Fast shipping that is. I just ordered this yarn from my LYS in the hopes of getting it in before I go to Madrona. I have a plan to make The Husband a sweater, in mostly plain stockinette in this beautiful yarn. It would be the perfect knit-and-chat project. I won’t know until Monday if they can get it in time, but apparently Cascade is a local company and I’m crossing my fingers it can be on it’s way to me by next week.

I got this in the mail the other day too. It’s actually not as orange as the picture makes it look. It’s a very earthy combination of browns with reddish orange undertones. There’s a lot of yardage for four ounces. It looks thinner than fingering weight to me too so I’m worried I won’t like it knit up even on size 0’s. We’ll have to see when I get around to knitting it.

(I also got two huge boxes of Highlighter Tape! Go buy some at The Knit Foundry)

So yesterday the United States Postal Service is on vacation, but I wasn’t, and thankfully neither was the UPS man.

Each cone is a full pound of Zephyr Wool Silk DK. This enough yarn for a sweater, and maybe a shawl or wrap or something. I ordered from the color cards, and was thinking it looked a bit silvery grey. Not so much. More like a very light beige. The name of the color is “mushroom”. The silk adds a nice sheen to it, I’m hoping I still like it after knitting a whole sweater with it.

Especially when it comes to me in the form of fiber! This is the selection from Chameleon Colorwork’s July fiber of the month club. I can tell you - I have not been disappointed in anything I’ve been sent so far. The colors are fabulous, the fiber is amazing. It’s wonderful to spin!

You’ll notice that I have not one, but two bundles here. There was a slight mix up, the first package got sent to the wrong (old) address. I realized I hadn’t received my package after about three weeks and emailed Janel. She was so kind, and mailed me out another package right away. of course, Murphy steps in and I receive the first package which I thought had been eaten up by the post office. Well, now I’m the proud owner of two bundles of this Optim fiber! I’ve sent mail off to Janel so I can pay her for the extra bundle. There’s no way I’m sending it back. :)

The Optim is interesting stuff. The fiber feels a lot like silk and has a wonderful sheen to it. The tag says it’s superwash, and is “mechanically stretched merino wool”. It doesn’t appear to have any crimp in it, and is a bit sticky at first - but once you get it drafting, it seems to slide wonderfully. It also seems to have the silk thing going on where it gets a bit static-y. If anyone else has spun this stuff up - I’d be interested in hearing your experiences. I’ve got 8 ounces to play with and am looking forward to it.

This arrived in the mail today: Sea Silk in the Woodland colorway. Wow. it’s so soft and pretty! I think my knitting slump might be over as I cast on something with this.

I was so excited to get started with the yarn, I threw it on the swift and started winding off. The family was trying to head out the door to meet friends for a concert in the park, and of course the yarn was tangling and not cooperating. I decided to throw caution to the wind, quickly retied two spots on the skein, yanked it off the swift, and took the ball winder with me in the car. It was a good thing the trip took about 40 minutes; I needed every bit of it to get it untangled.

I got this in the mail today. I’ve been waiting for it for a week!! My mom is in the same fiber club, and she got hers last friday. Turns out mine was shipped to Colorado first, and then forwarded on back to Washington. Argh! Something must have been messed up with my subscription; or the shipping labels get printed with the first address you sign up with? I dunno. I’m glad it made it.

Turns out it’s a totally different fiber than what my mom got. Her fiber was a brown and turquoise BFL (and still very pretty), while this has got to be mostly silk.

I also got new memory for my laptop and installed that.

I’ve slowly been investigating all the yarn shops that are near me in my new digs. There are quite a lot of them! Each one is interesting in it’s own way, but I haven’t been to them all so I don’t have a true favorite yet. If I did, I would have to say it’s the shop i got all this stuff from:

While there isn’t any in this particular batch, the shop also carries spinning stuff; including rovings in some fiber types that I haven’t typically seen in a LYS before. Starting in the upper left of the picture we have:

• Trendsetter yarn, destined to be a scarf. I bought 3 balls
• Noro lightweight (can’t remember the real name of it). Scarf? Or something? I actually got this somewhere else, and it was on sale
• Mountain Colors Mountain Goat. This stuff is soooooooooooo gorgeous and this picture doesn’t do the color justice. I got three skeins, and have no idea what i’m going to make. i was orig thinking a shawl
• Jo Sharp, Knit #2. I’m already making a sweater out of this using stash yarn. More to come in future pics.

I’m doing more knitting these days. The Husband works 2 blocks from me so we carpool every day now. Most days I make him drive the longer stretch so I can knit. As long as it isn’t something hugely detailed and I only need to occasionally glance at the pattern it’s working out well - I’m on sleeve #1 of a sweater for ME!

Look what showed up in my mailbox today from Tongue River:

I need to destash some sock yarn, here’s the picture of it.

Click for much larger version. If you wanna buy the whole lot, it’s $140. A screaming deal if you ask me!

(UPDATE: I have a taker for all this yarn. Yay! I’m so glad it will go to a loving home)

Today was “Get cool stuff in the mail” day at my house. In addition to an insurance statement that says, “This is not a bill, but you may be billed for these charges” with a total of over $1000 after it; I got this:

(Luckily I opened the yarn first. Mama didn’t raise me stoopid). You can’t even see the gorgeous blues in the bottom of the container. The red on top is really “Autumn Orange” and a bit more red than I would have thought. My original ideas for this yarn will have to be contemplated a bit. The box was literally splitting at the seams! All the yarn is w4 worsted super wash yarn from Shelridge Farms . I’m going to be doing some serious designing with it for some kid’s garments, or maybe one for me too. It’s more than enough to make quite a few sweaters. Oooh play time!

I also got this bundle of pretty colors & softness:

This is spinning fiber from Spunky Fibers. Every month I’ll get a different fiber handpainted by the wonderful Amy. The weight of it will be from 2 ounces to 6 ounces depending on the fiber type. Just enough to play around with and really have fun. All my current spinning projects are big huge “spin enough for a sweater” projects which takes a tiny bit out of the fun of experimenting and playing.

I also got two zippers from zipperstop.com; no picture, they are pretty boring. One zipper is for my Ribby Cardi and the other is for a friend. We were saving on postage by ordering together. You’ll see my zipper once it’s closer to being put in the sweater.