Tag: yarn

Well, this month’s recap post should be blessedly short because I didn’t manage to finish ANYthing in February! Honestly, that’s much more of a standard month of knitting for me. Or maybe the fluctuation is. Sometimes I can’t stop knitting, and other times I’m distracted by other things. Getting obsessed with Animal Crossing in 2026 hasn’t been a distraction lately, I’ll tell you that.

Works in Progress

I’ve cleverly cropped this photo to make it look like I finished my Driftwood pullover! But it’s currently sporting just one sleeve. When I finished the body, I was a bit disappointed by how big it was. I did size up because I wanted more ease than the pattern calls for, and silly me didn’t think about how that would affect the shoulders. It’s a shame, because the sleeve/shoulder construction is really nice, but they don’t sit quite how they should. After finishing the first sleeve, though, I’m liking it a bit more. Knitting sleeves just isn’t much fun, so I’ve been putting off starting the second one.

Acquisitions/Plans

A friend recently asked if I’ve kept to my vow not to buy any new yarn, and I was like, “Well…”

BUT they’re sock yarns! BUT they came from the thrift store! We’re all in agreement that these don’t count. The Mary Maxim Footloose yarn was hard to pass up because you know I love a self-striping sock yarn! And I was intrigued by the sock reel. I’ve seen sock blanks, which are usually large rectangles of machine-knitting sock yarn that you can dye (or buy dyed), unravel, and then knit up. This is the same idea, but it’s been knitted into a very narrow tube/tape instead.

I… kinda feel like perhaps the dye job was meant to look cool in reel form vs. looking cool when knitted into a sock. I found some sock projects that had used it on Ravelry and didn’t love them. The black-gray-teal stripes are so short compared to the large sections of neon green and aqua. With a combo of luck (where the pattern started on the reel) and planning (breaking the yarn to start with neon green when picking up stitches on the heel flap), I’m decently happy with the layout of the stripes so far. TBD whether there will be enough left after the first sock to match the pattern on the second! I wouldn’t have chosen this color scheme, but the yarn itself is nice enough, and I’m not that fussy when it comes to socks.

I also started (in March) a Zakkuri cardigan.

I have a big bag of this Briggs & Little Regal 2-ply wool in Midnight Blue (9 skeins — something like 2400yds!), and it’s also not a color I would usually pick, but it came from That Estate Sale. I’m actually really loving it. I think it’s going to look smart in this cardigan, which I’d like to finish soonish, so it can be my spring “jacket”. But we’ll see!

I swear I didn’t intend for this to be a knitting-only blog, but I’ve been living a(n almost) knitting-only life lately, so that’s what you get. I’ve been wanting to try making some self-striping sock yarn, and I finally gave it a try:

I started by knitting a few 64st rows (since I tend to make 64st socks) with the original yarn — Lana Grossa Meilenweit in pale gray — and then unraveled it and measured the length of yarn needed to make 4-5rows. That length was roughly twelve feet, so I wound a forty-eight foot hank and tied off twelve-foot sections. It was very unwieldy! I dyed each section a different color, and I can’t believe I didn’t tangle the yarn any more than I did. The cake above kinda just looks like variegated yarn, but when you start knitting:

Stripes! I’m doing a basic sock with heel flap and gusset, though I did eye-of-the-partridge stitch on the heel flap because I think it looks so cool. I also did a longer flap (I think forty rows instead of thirty-two?) and gusset. I’m knitting the entire sock on US1 needles, which gives me the fit I like on the leg and foot, but if I make the flap the standard length, the sock winds up too tight over my arches. But I think these ones will be perfect! I’ve finished the gusset decreases and knit maybe an inch of the body of the foot since I took the photo, so I’m past the fun part.

It’s also worth noting (I mean, only to other knitting peeps) that I got a US1 ChiaoGoo cable needle for these socks — I like using DPNs, but they start to hurt my hands if I’m doing too much knitting. I prefer bamboo needles, but the cable on these is NICE!

I’d rather just hit the ground running and (re)start the blog from right now, but there’s one thing worth going back and telling you about. The greatest estate sale of all time…

This summer, there was a woman (I think I have this right…) who was moving out of her late mother’s house, and the mother had owned a YARN SHOP behind the garage, so the estate sale covered everything in the house and the shop. My mom sent me the sale listing a few weeks ahead of time, and I was like… intriguing, but no. There was so much yarn, but you know it was priced for the shop, so the estate sale folks weren’t going to be letting it go for a steal.

But then it was the “last” day, and it switched to being by-the-bag. So I loaded up the kids and dragged them over an hour into Wisconsin, and it was amazing. I loved this woman’s style and her hobbies and all the amazing items she’d collected. I think we filled three big shopping totes and the big basket:

I got what felt like quite a lot of yarn, some hand-knitted items (I like a shawl / big scarf and have no desire to knit one), textiles, and all sorts of odds and ends. We got ice cream on the way home and stopped at a butterfly… tent? thing. Success!

Then the estate sale did a sneaky last-last day because there was SO MUCH YARN (and other stuff) still there. Now it was free-will donation. Take what you want, just please get rid of everything. My kids wouldn’t let me go back (they’re bossy and no fun), but my mom can’t let a Deal go by ungotten! So she went out there and filled literal giant black garbage bags with yarn. This is what she got for me:

It’s so funny to look at the amount of yarn in the first picture and think that it felt like a lot. THIS is a lot! And it doesn’t even look like as much as it really is. I had to get four new plastic storage totes to hold it all.

It’s all natural fibers, mostly wool. A lot of quite rustic, worsted-weight wool, like Briggs and Little. But there’s a little bit of everything. I’d say it’s hard to know what to do with this much yarn, but, duh, you KNIT it! I’ve spent so much time looking for patterns for specific skeins or finding patterns and then digging through the boxes to see which yarns will work with it.

Long story short, I’m not allowed to buy yarn anymore, lol! I’ve used estate sale yarn to make a couple of pairs of socks, a Halibut pullover, a bandana-scarf, and I’m working on the sleeves of an Easy-V pullover right now. I’ve prepped yarn for a Forest Keys vest and a Good Grandpa cardigan. (I also started a Mastiha cardigan, but I think that’ll be a slow burn because I need to pay attention to the stitch pattern chart, and I tend to pick up my more mindless projects first.)

A knitting friend said that I’ve achieved SABLE — stash acquired beyond life expectancy — but I say that’s only if I become a QUITTER!