So much for Stash Downing!

Earlier this year I made a commitment to myself to work through some of the yarn that has been sitting in my stash for far too long.  Not because I feel having a healthy stash of things to pick from when the notion takes you to cast on for something at 3am and all the local yarn stores are closed, is a bad thing.  Not because I felt guilty about the ( take a deep breath!) over 200 miles of yarn I have.  Just because the yarns in my stash are (for the most part) pretty nice things and deserved something better than being stored in ziploc bags inside of plastic drawer units!  And maybe a little bit because I wanted to make some room for newer things. (But only maybe!)

How's that going for me, you might ask.

Uh.....Did you know there was a fiber fair in Ohio this weekend?  Did you know it was only a 30 minute drive away from me, and anything less than two hours doesn't even count as a road trip, only as running errands?

When I was getting ready to go I asked the minions (read as children) if any of them wanted to go with me.  TDQ was up for it, TFB was more interested in whatever it was he was drawing at that moment, but it was TOB who shocked me.  (Remember he's the knitter.)

me:  Do you want to go to a fiber fair with me?
TOB - What will be there?
me: Well, yarn!
TOB - Hmmm, no I think I have enough yarn right now.

After I picked myself up off the floor (seeing as he has his own stash and added to it when we went to Wool Gathering last year) I told him that those are words spoken by NO KNITTER EVER.*

But, anyway...TDQ and I met up with a friend of mine, her two kids and her poor childminding husband and went and looked at yarn and roving and shawl pins, stitch markers and knitting needles. (I determined I had more needles in my needle stash than one vendor had on display!)  We had a good time looking at things and pondering if we could recreate some fabulous gradient yarns - which for me is not likely to happen any time soon, but I have this friend in Chicago that could probably do it for me if I sent her a picture of what I was aiming for.  :)

The best part though was getting to stand and chat with Natasha of Unplanned Peacock Studio's.  I had really been hoping that some of those special yarns were already dyed and ready to go, so that I could start knitting the pattern I designed to go with them, but alas, traveling to do fiber fairs had cut into her dyeing time and they aren't (quite) ready yet.  To console my sorrow at not being able to cast on for those (yes, those!  The pattern will have at least 4 variations in it and I keep thinking of more ways to work that theme.) I might have had some of those little people who were with me and my friend help me pick out some "sorrow abating" yarn.

The blue and the purples on the right hand side are lace weights, both with a little bit of sparkle to them that doesn't show well in pictures.  The others are fingering weight.

We have, from left to right :

The fingerings:

Kinky Sock in Dragon (oooh, I love those colors!)
Twisty Sock in Berry Pie (guess which purple loving gal picked that out!)
Twinkle Twist in Amethyst (just a hint of sparkle, I think that will grow up to be a scarf thing - highly technical term that!)
Kinky Sock in Pink Floyd (a special colorway but we will talk about that later!)
The Laces:

Twinkle Lace in Bunting  (my friend's son picked that one and suggested a theme for what I should knit with it)
Twinkle Lace in Amethyst (a study in how different materials take up dye differently)

I also picked up a skein of Blue Heron Yarns Rayon Metallic.  I am not usually big on knitting with rayon, but this felt nice in my hands and oh that colorway spoke up, loudly, that she wanted to come home with me!

She hasn't said what she wants to be yet, just that she wanted to be with me!

How was your weekend?

~M

*When we got home, TOB explained that he was a knitter, just that knitting hadn't quite taken over his entire life yet!