After what seemed like ages, I finally got my hands on some prized Wollmeise yarns!!!

Yes, I broke my yarn diet by cheating – somewhat like getting fat burners to help you lose weight instead of sticking to a healthy diet and good exercise regime. And yes, with the packing and all…but really, I just couldn’t resist!

I’ll be frank – it wasn’t easy trying to get her yarns. Updates are weekly and I always miss them. It took me about a couple of weeks of stalking the Wollmeise online store (thanks to Lois and her constant reminders) before I finally got the colours that I simply adored. I missed a few along the way (Zenzi is hot on my wanted list), no thanks to Nil – he forgot to wake me up and all.

But hey, I’m a happy trooper with these four colours. *squishness*

I always love looking around my stash after not touching it for some time. In fact, the last time I actively looked through my entire stash was a couple of months back. Now why is this so? Because I never fail to find a little gem hidden away somewhere each time – just like finding sterling silver jewelry among my earrings! This time, I found three! Now how super is that? And just when I have been hankering for some serious sock yarn shopping… The fact that The Knittery – one of my favourite handdyers – had decided to go into temporary retirement didn’t help the situation one bit!

Anyway, just in case you are wondering, these yarns are my own handdyes from the last time I toyed around with the dyepot in November last year. As fun as it had been dyeing up a storm, I’m not about to risk things and start again even though I have a few solutions leftover from the last dye session. These little babies are basically my shop’s two base yarns – superwash merino sock and superwash merino-bamboo.

Honestly, I can’t wait to get back to dyeing. I miss playing with dyeing up these yarns and I have a few colour combos and techniques that I’d like to experiment with but I doubt we’ll see any action even after the birth. O’well…I guess I’ll just have to go back to fondling these yarns instead; I won’t be keeping all three skeins though. One of them will be off to a friend for some good ole’ fashioned gifting and the rest? Back to the stash pile!

These days, it’s just about cooking and knitting simply because I have been doing more of those things. Ranting seems…boring, especially considering that I’m rather far away and I would rather save that energy for thoughts that need to be address. In other words, I’d rather write to newspapers back at home than just ranting about it on my blog. This is evident in my recent letter published on Sunday by The Star. Chooks remarked that it sounded as if I was pissed.

To be honest, I was and get rather annoyed when I think about it. Motherhood is something miraculous and being able to breastfeed your baby is nothing short of honourable. Yet companies go against government sanctioned health recommendations. Why? Because they only care about the profits and not the people who bring them in. People put breastfeeding in the same category as porn, berating and staring down at women who breastfeed in public, even when they cover themselves up (they do so because toilets need to be clean and comfortable for mothers to suckle their babies not cramp, wet and smelly). And these are not my stories but the stories of real-to-life women with real problems. Problems that female politicians claim to care but never bother addressing or enforcing. So how can I not be pissed?

Anyway, since moving away, you could say that my exposure to annoying and disappointing Malaysian news has somewhat lessen. These days, I watch the political situation from afar with a mix of sadness and anger. Knitting, spinning and cooking/baking takes the edge off and well, when you’re married with a kid on the way, there is…well…life.

There’ll be some FOs – both spinning and knitting – coming up soon. I just need to get my hands on some embellishments!

After handpainting, there is kettle dyeing and as you can see, the test skein above yielded some pretty remarkable results. Sometimes it’s unbelievable what some dye, hot water and vinegar can do to yarn (and roving). Plus the beauty about kettle dyeing mixed with handpainting is that it cuts my working time by at least half!!! So that means a higher production level!

Anyway, this little baby is a small 18 gms (or so) skein of merino-cashmere-silk laceweight that I’m brought in specially for the store. I can’t really sell it so am using it to knit a smallish-lace triangle scarf-lette design that I’m currently working on. It’s based on a combination of two stitch patterns that I found in Evelyn Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles. If it goes well and passes the whole copyright thing (I did my own charts, instructions and all as well, so I hope it’s not a problem since stitches aren’t copyrighted), I hope to either knit shawls based on this or publish this. *keeps fingers crossed*

In the meantime, there’s always some good autumn weather – we’re thinking of doing a 20.5 km ride around the lake area – to look forward to plus heaps of other stuff to get busy with, not including assignments like term life insurance quotes…

Btw, did I mention that I’m planning to get some more roving? I just can’t decide if I should or not!

The first of my purchase arrived yesterday and someone suggested taking photos but I’m too lazy right now. The heat is horrific and I still have about 14 rows to go for my shawl before I start on a new one.

Perhaps I’ll go do some yarn winding later and take some pretty pictures. It’s time I update the store and this blog with pics! No?

Top to bottom: Cherrywood and Forbidden Forest from The Singing Yarn by Kessa, Trekking XXL, Austermann Step and some Lorna Laces.

Omigod, I finally got invited to Ravelry and boy o’ boy is it nifty!

You can put up a pictorial inventory of your needles, yarn (affectionately known as “stash” ) and even projects!!!! I have yet to explore the other functions but so far, I like what I see in there. Just need to take more pictures now…*kekeke* Talk about taking knitting organization to the next level!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!

Btw, if you have signed up for an invite, please be patient. Ravelry is run solely by TWO people and they have about 4500 invites to send out.

And look at what some stash re-organization churned out…

I could talk about my progress with Ivy which is doing alright considering that I’ve just started knitting seriously again. Been delaying it because of the room and other stuff like my last day at work yesterday. But I just want to rant…please.

Y’know…one thing awful about being stuck in South-East Asia as a knitter is this: I cannot get any damn decent sock yarn without burning a hole in my pocket. Shipping is almost always a bomb, even though the exchange rate recently dipped to USD1 = RM3.38, and the only sock yarn I ever get here that is affordable is from Sirdar (no offense). No Koigu, Lorna’s Laces, Yarn Pirate, Sweet Georgia or Claudia’s goodies.

*sigh*

Heartache mode really. Should I even attempt to dye my own sock yarn?

So tell me, how does one find alternatives or a way of getting these little beauties without dying in the process?