nidus

This is going up over on destashforcash.wordpress.com but I thought I’d give the post a test run here.

I’ve realized that the financial situation of a grad student does not support the maintenance of a large stash, particularly when said stash includes a lot of yarn from pricey companies. Therefore, I am parting with a good portion of my beautiful fiber in the interest of paying rent and eating while I finish my degree.

If you click through to my Flickr account I have additional close-up shots of most of the yarn. The colors came out a little blue in the photos and are all a shade warmer in reality.

Payment via PayPal. All prices INCLUDE shipping in the U.S. (if you’re abroad please email me for a quote). Multiple purchases may result in a shipping discount or in some cases an upgrade to Priority Mail—email me with a list of everything you want, and I’ll let you know what the revised price is.

Please email me at tmanikp[AT]yahoo[DOT]com
nidus.wordpress.com

Rowan Kid Classic (full bag!)

Color: Reed (823)
Content: 70% Lambswool, 26% Kid Mohair, 4% Nylon
Yardage: 151 yds per 50g ball.
This is a full bag of 10 skeins in a mossy olive green perfect for autumn.
Price: $75 shipped Priority Mail. Half bags (five balls) $40 shipped Priority Mail. Preference goes to those who want the full bag or large part thereof; per ball price is $8.50 shipped first-class.

Rowanspun Aran

Color: Shark (963); heathered dark grey
Content: 100% pure new wool
Yardage: 219 yds per 100g skein
I have two full skeins plus roughly half a skein (48g).
Price: $27 for the lot shipped Priority Mail

Rowanspun Aran

Color: Midnight (965); deep flecked navy
Content: 100% pure new wool
Yardage: 219 yds per 100g skein
Price: $11 shipped first-class

Rowan Big Wool

Color: Blue Velvet (26); navy with a hint of purple
Content: 100% merino wool
Yardage: 87 yds per 100g ball
Price: $13 shipped first-class
I bought extra for the sweater I knit (and love!). I have one full ball left, plus about a quarter of another ball that I’ll throw in for free. Enough to make a nice hat.

Rowan Biggy Print

Color: 242; reds, pinks and purples
Content: 100% merino wool
Yardage: 33 yds per 100g ball.
Price: $12 shipped first-class
Again, enough for a cute hat (I made one myself out of just one skein, so had this second one left over).

Rowan Felted Tweed

Color: Phantom (153); brown flecked with caramel, blue and white
Content: 50% merino wool, 25% alpaca, 25% viscose/rayon
Yardage: 191 yds per 50g ball
Price: $8 shipped first-class

Rowan Kidsilk Haze

Color: Toffee (598); warm tan
Content: 70% super kid mohair, 30% silk
Yardage: 229 yds per 25g ball
Price: $12 shipped first-class

Berroco Hip-Hop

Color: Autumn Leevz
Content: 100% wool
Yardage: 76 yds per 100g skein
Price: $11 shipped first-class
Gorgeous thick and thin yarn. I was going to use this in Knitty’s “Loopy & Luscious” scribble lace scarf, but have never gotten around to it. Pairs perfectly with the Kidsilk Haze above for this project.

Noro Iro

Color: 61 (lot A); various purples, slight pink, orange and brown; gorgeous!
Content: 75% wool, 25% silk
Yardage: 131 yds per 100g skein
Price: $33 shipped Priority Mail

Brown Sheep Co. Lamb’s Pride Worsted

Color: Aztec Turquoise (M-78)
Content: 85% wool, 15% mohair; GREAT for felting
Yardage: 125 yds per 4 oz. skein
Price: $40 for the lot of six, $22 for three shipped Priority Mail.

Tahki New Tweed

Color: 30 (pale leaf green)
Content: 70% merino wool, 15% silk, 11% cotton, and 4% rayon
Yardage: 103 yds per 50g ball
Price: $28 shipped first-class

Crystal Palace Cotton Flamme

Color: A Rich English Rose (3350); fuschia pink
Content: 100% Mercerized Cotton
Yardage: 96 yds per 50g ball
Price: $24 for the lot of 8 shipped Priority Mail

Classic Elite Inca Alpaca

Color: Santo Grape (1179); true purple
Content: 100% Alpaca
Yardage: 109 yds per 50g skein
Price: $7 shipped first-class
This yarn has amazing drape. Totally unused since I was trying to get an extra skein to match some yarn I already had, but unfortunately got the wrong shade of purple. I can’t find the tag at the moment, but I’m sure of the details since I recorded them in my database.

Cascade Ecological Wool (Eco Wool)

Two HUGE skeins wound into cakes.
Color: Taupe (8061)
Content: 100% wool
Yardage: 478 yards per 250g cake
Price: $30 shipped Priority Mail

So my three months is coming due for my swatches for the Walker Treasury Project; all three of my projects are from the first book, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, which I own in the paperback reprint. I knit the “wheat ear rib” swatch just days after getting the go ahead, but never got around to photographing it. I thought that the mustard yellow Lamb’s Pride would be appropriate (“amber waves of grain,” anyone?). Now the FAQ guidelines discourage swatchers from using Lamb’s Pride because the fuzziness of the alpaca content can obscure stitch definition– I’m worried that it won’t be accepted. I think I’m going to write the moderator to see what she thinks before going ahead and knitting it up in another yarn.

I also knit the “looking glass” pattern in Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino. I kept messing up so, since I tend to be a visual thinker, I tried charting the pattern so I could follow along more easily.

This was my first time knitting from a chart, and I liked it quite a lot. Something about how methodical it is, and how you can see the relationships between the stitches in each row.

So what started as something of a chore has turned into an obsession: photographing yarn. At first I just wanted to have pictures to include in my Ravelry stash database. Then I discovered the macro function on the camera. Compared to the inventive “flash your stash” shots of multicolored balls in a blender or skeins overflowing from a vase my pics are fairly staid. Nevertheless, I figured I’d share a few with you.

To begin with a bang, we have three balls of Noro Kureyon leftover from my third-ever knitting project, the Rosedale United sweater:

Next up, we have some cashmere in the Morocco colorway from Fearless Fibers:

And finally comes Kusaki Zome from Habu Textiles, my absolute favorite fiber studio:

My Flickr photoset contains more evidence of my fiber addiction.

A week ago I got my invitation to Ravelry, so I’ve spent a good chuck of my time photographing and cataloging yarn. I’m incredibly impressed by all the features they’ve thought up and implemented. I’ve faded in and out of social networking sites like Friendster and MySpace (and haven’t moved myself to sign up for Facebook), but I sense Ravelry will keep me hooked (bah-dum dum) since it is centered on a shared activity.

I finished the Kyoto sash, but haven’t otherwise made much progress on my knitting. I think my next steps will be to finish a few swatches for the Walker Treasury Project (in classic form, I finished one of the three I committed to months ago but never got around to photographing it) and to do the finishing on all the sweaters for this fall’s bumper crop of babies.

All of this, however, will take a back seat to finishing my thesis and, at night, attending performances at the Philadelphia Live-Arts & Fringe Festival.

So I’ve made some progress on my Kyoto: I’ve finished the right front and started the back to use up the rest of the skein. I was a little bored of endless stockinette, so I started– and have almost finished– the sash. In the photo below I’ve also included the partial sleeve I knit ages ago. I think I’m going to frog it and (following the lead of previous Kyoto knitters) knit the sleeves in the round to minimize seaming.

Behold!

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the various pattern pieces laid out on my bed…

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the partially completed sash (32 of 40 rows)…

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a detail of the double moss-stitch used in the sash…

These photos were taken in indirect, afternoon light; the colors are considerably more vibrant and less blue in reality. The right front was curling terribly, so I pinned it down, but have yet to block it properly– it’s looking a little… diagonal… in the photo.

This knitting brought to you by Lady Vengeance and The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

So I’ve returned to one of the first projects I started (and abandoned): Kyoto from the Winter 2003 issue of Knitty. The pastels it’s shown in aren’t quite my style, so I chose slightly more intense shades of the suggested Tahki Cotton Classic: teal (3786), paprika (3407), and the suggested cream (3003).

Years ago, I knit one ball’s worth of a sleeve and then gave up because at the time I didn’t have the patience to knit plain stockinette attentively. The yarn has been abandoned at the bottom of my stash since then.

Now, however, I’m able to do the kind of passive knitting (for simple patterns, at least) that allows you to do other things at the same time; namely, to watch TV. I’m not skilled enough to do complicated lace knitting or to knit during films that demand one’s constant attention, but I have fallen into the habit of watching TV shows on DVD while knitting. Not masterpieces like The Wire, mind you, but lighter fare like Freaks and Geeks, Six Feet Under, and, at the moment, Fishing With John.

Even if you aren’t a fan of John Lurie (and if you aren’t, you should ask yourself, “Why not?!“), how can you pass up the opportunity to watch Tom Waits get queasy on a tugboat in Jamaica, Willem Dafoe fend off hypothermia while ice fishing, or Matt Dillon do a shamanic dance to attract the blessings of the gods? The pace is perfect for knitting, since (I can tell you without spoiling anything) there isn’t a whole lot of action, but there is a whole lot of funny. My hope is that the episode with Dennis Hopper in Thailand will get me through the rest of the left front.

Sadly, there’s only one disc worth of content so I’ll have to find something else to sustain me through the remainder of the sweater. Plowing through my stash and unfinished projects is a start, though.

I’ve been knitting intermittently for the past five years, but am returning to my projects with renewed interest. Finishing (in both the common and the knitterly sense) has been one of my biggest challenges, so I hope that keeping a record of my projects and progress will spur me on.