Archive for the ‘yarn’ Category

TTC Knit-Along 2010: The Swag

We all paid $10 to participate in the TTC Knit-Along this year, but as I understand it, the proceeds of that money went to Sistering.

Where did the swag bags come from, then? Well!

I’m working from the list of donors on the KAL blog, and doing some educated guess work, so I may not be totally accurate here… if you know better, please tell me, and I’ll fix it! (ETA: fixed the things mentioned in the first comment!)

Let’s start with:

Two balls of my very favouritest yarn, Bernat Satin, from Spinrite!
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(My crochet guild is working on arranging a bus trip up to Listowel to see the fine people at Spinrite. I can’t wait! Also, while I’m on the subject, keep your eyes on the top bar of this blog; I’m planning a “yarn” tab)

Next is some superwash merino from Diamond Yarn:
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Then there are a couple of sets of knitting needles. The wooden ones are 19mm (!) and are from the Purple Purl, and the 4.5mm needles are from Romni Wools:
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A handful of books from Simon and Schuster:
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There were also coupons in the bags, from the Purple Purl, Mary Maxim, and Knit-o-Matic

Here is the t-shirt I won:
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And the bags it all came in:
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(The black one was this year’s bag, the white one was from last year, and it had the t-shirt in it)

Thanks again to the TTC KAL folks, and all of the donors (a full list of which you can see on the TTC KAL blog)

I can not wait until next year! I’ll try to remember to post about it in time for people to sign up and come along (you know, instead of the night before… heh)

Yarn Hangover

TTC Knit-Along: The Aftermath

Charles: I could really go for a grilled cheese sandwich
Becky: There’s a place two doors down from Lettuce Knit that apparently has great grilled cheese sandwiches
Charles: You know, we really should go to Lettuce Knit!
Becky: Ok, but that’s where I got that skein of $39 yarn…
Charles: I seem to have suddenly developed a cheese allergy…

I was on team Central Purple. We started the day at the Yarn Boutique, near the corner of Bloor and Keele, where I bought this:
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As well as some DPN’s. The plan is to make myself a pair of socks… because I’m some kind of crazy person (a crazy person with size 11 feet)! I’m going to try the simplest pattern I can find for my first pair.

Next stop: The Knit Cafe, which sells both yarn AND tasty treats. I had a lovely vegetarian quiche, and bought some lovely malabrigo:
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I’m planning to make a hat out of it, but after winding the purple skein into a centre-pull ball, I’ve discovered that I am allergic to it after all. :( The hat will have to be for someone else, I guess. It’s a shame, because it’s just so very soft!

Then we headed to Romni Wools, which, if you look at a map of Toronto, it seems like it’d be easy to travel between the two shops, but due to streetcar re-routing, possibly due to protests, we ended up taking a scenic route down the street!

I found Romni quite overwhelming! It’s huge, and has every natural-fibre yarn you can think of (I assume… I don’t know of very many!). For someone like me, I’d have been better off deciding what I wanted to make and what yarn I’d need for it before heading in.

Still, I bought this:
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I’m planning on playing with it to see if it’ll make a nice shawl. If it does, I’m going to go back and get more!

We then took another scenic streetcar ride up to Lettuce Knit where I simply could not resist buying this:
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It’s soft, and even more beautiful than this picture would suggest. It is destined to become a scarf, which should be stunning with my black winter coat!

At the end of the shopping spree, most of us headed over to the Rivoli to meet up with the other four teams for merriment and prizes!

I won the “WTF WIP” prize my mitten, which I started when I got on the subway at Kipling Station. This is how much I got done over the course of the day:
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Action shot:
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The most frequently asked question I got about it all day was: how are you going to do the thumb? I love yarnies!

More in the next post about the amazing free stuff we got! (Look for that post either later today or tomorrow… my blog is being quite flakey today!)

I’ve Got Mail

Look what arrived!
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It was full of happiness:
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See that yellow-ish yarn peeking through on the left side of the box? I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with that yarn… it was cheap, and I like self-striping yarn, and I got 10 balls of it, just in case. (I also got 10 balls of a pink-and-white striping yarn of the same type).

Then it hit me, when I was almost finished that green-and-cream dishcloth from the last post: this yarn would look fantastic in the swirly-hexagon motif!

So, I started the dishcloth pattern again, but with 30ch to begin (instead of 15 for the dishcloths). I did try 15 sts originally, but I found that each wedge was *almost* a single colour, and that wouldn’t really look nice, in my opinion, so I decided to go big.

Here is the result, pinned out (colours a bit off) :
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Here’s a close-up, it’s a bit fuzzy, but the colour is more accurate:
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And it’s quite drapey!
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(Yarn is Bella DK Tapestry, using a 6mm hook)

This might end up being a Christmas present, too… we’ll see!