YARN!
In the mail!
One of my favourite emotions.
[SUMMARY: Really? She bought MORE yarn?]
I got my latest shipment from Cider Moon, a fuzzy addiction perpetrated by Laura at Affiknity. I'm sure the nice proprietors over at Cider Moon owe Laura a big ol' kiss for sending me and my credit card their way. 'Specially since they have that "limited edition, only two available"† thing down, and y'all know what a sucker I am for that.
Limited Edition is almost as compelling as Goody Bag.
I was telling Dad last night that the first skein I ordered came with a nice postcard -- as do all their orders -- with a handwritten note saying, "Thanks for your order! Hope you enjoy the yarn!"
The second: "We hope you really like this yarn. Thanks for your continued support. Enjoy the yarn!"
This third order: "Hi, Marin! A trip to Denver sounds really good about now. We're caught right in the middle of a heat wave. Thanks again for your continued support. Happy knitting! p.s. -- if you're ever in Cleveland, you and your credit card are welcome to my spare room."‡
Besides the lovely handwritten notes,% they include little sample balls of various yarns in each shipment. Each is enough for a decent-sized swatch.
I'm saving mine up to knit a new cat.
But you're not nearly as interested in my shameful suckerhood and my cat plans as you are in the yarn (unless you're my brother, in which case, Hi! Enjoy the cat plans!).
Voilá:
That would be Icicle, which is still on sale for another 15 hours or so, in Taos and Seagrass§ (respectively). And the orange is, of course, Glacier in Hex, which you can't have because there were only two and I got this one.
You can't imagine how rabidly I want to hunt down the person who purchased the other one so I can have all the Hex in the world.
I am sick, but I have closeups, and we all know yarn makes everything better:
I also got a shipment from Pick Up Sticks. There's the Liisu Leili in Phoenix, which is by far the thinnest fingering weight I've ever seen. It's barely thicker than the lace weight in my collection, but smaller than other fingering yarns.
It's like very festive dental floss and it intimidates me.
I think the colours in the closeup are a little truer, but feast on this:
Then there's the Fleece Artist Somoko, which isn't nearly as soft as I thought it was going to be. With 10% nylon and 5% silk battling it out... well, let's just say the nylon won. You can see the silk in the shiny colour (not particularly well-represented by my purple-hating camera), but you can't really feel it.
It does feel very sturdy, though, and I think it will make well-wearing socks.
Here are the closeups:
It was really hard to get a representative bit of the Somoko. There's a surprising amount of orange and brown and about twenty shades of purple with some grey thrown in for good measure. Here:
Maybe the open skeins will help you get the idea. I have no idea how this will knit up.¶
[SUMMARY: Mmmmmmm... sock yarn... *grgllghghghlrgrgrrrgllrr*]
Since I now have enough sock yarn to cushion the blows of a thousand lovers' betrayals, it's a good thing my Cat Bordhi sock book showed up too. It's fascinating. Basically, she discovered that the little triangle you get on the sides of your heels when you put the gusset in your socks can go anywhere and the socks will still fit.
You can put it on the side of your foot.
You can put it on the top of your foot.
You can take it catty-corner across the top of your ankle.
I'm not in the business of reviewing books -- I get too easiy waylaid by shiny objects. You can read the Knitter's Review review here and I'll just show you some pretty pictures and tell you how intrigued I am and how very well laid-out and thought-out this book is, and just how useful I think it will be.
'Specially when the Fearless Fibers Seven Deadly Sins Sock Club kicks in.
Some of my favourites (I dedicate these to you, eca-elf, fellow sock whore):
Ocean Waves and Robin Hood's Boots
Coriolis, front and back
I love this sock. I like swirly things and spirals. I think it's the hair. Anything that close to my brain is bound to affect it somehow.
[SUMMARY: Must... finish... deficit... knitting... Must... NOT... cast... on... Coriolis... sock...]
I also got a couple of non-knit-related packages.#
One I'm saving for another day and a sentimental little story to help y'all get over the continuing references to death and anal beads, but this I want to share:
I know it don't look like much, but it would be on the list of things I never want to be without: Laundry Magnets. Or, in current parlance, Dye Grabbers. Not the little disposable ones, mind you, which aren't as good and I'm pretty sure aren't as enviro-weenie approved.
I am a single girl.†† I can only wear so many clothes. Even on days of wildly disparate activity (i.e. -- brunch in the morning, hike in the afternoon, shake my tailfeathers in the club in the evening, indulge my inner nympho all night), I'm only going to wear, say, three outfits.
And let's face it, I'm more likely to stay in my PJs all day on a Sunday than I am to have a three-outfit day, so it more than evens out.
I stock enough underwear to take me through a couple of weeks$ and that's about how often I do laundry. Even then, it's just enough for one load.
Enter the Laundry Magnet.
I throw one in with each load and, presto! No bleeding! No swapping of bodily fluids amongst the reds and the whites! OK, OK... anything really dark or bright or red gets washed all by itself the first time, but that's just good sense. Have you ever put on a pair of jeans fresh from The Gap and found your legs to be a necrotic shade of blue at the end of the day?
That's what I'm sayin'.
Anyway...
A laundry magnet also sucks up the ink when you accidentally leave a pen in your pocket. Not that I ever do that.
It also just kinda pulls some of the grub out of the water so that murky grey stuff isn't settling back in your clothes.
I stocked up a couple of years ago -- and by "stocked up" I mean "bought three" -- and the last ones are starting to look a little shabby. So I snuggled up to Google and went looking for replacements.
First, the name change threw me.
Second, the proliferation of second-rate disposable versions difficulted things up.
For the record, to buy directly from the company, you must generate a minimum order of $30. The list price for these things is $5.99 each, so I would have to buy six (because five, despite being on the ragged edge of $30, is not actually $30). And shipping was $20 -- they are apparently in the business of supplying industry, so they don't really account for someone ordering two ounces of cotton in their shipping options.
HOWEVER... I found them at QVC for $20 for four. Done and done.
Even if you separate your whites and darks and lights and delicates judiciously, I'd recommend these just for the extra clean and the no-ink thing.
[SUMMARY: In my next life, I want to be Vanna White and turn the letters for the whole world.]
That's my public service announcement for the month.
You're welcome.
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): With me sitting there on Saturday morning when the new yarn is going up, maniacally refreshing the What's New page, going, "open open open..."
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): OK, I made that last part up, but a few more one-of-a-kinds and some Rainbow Trout and I'm pretty sure I'll have earned enough frequent flyer miles for a free stay.
%FOOTNOTE (percented): I'm also such a sucker for the bonus pretties in my orders -- the Niagara Falls postcard from Les at Yarnela, the sachets in Wendy's Lanas de Libelulas packages, the Soak in (I'm pretty sure) Wendy's packages... hey! Wendy just got bonus points!
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Funny story: I got the two hanks of Icicle to make Christmas presents. Then I found yarn I liked better for those people and ordered that. So the Icicle just became unallocated stash yarn. I don't so much need unallocated stash yarn.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): That would be me, giving you the best of my Duh (whoa whoa). Isn't that the joy and pain of handpainted and/or variegated yarns? Isn't that part of the mystery that keeps us coming back?
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I know, I know, but I only go to the mailbox about once a week, so following an order-intensive week, it's just like Christmas or Birthday Season at Marin's mailbox.
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): You may have noticed.
$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): Which has nothing to do with a Victoria's Secret addiction. It's strictly a practical measure... well, a practical measure frilled up in lace and thongy bits.
‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Almost two years. I just don't generate a lot of laundry trash... and when I finish a bottle of detergent or Clorox II, I take the empty straight to the garage. It takes a LONG TIME to accumulate enough lint to make emptying a 16-gallon trash can worthwhile. Shut up.
[SUMMARY: Mmmmmmm... sock yarn... *grgllghghghlrgrgrrrgllrr*]
Since I now have enough sock yarn to cushion the blows of a thousand lovers' betrayals, it's a good thing my Cat Bordhi sock book showed up too. It's fascinating. Basically, she discovered that the little triangle you get on the sides of your heels when you put the gusset in your socks can go anywhere and the socks will still fit.
You can put it on the side of your foot.
You can put it on the top of your foot.
You can take it catty-corner across the top of your ankle.
I'm not in the business of reviewing books -- I get too easiy waylaid by shiny objects. You can read the Knitter's Review review here and I'll just show you some pretty pictures and tell you how intrigued I am and how very well laid-out and thought-out this book is, and just how useful I think it will be.
'Specially when the Fearless Fibers Seven Deadly Sins Sock Club kicks in.
Some of my favourites (I dedicate these to you, eca-elf, fellow sock whore):
Ocean Waves and Robin Hood's Boots
Coriolis, front and back
I love this sock. I like swirly things and spirals. I think it's the hair. Anything that close to my brain is bound to affect it somehow.
[SUMMARY: Must... finish... deficit... knitting... Must... NOT... cast... on... Coriolis... sock...]
I also got a couple of non-knit-related packages.#
One I'm saving for another day and a sentimental little story to help y'all get over the continuing references to death and anal beads, but this I want to share:
I know it don't look like much, but it would be on the list of things I never want to be without: Laundry Magnets. Or, in current parlance, Dye Grabbers. Not the little disposable ones, mind you, which aren't as good and I'm pretty sure aren't as enviro-weenie approved.
I am a single girl.†† I can only wear so many clothes. Even on days of wildly disparate activity (i.e. -- brunch in the morning, hike in the afternoon, shake my tailfeathers in the club in the evening, indulge my inner nympho all night), I'm only going to wear, say, three outfits.
And let's face it, I'm more likely to stay in my PJs all day on a Sunday than I am to have a three-outfit day, so it more than evens out.
I stock enough underwear to take me through a couple of weeks$ and that's about how often I do laundry. Even then, it's just enough for one load.
Enter the Laundry Magnet.
I throw one in with each load and, presto! No bleeding! No swapping of bodily fluids amongst the reds and the whites! OK, OK... anything really dark or bright or red gets washed all by itself the first time, but that's just good sense. Have you ever put on a pair of jeans fresh from The Gap and found your legs to be a necrotic shade of blue at the end of the day?
That's what I'm sayin'.
Anyway...
A laundry magnet also sucks up the ink when you accidentally leave a pen in your pocket. Not that I ever do that.
It also just kinda pulls some of the grub out of the water so that murky grey stuff isn't settling back in your clothes.
I stocked up a couple of years ago -- and by "stocked up" I mean "bought three" -- and the last ones are starting to look a little shabby. So I snuggled up to Google and went looking for replacements.
First, the name change threw me.
Second, the proliferation of second-rate disposable versions difficulted things up.
Fortunately, the laundry room trash hasn't been emptied since the last time I opened a Laundry Magnet,‡‡ so the package was still there and I could get the company name and all that.
For the record, to buy directly from the company, you must generate a minimum order of $30. The list price for these things is $5.99 each, so I would have to buy six (because five, despite being on the ragged edge of $30, is not actually $30). And shipping was $20 -- they are apparently in the business of supplying industry, so they don't really account for someone ordering two ounces of cotton in their shipping options.
HOWEVER... I found them at QVC for $20 for four. Done and done.
Even if you separate your whites and darks and lights and delicates judiciously, I'd recommend these just for the extra clean and the no-ink thing.
[SUMMARY: In my next life, I want to be Vanna White and turn the letters for the whole world.]
That's my public service announcement for the month.
You're welcome.
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): With me sitting there on Saturday morning when the new yarn is going up, maniacally refreshing the What's New page, going, "open open open..."
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): OK, I made that last part up, but a few more one-of-a-kinds and some Rainbow Trout and I'm pretty sure I'll have earned enough frequent flyer miles for a free stay.
%FOOTNOTE (percented): I'm also such a sucker for the bonus pretties in my orders -- the Niagara Falls postcard from Les at Yarnela, the sachets in Wendy's Lanas de Libelulas packages, the Soak in (I'm pretty sure) Wendy's packages... hey! Wendy just got bonus points!
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Funny story: I got the two hanks of Icicle to make Christmas presents. Then I found yarn I liked better for those people and ordered that. So the Icicle just became unallocated stash yarn. I don't so much need unallocated stash yarn.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): That would be me, giving you the best of my Duh (whoa whoa). Isn't that the joy and pain of handpainted and/or variegated yarns? Isn't that part of the mystery that keeps us coming back?
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I know, I know, but I only go to the mailbox about once a week, so following an order-intensive week, it's just like Christmas or Birthday Season at Marin's mailbox.
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): You may have noticed.
$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): Which has nothing to do with a Victoria's Secret addiction. It's strictly a practical measure... well, a practical measure frilled up in lace and thongy bits.
‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Almost two years. I just don't generate a lot of laundry trash... and when I finish a bottle of detergent or Clorox II, I take the empty straight to the garage. It takes a LONG TIME to accumulate enough lint to make emptying a 16-gallon trash can worthwhile. Shut up.
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