Confessions of a Yarn-a-holic

Hello, my name is Dianne and I'm a yarn-a-holic. It's been 50 hours since I last purchased yarn and today I was considering buying more.  I may need help.  Or more hours in the day in which to knit.

Seriously, I have had a substantial influx of yarn over the last 6 weeks.  I was somewhat prepared for it and even planning for a reasonable part of it.

For example, I'm in two sock clubs, so I was expecting my club shipments from the Rockin Sock Club for September

and the Cookie A Sock Club for October.

They're both beautiful and will make stunning socks.

I attended the Make Wear Love Retreat with Amy Herzog October 1-4th.  It's a sweater knitting retreat with vendors, so I expecting to purchase a couple sweater quantities of yarn, like this Eden Cottage Bowland DK.  I'm not sure yet what I'm going to make with this, but I loved the feel of it and the color.  My LYS doesn't carry this line so I knew that I may not have another opportunity to see this in person and pick a color that really spoke to me.  So I bought it.

One of the classes I took at the retreat was dyeing a sweater quantity of yarn with Kim of Indigodragonfly.  It was a phenomenal class and now I really want to go to her Dye Camp!  I chose her MCN fingering for this class and dyed this...

 

I named it Sebasco Harbor in homage to the beautiful seaside setting where I dyed it.  So that's 7 skeins of fingering yarn which is 2800 yds.  I'm not sure what I was thinking when I ordered that much yarn to dye.  Perhaps I was thinking of a shawl collar cardigan that is cabled over every square inch?  Or perhaps I just couldn't do simple math that day.  Fortunately I am in LOVE with this color  and will be happy to make a couple projects with it.

Amy also always releases 3 new designs at her retreats featuring yarns from the vendors at the retreat. My favorite design from this year is Parker Head featuring The Woolen Rabbit's Emma.  As always, The Woolen Rabbit booth was swamped and by the time I could get in it, Kim was sold out of the few colors that I really loved.  But I really wanted to make this sweater with this yarn, so as soon as I got home I placed an online order for some Emma in the color Through the Looking Glass.

It's even more beautiful in person and it absolutely glorious to knit with!

On the way to the retreat I met up with my friend, and fellow retreater Laura, at KnitWit in Portland.  It's become a tradition for us over the years to do this.  It's a really quaint store with some great yarns so I always enjoy stopping in there when I'm in Portland.

I fell in love with the Coastal Gradient Cowl that they had on display and bought this gradient kit and base color of Lillian by Dirty Water Dye Works to make my own.

They are also one of the few stores around that carries Quince and Co yarns.  I've heard so many great things about their yarns from my knitting friends around the  country that I had decided I wanted to get a sweater quantity of one of their yarns.  I chose Lark in this all-purpose silvery gray.  My thought is that I'm going to make a v-neck pullover with a cable on the front that I can split and continue up the sides of the neck opening, utilizing what I learned in Fiona Ellis' class.

No trip up the coast of Maine is complete without a stop at Halcyon Yarns in Bath.  I was very restrained there and only purchased this one skein of Peace Fleece that I have already used to make a hat for my father-in-law.

Since I've been home from the retreat I've made a couple of trips to Spinning Yarns, which is my LYS.  And I've come home with a couple skeins of Rasta in Stitch Red

and Ravelry Red, which I plan to use for gift knitting.

Two days ago I stopped in again, convinced that I needed some Ultra Alpaca in a nice cranberry red color for a pair of mittens for a holiday gift swap.  No luck on that front, but I did end up buying a skein of Home in Charcoal for a gift hat,

a skein of Tosh Vintage for a different pair of gift mittens,

and then this eco alpaca to line a pair of Northman mittens I plan to make for myself

with these two skeins of Ultra Alpaca

I was entering all of this on a spreadsheet that I keep of yarn in and yarn out (everybody does this, right?.... RIGHT?) and was a little stunned that my "yarn in" total so far for quarter 4 of this year is 10,914 yards.  That's 6.2 miles.  And that's more than I have knit for the entire year so far.

I might need a bigger storage bin if I don't start knitting faster!  Oh, and can somebody keep me busy tomorrow at noon so that I'm not tempted to peek at the Plucky Knitter ready-to-ship update?  Thanks :-)