It’s happening – stash swap is go!

The deadline has passed, the swappers are paired with their swappees, and all there is to do now is sit back and watch all the happy yarn-swapping. (And stalk my swappee to get a feel for their personal likes and dislikes, natch.)

I am writing this surrounded by sock yarn. I’ve brought out the yarns that I’d carefully put away for specific projects, as in various cases I am now not so sure that those projects are for me, and am a bit gobsmacked by how much I actually have (and this is just the sock yarn, yikes). Bottom right of the picture is an acquisition from this morning which I really, truly didn’t mean to buy, but a friend and I went to explore Ida’s House earlier today (lovely shop, highly recommend) and I came away with a skein of new yarn. What to do? It basically jumped into my hand. I started off putting it alongside some of the blues and greens odds and ends I have, and then wondered if purples would work better, and that just resulted in everything coming out of the stash drawer. Ah well! It is both a little daunting and very cheering to be typing away with so many vibrant colours and soft yarns falling onto the keyboard. (I think this is why I haven’t cast on for my next sock yet – I’m paralysed by indecision!)

My usual little helper – not as impressed by the yarn as I am

Continuing just for a little longer on the stash swap yarn – one of the options open to us is to give our swapper a few hints (or just direct information!) about colour preferences and the like. So for my swapper, whoever that might be (!! I do actually know, it’s the one downside of organising the swap), here is some hopefully useful information for you, in the form of a short quiz.

1. What fibres do you like to knit with?
I am always very happy using the usual merino/nylon blend or, occasionally, 100% merino for socks I know I’ll wear very carefully. So either of those would be brilliant. I’m also interested in non-nylon sock yarns, though I am struggling to track any down! All that said, something billed as sock yarn which uses something else unusual also would not get turned away. So, basically anything except for 100% acrylic.

2. What colours do you like?
ALL the colours! There really aren’t any that I dislike, though I tend to avoid variegated yarns which are highly contrasted (I’m not anti-variegated, but you can probably tell from the picture that I tend towards either solid, semi-solid or variegated which is within an overall colour theme). Outside of that though basically anything goes.

3. Anything else to mention?
Nope! Have at it – I’m very excited to see what comes through the door!

Advertisements