Yarn Clubs

Yarn clubs have really become an obsession with me. I love them. It is more fun than going to a yarn shop-going to the mail box and finding a package of yarn maybe with a pattern and maybe with a fun extra. The packages keep coming and I keep joining more clubs.

 

My 3 year old great grand daughter asked to see my yarn closet-after walking the path through the piles of yarn in our "library". She just stood at the door and said, "What the?"

 

The May All For Love of Yarn and Tea club tea is called Peach Tranquility. The yarn is a superwash fingering. The tea is  yummy!

This is Romi's April yarn and pattern-another beauty and I love Zen Garden yarn. This is a lace weight.

This club purchase was a spur of the moment impulse. I've liked the Madeline Tosh yarn I've used, so decided to join this club. Since I joined after the club started I received the first 2 shipments right away. The gray yarn is Tosh Sock and the green is Tosh Merino Light.

You can't see from the picture, but the yarn is sparkly-sock weight. I think the pattern markers came with this club. I was so far behind in taking pictures things got mixed up. The flower picture is a note club with a personalized note card thanking me for participating in the club. Nice touch. This is the last shipment from Knit Circus.

Cookie A's sock club is one of my favorite as I love her sock patterns with their twisting cables and unique designs. When I get my sock mojo back these will be the patterns I will go to. Besides it is an introduction to new yarns-a lot from independent dyers.

 This is the first shipment from a local yarn shop so is part of my supporting LYS's. It is Darn Knit Anyway in Stillwater which is a fun "touristy" town to visit and shop and eat. The theme for the club is "Our Favorite Things" and each month will feature a favorite thing of a person from the shop. The yarn will be created by a different hand dyer each month using that person's favorite thing as design inspiration. So the inspiration for this month is Amy's patch of violets. The goodies include a leather button, a project bag and a membership pin.

The June Mad About Tosh has Pashmina yarn. I doubt mine will be the cowl or the optional scarf-a shawlette maybe?

 

Yarnover 2013

I was very negligent about taking any pictures at Yarnover this year. The class I took was excellent. It was a half day class on knitting with vintage patterns taught by Franklin Habit. Usually I sit through about an hour of a class, then leave, but this one kept me there even when the class went overtime. The subject was interesting and he is such a good teacher with lots of illustrations. Sorry, I even ripped out the mystery project we knit from an old pattern before I took any pictures.

 

I didn't come home empty handed, but I think I was pretty good about buying. Just 2 skeins of yarn!

Part of the reason I didn't buy much yarn is because I splurged with the Grinning Gargoyle Mink yarn. Yes, it is as soft as a mink coat. The other skein is from All For the Love of Yarn and the color is named after a friend of mine-just had to have it!

 

The kit for this necklace caught my attention, so it came home with me and I finished it in just a few hours-crochet.

Yarn

Space Cadet for February, the last shipment of this club. All their yarn is hand dyed by Space Cadet. This is a fingering weight merino, nylon and stellina (sparkles). The extra is stitch markers in a nice container that can be used to store markers, needles-you name it- made by The Sexy Knitter. Plus a coupon for a free pattern with purchase of a pattern by The Sexy Knitter.

 

This is the first time I've joined All For Love Of Yarn, yarn and tea club. The independent dyer has recently moved into this area so it is fun knowing her and supporting her product. Besides, I've loved the yarn I've used. The club is  Yarn and Tea. (The mug was not included) The tea is Rooibos Tropical so the yarn is dyed in tropical colors. The tea is good! Yarn is fingering weight 80% merino superwash, 10% cashmere and 10% nylon.

The April shipment tea is Strawberry Lemonade and the yarn is laceweight 70% Baby Alpaca, 20% Silk, and 10% Cashmere. It's heavenly!

 

The second shipment from KnitCircus came with a beautiful surprise. In the center of the shawl picture is a sterling silver yarn ball necklace. The yarn is Pixie Dust Fingering: 63% superwash merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon, 2% silver poly. The shawl pattern is actually one I might make.

A Verb For Keeping Warm Proverbial Yarn Club for April has a Coco Knits pattern which is a unique design which can be worn several ways and uses only the one skein (565 yards)  of Annapurna yarn which is 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Nylon, and 10% Cashmere.

Three Irish Girls is no longer going to be selling yarn on the Internet, only directly to yarn shops so they are discontinuing the yarn club. The patterns have been late coming for these shipments, so I'll show you the yarn without patterns. From left to right is the January yarn called Thimbleberry, McClellan Fingering, 65% merino, 25% bamboo and 10% nylon. The extra was a coupon for a discount at PullingatStrings.com which I accidently let expire. The March yarn is Maui, Springvale Sock and the extra was the tea infuser with a packet of Chamomile Citron tea. The April yarn is Congdon Merino Silk, 80% superwash merino and 20% silk in Cair Paravel colorway. The extra was a packet of the best caramels I've ever tasted! And I'm sorry to say I don't know what kind they were. I saved the wrapper for some time to order some more, but one day I decided to throw it away because I don't need to eat them. Some days I'm sorry I did it.

It's not often I bake cookies, but I couldn't pass up this recipe from Cookie A's Sock and Cookie Club for April. They are lavender shortbread and are delicious! I love the sock pattern on the left, also.

2013 Yarn Clubs

A new year of yarn clubs. Oh, how I love receiving these packages!

Rosemary Hill's Shawl and Pin club for January. I subscribed only to the yarn and pattern, not the pin for this year. How many shawl pins can a person use. I know many people wonder how many shawls can a person knit and use, but that is a no-brainer for a shawl-o-holic like me. I just love knitting them.

The yarn is from Sincere Sheep, Terroir Fiber Series, special for Romi's club. Included are beads and 2 darling stitch markers. Stitch markers are something else a knitter can not have too many of.

The first yarn of this year from Cookie A is a beautiful dark green which doesn't show up in the picture from Indigo Dragon Fly, merino, cashmere and nylon. Included is the project bag and a note card.

This is the first time I've tried the Knit Circus yarn club. The yarn seems nice -superwash merino, silver poly, and silk. The extra is a mini skein of Starlight Sock Yarn and a set of premium bamboo US #1 needles from Stitch Berry.

A Verb for Keeping Warm Proverbial Yarn Club.

The last shipment from Knit Spot by Anne Hanson has Miss Babs yarn which is cashmere and silk. Need I say more? The patterns for this club are done in a beautiful format with beautiful photography. I'll join this one again.

 

End of 2012 Yarn

Yarn continues to arrive.

This is the last shipment from Cookie A's 2012 Sock Club, but I've signed up for 2013. The yarn is actually more the color of the pictures. I like both the sock designs.

I've been reading so much about people using Wollmeise yarn I wanted to try some. It is a German yarn so the only place I could find it was on Ebay.

I do also buy yarn. Surprise? I couldn't pass this one up as I have become quite a fan of Downton Abbey and this is specially dyed for Jimmy Bean Wool's Mystery Knit A Long starting along with Season 3 of Downton Abbey.

 Knitspot for December 2012. This club is by Anne Hanson.

 Soctopus' Knit Love Club for December 2012.

 

This may be my last post as for some reason I cannot download pictures anymore. If I can figure out what is wrong I will resume. Edited 01/23/13. It now works, so I'll add these pictures.

  

Abstract Fibers October 2012. Extra Garlic Cashews which were home made and delicious!

Abstract Fibers December 2012. Extra Puppy Scissors.



 

Space Cadet December 2012. Extra: Shawl Pin.

 Three Irish Girls December 2012. Extra Lindt Chocolates!!

 Twisted Shawlette January 2013. Extra Stitch Markers.

 

Thank you for tolerating my indulgences. I enjoy doing this record of my yarn clubs just for my fading memory.

The Fun Continues

The fun continues!

This is the first shipment from the Proverbial Yarn Club from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The pattern is by Cookie A-a departure from her sock patterns. This is an intriguing vest with a hoodie and the construction is very different. I'm not a vest person, but I might have to knit this for the fun construction.

This is the October shipment from Knitspot, by Anne Hanson. The extra is a package of gift tags.

This one was a surprise as I thought I had received all the shipments. I don't think I've been posting pictures of this club this year as I hadn't ordered the yarn option. I did order it for the next year, but not the pin.

 

I absolutely love this shawl from Romi's Shawl and Pin Club. The extra is Kookaburra laundry concentrate. I signed up for another year of this club, but only the pattern and yarn.

The Twisted Shawlette Club. The extra is a coffin shaped tin filled with Halloween shaped candies. I cut off the name of the shawl-it is Phantom Manor.

 

This is the fall shearing share from Juniper Moon Farm. This is a community supported agriculture farm, so the yields are distributed among the shareholders. I also did this for the spring shearing. The yarn is wool and I think it has some angora in it.

 

Knitspot for November.

 

This is a new club for me, although I previously belonged to their mini skein club. It is Space Cadet Interstellar Yarn Alliance and is just yarn. 

It was hard to make a choice of which of these yarns to get, so I got both of them. In the Three Irish Girls Yarnista club, you get to chose from two colorways. When I saw Sharon from TIG I mentioned I was in the club, but didn't know when or how to get out of it-not that I wanted to-and she just grinned and said "that's the point."

 

 

 

Yarnography

Yesterday I took an excellent class from Sharon of Three Irish Girls on photographing yarn and projects. 

 

Here is Sharon with 3 month old baby Shamrock.

We learned lots of things not to do (most of which I've been doing) and what to do and about "staging" our yarn.

One of the problems I've had is getting the true color of the yarn. The above pictures are pretty but not accurate colors. The one below is more true to the color-as I remember it. So we learned how to correct color.

Some other things we learned was sizing the pictures the same width for a blog to make it more pleasing to look at. We also decreased the pixels to save computer space as the Internet can not display more pixels than 72, so why bother.

 

I haven't posted this shawl yet, because this picture was not the color it really is.

This is more accurate. I did learn something, but some of these pictures would not "pass".

Of course there was yarn to be bought. All I came home with is this picture. I had some skeins in my hand but let my friend Christine buy them as my grocery bag of TIG yarn runnith over. That's never stopped me before, but there were too many to chose from I couldn't make up my mind.