Infodump!

I moved the yarn pile from the living room into my bedroom today. (Apologies to PSD, who was probably having a quiet moment in his office while I was doing this upstairs. I didn't keep dropping things intentionally, I promise.) As I relocated, I also took a detailed count of what was in the pile, and I came up with:

19 works in progress
179 balls, hanks, skeins, and blobs of yarn

Not as bad as I feared. It helped that there is no longer a frog pond: I threw all that stuff away. Thrift, shmift. Ripping out old sweaters is a pain, and for cheap cotton, it's totally not worth it.

Instead, I am now reveling in my pile of indulgence yarn, and hoping I can make it last a while. Here, friends, is where those forty yarn blobs were added:


Merino Sei. This almost doesn't count, since it was marked down from $8 to $3 per ball. I wouldn't feel guilty about it, except that I pounced on the opportunity and bought enough for two sweaters. I did not know that fate led me to just the right colors for this:

My Harry Potter House sweater. I am in a little bit of denial about the color of the stripe; I'm telling myself it's blue and not purple and that it really is in Ravenclaw colors (blue and bronze), so play along, okay? I am so looking forward to wearing this in the middle of July, when the Peony and I are going to our Hometown, which will be turned into Hogwarts Central for the night. I have already started praying that the man in a kilt and a poncho will show up. (Go read Book 4 again and come back when you get it.)

Moving forward. This...

...is the reason it's a bad idea to talk to me about how much yarn I buy. This was a revenge purchase. 19 hanks of fairly nice cotton. It's not much to look at now, but... well, I'm making up the sweater as I go, so it may not be much to look at ever. Just don't tell that to the evil person who hounded me about my yarn investments. (He, of course, has been spending my annual yarn budget on woodworking tools.)

In moments of happiness and sale-price hypnotism, there was also this:

(Sierra and Silky Wool)

...and this...

...the A-squared sweater, so named for the angora and alpaca yarn it's made from. This sweater is partially knit from the stash; the angora was a birthday present from the Peony. The alpaca, on the other hand, was a problem. If her book had come out sooner, I might have heeded the Harlot's advice: don't stand by the counter too long. 600 glorious yards of undyed superfine alpaca? Of course I had to get two colors. It's doubled up in the sweater to match the worsted-weight angora.

I do have exactly one guilt-free item, knit entirely from the stash:

The Mermaid sock. It's one of Lucy Neatby's patterns in Cool Socks, Warm Feet, and I love it. I changed the heel and the toe, of course, because I can't follow a pattern to save my life. But I really like the way the pattern works with the stripes. At the hospital, though, they apparently thought it was dangerous:



...because it came back to me in a biohazard bag. Maybe the size 0 needles scared them.

Now, gentle reader, I am off to eat dinner. And after that, I'm going to pick up a project from my pile. Between all the sweaters, afghans, socks, and stuffed animals on my WIP list, I suppose I shouldn't have any trouble finding something interesting to knit- in theory.