I guess my yarn diet is going to have to start next year....
I got ambushed over the holidays by requests for knitted gifts, so I purchased a bunch of yarn with a 25% off entire purchase coupon from AC Moore, and some from WEBS and I couldn't resist getting something for myself too. My stash is growing more out of control and it's making me crazy. Not to mention the fact that I need to finish a sweater and 3 scarves by christmas...

I am on a yarn diet. Again. For real this time. I have more yarn in my house than I know what to do with, and i bought even more at stitches this weekend. 4 skeins of luscious by kollage for socks, 3 bags of 10 skeins each of ella rae silkience and a bag of 10 skeins of rowan 4 ply cotton. Not to mention all the yarn I already have. Enough is enough I say!

I am officially going on a yarn diet until april 1, 2009, with exceptions for completing projects or for gifts.

I have completed all the knitting for the relaxed cardigan. Now all the remains is the seaming...which I hate. I hope later today to finish the shoulder seams. I am going to follow some advice I read somewhere (I forget where) not to do too many seams in one day so you'll pay attention to what you're doing.
I've also started a new cardigan out of some plymouth bella that I got from discontinuedbrandnameyarn.com for 1.99 a ball. :) I love when things are on sale! I also just recently bought 5 large skeins of lily sugar and cream from michaels closeouts for .79 each. I love when things are under a dollar! I think I might knit the february lady sweater out of one of the skeins of it. We'll see, I need to do some swatching first.
In other news, I'm trying to keep myself from purchasing the addi click set of interchangeables that just came out. I pretty much use my knitpicks options for everything, but for some projects and yarns, a blunter needle would be nicer. I added up the cost, and 10 sizes of needles in three different cable lengths...works out to be about 4.70 per needle if I pre-order. Not too shabby....However, I really want to wait for the next batch and read reviews first, let them have time to get the design flaws (if there are any under control) so...we'll see.

progress

I"m making pretty good progress with the relaxed cardigan and cabled sweater from modern classics. I think I'm going to enjoy wearing both of them.
So far I've done the back, left front, and part of the right front on the relaxed cardigan. From the amount of yarn I've used so far, I would estimate I'm about halfway done. I think after I finish the right front, I'm going to weave the ends of those pieces in and seam the shoulders to cut down on the amount of seaming that will have to be done at the end of the knitting all at once. I HATE seaming.


The back and part of a sleeve of the cabled sweater.

relaxed cardi and a garterlac dishcloth

I am loving the relaxed cardi so far. The yarn is so slinky and nice, I can tell it's going to be a very wearable project. So far I've knitted up 2 out of 13 spools of the fauve. This pic is what I have of the back so far.

Not only am I loving this pattern, i really love the whole modern classics book. I have another pattern started from there too, which I'm going to finish after the cardigan. I ordered the yarn for the cardi on impulse and i want to get it knitted up right away instead of adding it to the stash. :)

After those two projects I already have at least two more picked out from the book to do afterwards. I'm going to get a lot of use out of this book I can tell already!
And...a garterlac dishcloth just for fun! I love that pattern.

Louisa Harding Fauve

I recently purchased the book modern classics (great book!) and ordered 14 ball of Louisa Harding Fauve a 100% nylon ribbon yarn called for the in the "relaxed cardigan" pattern. I thought it would be a great, simple cardigan to have in black, so I searched around on the internet for the yarn. At first, I thought the cost was going to be prohibitive. Most sites had fauve for around 9.50 a ball, which would make the sweater 123.50 plus shipping. No thank you! I think around 100 dollars is my cut off for a sweater unless it's something extremely special. Even with the 100 dollar cut off, I try to keep it under 50 dollars.
I found fauve in the color that I wanted at knittingzone.com on sale for 4.75. It ended up being 75 dollars after shipping-still a lot, but better than over a hundred.
I got the fauve in the mail yesterday, and swatched for the sweater. I got the recommended gauge of 4 inches= 28 rows and 20 stitches on 9's.


So far I really like the yarn-very slippery, stretchy and slinky. Not sure if I will use it again though, it's going to depend on how the cardi holds up for that price.

pictures posted so I can slurp them to ravelry