Knitting Natter

So, what's been happening recently in knitting land? Well, last weekend I went to Stitches East in Atlantic City and bought a whole heck of a lot of yarn, but pretty much everyone who reads my blog was with me at that event so suffice it to say that there was yarn and it was delicious. There will be pictures when each purchase emerges from my stash to be knitted up. When that will be I can't predict however, as said stash now seems to have taken on the proportions of a small mountain. Or perhaps a whale. So much yarn, so little time *sigh*

Another thing that I did for the first time last weekend, under the guidance of the lovely Axelle and Jen was to have a go at KoolAid dyeing. Here are my first efforts (thanks to Jen for providing the yarn to experiment on) :


Look! - KoolAid yarn

Not bad, neh? I think I marginally prefer the minty one although it's a close run thing. Here's a closeup of the minty colourway:


Minty yarn

And here's the orange one...


Orangey yarn

Meh. I need to learn the focussing distance of my new digital camera, but you get the picture. Look Ma, I've dyed my first yarn! And it was great fun. I can see why some people get addicted to the process. Now all I have to do is come up with something to knit with it.

Back on European shores, I am nearly halfway through the Glenora throw and the vast number of ends were completely freaking me out. Look at this for heavens' sake!


OMG the horror!

So I decided to give it a hair cut. As I think I said previously I have woven in all the tails as I've been going along, which is something I habitually do. But then I sew them in as well, because for some reason I don't trust the weaving in, even though that is the only method my mother in law uses to deal with stray ends and her garments never fall apart. So I screwed my courage to the sticking post and gave Glenora a haircut.


That's better :)

Doesn't that look better? I am still going to sew in the ends for the swirly section, but for the stripes I've just trimmed the yarn off at the end of the weaving in. Let's hope that I won't regret that decision later. You will notice that I have woven my ends in for quite a long way before cutting them off. My rule of thumb is to weave over at least 10 stitches, sometimes up t o15 for good measure, before cutting off the yarn. Cross your fingers for me that this doesn't all come to a sticky end :/

And finally, from the thrifty knitting corner, I was poking around in a second hand shop in Norfolk at the weekend and I discovered a huge box of knitting needles tucked away in one corner. I fell on it like a woman possessed and managed to root out 5 sets of double pointed needles in handy sock sizes. They cost me £1. No, not £1 per pair. £1 for all five pairs! Now that's what I call a bargain. They had a small box of yarn too but I couldn't get near it. Never mind - it gives me an excuse to go back next weekend.