The Lure of Pink

IMG_2310
Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

Definition of lure from m-w.com:
Main Entry: 1lure
Pronunciation: \ˈlur\
2 a: an inducement to pleasure or gain : enticement b: appeal, attraction

Yeah, so much for goldmines. This weekend I dropped by Knitting Arts on a errand. They were having a bag sale, 50% off, shawl kits and just bags of various overstocks. I resisted and left w/o buying any yarn. I also went to Yarndogs to pick up a prize I won (a set of Euculan Woolwash) and also left w/ no yarn. So today, when I went to Commuknity to pick up a pattern I felt confident. As I was browsing the books (I can buy all the books and patterns I want, notions too), I spied a shiny pink mass on the bargain shelf. I tried to ignore it but I thought I'd just check what it was and I touched it. Then I counted it. 6 balls of Bouton D'Or Ksar. Silky soft. Pink. On sale. I'm such a sucker. Total yardage 546.

A Veritable Goldmine

I've struck gold. 6 weeks into the game and I was feeling a little desperate. The game was suppose to give me time to go through my stash and get it up on Ravelry. It was suppose to give me the resources to find projects for the yarn I have. So far it's been great! I've got lots of things queued up and yarn to knit it with. But by getting most of the stash up I found that it was lacking. When you buy with no project in mind you buy for the yarn. And for me that meant it was either pink, handpainted or both. While knitting the Sweetheart socks I was finding that I really liked cables and that I'd love to make a cabled sweater. So I hunted the stash for some great cable sweater yarn and found nothing. It's been 6 weeks and all I could think of was going out and buying what I didn't have. Something blue, maybe tweed or heathered. And then this weekend I found this: 10 sks of Patons Rustic Wool in heathered denim...not in a store, in my stash! Yay me!

No points for re-knitting

IMG_2253
Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

Lately I've been hanging 'round the frog pond. When I took this sock on a trip to Paso Robles for Easter weekend all the knitting I did the entire weekend I ended re-knitting because of a mistake I made early on. Then I got to the toe and knit a little too long...can you see my baby toe? Nope.

IMG_2254
Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

See the needle on the left? That marks how long the sock should be. But because of the change in the way the pattern ends (as a single, unnested heart, not all that visible here) I have to frog all the way to the needle on the right. Ugh. Good thing I like knitting.

IMG_2176
Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

I finished this sock this morning while waiting at the doctor's office. It's about 173 yds so I'm adding that to my points now and I'll be casting on it's mate at my UFO group tonight. Here's the finish caloriemetry, it's a little big -- but works well and was very fun to knit.
Addendum to game rules. Cris sold some a lot of yarn recently so we ammended the rules to only allow 20% of yds sold to count as points. She's ahead, of course.

Resistance is Futile

 IMG_2101 Originally uploaded by theblairgirls

It's been almost a month and I haven't purchased any yarn. I've been busy getting organized on Ravelry. I've been taking pictures of my stash, queuing up projects and assigning yarn to them. Currently I have 76 items in my queue, 48 of which I have the yarn to make in their entirety. 48 things. Sweaters, shawls, bags, socks, mitts and hats. You've heard of armchair gardening? This is internet knitting. And so far it's distracting me from buying. Except that Webs just announced, today, their anniversary sale which goes on for two months. I've already gone through the list and came up empty, whew. However, this year they're having a set of yarns on sale in April and another, different set on sale in May. So next month I get tempted again with a whole new set of sale yarn. What's a girl to do? Cast on. Here we have Calorimetry knit with Patons Soy Wool Stripe in Natural Pink (of course). The yarn sheds more than my shepherd but it's soft and shiny and pink!

The Knitting Game

I'm done buying yarn. I ended up buying more after Stitches West than during! Don't get me wrong, buying yarn is way fun! But I need to be reminded of the main reason I buy it and that is to knit with it -- and I've got plenty to knit. So Cris and I thought up a game to help us (mostly me) not buy anymore yarn for the rest of the year. Yeah, yeah, I know, been there done that. We all know how Knit From Your Stash 07 went...badly. We also know why, there were too many exclusions. This time it's different. While there will be no restrictions on buying yarn, it will count against you.

Very simply it goes like this, starting March 5th (because I was buying yarn up thru March 4th) to December 25th we get 1 pt for every yard hand knitted. For every yard purchased it's -1 pt. Here are some guidelines that we discussed over im:

Jocelyn said: only finished projects count and projects in progress at the beginning only count per remaining balls

Cris said: we need to keep track of: how many yards we knit and the number of yards of new yarn we buy

Jocelyn said: just purchasing yarn counts as a negative

Cris said: and you get points if you knit with it. so if you buy yarn and knit it up the result would be 0

Cris said: fiber counts

Jocelyn said: (reluctantly) ok let's go with a worsted count for fiber so buying 4oz would be -200yds, and if it counts then knitting handspun would count too

Cris said: charity knitting will count

Cris said: I'll be knitting some scarves for charity and I'll be using my machine so instead of 1 point/yard it should be 1 point/2 yards

Jocelyn said: I'm planning to sell some yarn that should be by half as well

And finally, the prize:

Cris said: the winner gets to choose ANYTHING from the loser's stash!!! and the amount they get to choose, will depend on how many points they won/lost by

I still can't believe I agreed to that. But it's been 10 days and I haven't bought a thing (and dudes, that's good, because I'm constantly bombarded with opportunities to buy). And while I'm still uncomfortable with what's at stake (I do so love my stash), I don't plan on losing...Game On, Cris.