, I’m going to count that as 1 ball.
Stash update: -1 ball of Landscapes; 227.5 in stash
Tagged as:
February Contest,
Gloves & Mittens
I should have knit a lot yesterday. But I didn’t. We had our friends over last night to watch the game, so I was socializing and watching the kids instead of knitting. I did finish up the ball of Koigu Kersti in the afternoon though. It’s a little sad. No more Koigu to knit! :(
I did start the ball of Katia Ingenua on the Secret Pal Scarf, but I don’t like how it’s looking. I’m going to frog it and continue with the rest of the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk that I have. Then I’ll have to find another use for the mohair (perhaps mittens).
So, here’s what I have after 1 ball of DB Alpaca Silk & 1 ball of Koigu Kersti:
Kris is probably going to win the contest. I don’t have any novelty yarn, nor any desire to get any. And most of my yarn is in larger skeins than the novelty yarn comes in. Fletcher hurts my hands/wrists, so I can’t work on it too much. I can only hope she decides to work on other projects, or has some days when she can’t knit.
Balls knitted in contest: .5
Stash update: -.5 ball of Koigu; 228.5 balls in stash
Tagged as:
February Contest
Friday, I knit on the afghan square during lunch. Then I took it with me to our staff meeting, and knit on it under the table (so as not to annoy anyone else) while all of my coworkers told us what they’ve been working on for the last two weeks. Then I finished up the ball of Aqua after work, while waiting for Kevin to pick me up.
Kris, I am going to post a photo of the square on my LJ for you, if that’s OK.
Friday night was our Game Night. We went to Justin & Sam’s house, which is slowly falling down the hill. There is a serious slant to their house…anything you set down rolls, and it’s even difficult to stand up from a sitting position without losing your balance and almost falling into the fire. Add a few hours and a bottle of wine to that, and well, you get the picture.
I took a little knitting project with me, because there is plenty of time during Game Night where we’re all just chatting, and I might as well make progress on something! I took a ball of Lion Brand Landscapes in Rose Garden (yeah, you know I hate pink, right? Why am I always falling in love with pink yarn? I don’t get it.). I found this cute little bag pattern online, and it only takes one ball. I almost finished it. I ran out of yarn for the bind-off, so frogged back to take out a row. While putting the needle back into the stitches,
THIS happened. It broke! And it’s my most often-used cord too.
But I put the bag onto a different cord, and finished it up. I need to make a lining for it though, then seam up the edges. But it’s a really cute little bag! And I suspect Julie is going to want one.
Saturday, I just worked a little on the Secret Pal Scarf. We spent the majority of the day cleaning our bedroom. REALLY cleaning our bedroom. We washed down all of the walls, moved all of the furniture (and rearranged it) to sweep up all of the dust, vacuumed the mattress, washed the curtains, and steam-cleaned all of the spots on the carpet. And I sprayed everything down with Febreeze Anti-Allergy spray. I slept much better last night. I only had to blow my nose once instead of the usual 25 times!
Balls knitted for contest: 2
Stash update: -2 (1 ball of Aqua, 1 ball of LB Landscapes); 229 in stash.
Tagged as:
Bags,
February Contest
I finished up those first two balls of Noro Kureyon on Fletcher last night. So that’s (unfortunately, since I wasn’t too far into them to begin with) 1 more ball of yarn knitted in February. Fletcher is rough on my wrists and hands. I’m going to have to alternate working on it with other projects. I’m also not thrilled about the bottom edge curling up like it is. The pattern only calls for 4 rows of seed stitch, which really isn’t enough to stop the curling. But maybe when it is seamed it won’t be as bad. I also think that that bottom edge caught the Kureyon in a thin moment, so then further up it’s thicker, and stiffer…so the thin spot is curling more because of that too.
Then I swatched and cast on for an afghan square. I’m using a ball of Jaeger Aqua, in a really pretty pink color. And since it’s DK-weight, I’m double-stranding it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get a full square out of it, but I have some other DK-weight cotton I can use, just do some different colored stripes at the top of the square.
Here’s my dilemma. I don’t want to post a photo of the square. The eventual recipient of this square may read this blog. Kris, can I email you the photos (or post them on LJ)? Then when the afghan is with its new owner, I can post photos (of the finished afghan too, because I am the one who will be seaming the squares) here?
(There is another afghan that I am working on as well, not sure yet if I will be working on it during February, but this problem may come into play with that as well.)
Balls of yarn knitted for February: +1
Stash update: -2 balls of Kureyon (I hadn’t counted the 2 balls as halfs on my spreadsheet): 231 total in stash
Tagged as:
February Contest
