Saturday, July 25, 2009

Über Yarn Pr0n Available Now on Ravelry

[2009.08.05] UPDATE: You can check out the winners here!


Well, yarn pr0n has always been available on Ravelry (click here* to start drooling), but this is just insane. I'm not usually swayed by the yarn page nearly as much as the pages for patterns or finished projects, so to say that I'm glued to the screen is a big deal. What's got me in a tizzie?

It's Sock Summit's Dye for Glory contest! They have a dozen categories with so many beautifully dyed yarns in each. The catch? You can only vote for one in each category. If you're already a Ravelrer go vote now! If you're not but are a knitter, crocheter, dyer, or just yarn appreciator sign up and vote now!

* As of this writing, access to pages within Ravelry is still members only, but it's free to sign up and they really don't spam your email address.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Cleaning House

Tomorrow's Independence Day here in the U.S. To celebrate, I was hoping to paint my nails. Nothing fancy or time-consuming (like the flowers, hearts, etc. I'd paint on my nails years ago) but still keeping with the red-white-blue theme of the day. I dug out my many bottles of nail polish only to find that I don't have a good red anymore--the two I used to use are too congealed from heat and lack of use. It was kind of eye-opening to realize how little I've painted my nails in the past few years. I should work on this, starting with a trip to a drug store to pick up some red (and probably another color or two in the process, lol).

Even if that falls through, I'm hoping the day won't entirely lack art/creativity. I've got a blank SD card and a borrowed mini-tripod ready to go to capture fireworks. This'll be my first time trying to seriously photograph them.

Speaking of photographs, I actually documented something yarn-related recently:


This pile of Red Heart was donated to a lady who worked in the same school as my boyfriend (I think the fifth-grade school around here) in early May. There were a few other smaller, stray balls but this is the bulk of it. Some of them (e.g., the watercolor colorway in the middle) I was rather attached to but honestly I didn't have any projects in mind for them. I've been slowly moving away from Red Heart Super Saver; I don't like the feel of it for garments and lately have been knitting things designed to be placed next to skin. I also want to move away from worsted weight for a bit and try other other weights. I did keep a few very tiny balls that I wasn't sure she'd want; they make good stitch markers, lifelines, etc.

I'm learning to let go of things I haven't/won't use. This is good.