Stashsplosion Saturday

Last Saturday I hosted a Craft Brunch & Swap & Dye at my house, aka "Stashsplosion". My house is not huge, we were quite full with about 12 people.

There was some actual swapping, but mostly people brought stuff that fell into the "this can't live at my house anymore" category. First we slopped a truly obscene amount of yarn into the middle of the living room floor. There was much fondling, ogling, bargaining, and laughing. Brunch and mimosa's helped. We shared stories of bad yarn decisions and abandoned projects. (I gave away a practically complete kids sweater. Its been stuck in that state for 5+ years. I am never going to finish it. Nor am i going to frog it. It is better that it just go to someone else's house where it might be worn someday.)

Two of the gals in attendance are new knitters without much personal stash. They each received a whole bag full of yarn to "seed" their new stash. Another attendee is allergic to wool, and she made out like a bandit! There was quite a lot of cotton and acrylic yarns in the pile that people no longer wanted, but that she could put to good use.

After a few hours we took a break, cleared the brunch, and i showed a few people how to dye yarn. Gina has been itching to knit Clapotis. I recently ordered some undyed merino/tencel for her and she decided that "Saturday is a good day to dye". (go ahead, try to say it without making the evil-badguy-in-a-Bond-movie voice. i bet you can't!) She painted up a whole whack of it for that project.

Surprisingly, nearly all that yarn found new loving homes! I explicitly said that the leftovers couldn't not stay at my house. Out of the whole pile of unloved yarn, only this one bag remained. I will deliver it to some church, school, or thrift store that might put it to good use. (Boston area suggestions welcome!)

mon Clapotis est finis

its a scarf...
Originally uploaded by Skeintily Clad.

its more of a mini-clap. width of a large scarf, but very long. and very warm!

600 yds of handpainted Bluefaced leicester yarn. 1 week of super easy mindless knitting. I know i'm years behind the pattern trends here, but i will agree with what others have blogged many times before. There is definitely a naughty little thrill in dropping stitches ON PURPOSE and not fixing them. tee hee.

Here i am wearing it in my lab, unblocked. I'm too lazy to block it and i rather like the curling anyway. Hey, i'm giving myself major credit for actually sewing in the ends the same week that i finished it. we've got to cherish our minor victories in life.