Knitting VS. Hoarding

In the past couple of months, it seems I have been hoarding yarns more than I have been knitting them. (Trust me, I haven't blogged about all my purchases) It just seems denial is more effective. Once the yarns are bought, I'll just stick them in the back of my stash and forget about them. There... no guilt feeling...see no evil, hear no evil. Must buy more yarn!!!

Well, I actually took the time and entered it into Ravelry. The grand total is: 485 balls of yarns, 56,663 meters of yarns!!!

There - I said it - My name is Joy and I have a Yarn Addiction! Of course, the only way to rectify this was to start knitting because there's no way in hell would I go on a yarn diet! If I start knitting more, my stash would start to deplete, which will allow me to buy yarn guilt-free.....well, less guilt anyway!

Here's my latest:

A basic yoke sweater made with the softest Malabrigo. I made it in a Size 4 for Aliana. This sweater may be a very basic and plain sweater but I wanted to knit this while learning a new technique. I knitted this whole sweater using the Continental method. Wow! Talk about knitting in double the time! I don't think I will ever go back to the English method. However, I haven't quite mastered the purl stitch yet in Continental. It's still awkward and I still find myself switching hand for purling. This was my first time knitting a yoke sweater and I think my next one would be a lopi sweater.

Also, Michael's had a huge sale on yarn recently and I bought a bunch of Lion Brand Cotton-Ease to knit baby hats. I just started this for Arison today:

Oh, so much knitting, so little time!

Halifax and Halloween

This past week has been a whirlwind! I find myself constantly trying to catch up. I just came back from another business trip, this time to Halifax! Of course, I don’t have many pictures to show since I forgot my camera at home, but then again, I was also packing in the middle of the night and wildly throwing irrelevant clothes into a luggage. Needless to say, I was a wee bit unprepared for this trip.

I was only there for 2 days and my agenda was jammed packed, This was a FAM trip for one of my hotels that I sell for, so they want to make sure that I get the full scope of Halifax while I was there. I was told that they had fitted a weeks worth of Halifax in 2 days. Fun!

During all the meetings, eating, walking and seeing…. I was able to sneak out to a LYS called The Loop Café. There I was able to get a locally hand-dyed, hand-spun sock yarn called Celestrial Merino. Also, I checked out their local Farmer’s Market. I was very impress and surprised to see how many little craft booths sells hand knitted items. Thrum mittens seems to be a popular item there. As much as I love hand-knitted item, I can’t seem to buy it from someone else knowing that I can make that myself. Weird!

I also spotted a small booth that sells wools that was spun from a local farm. I LOVE Farmer’s Market! Also, this thank you is long over due! My Halloween Swap Pal is no other than Curlytop!! She sent me an awesome package for Halloween. I just luuurrve the Mango tea! Also, in the package were Halloween Tattoos and Candy Corn which my 2 kids took off with it before I can get a picture of it.

Speaking of Halloween, here we are:

Tea surpirses

Look what Debbie, my tea swap partner sent me. An awesome package packed with so much goodies and yarns! The teas are awesome! Organic Green Earl Grey and Earl Grey infused with Lavender and 2 bags of Forte. I can't wait to try all of them. I imagine myself sitting back with a fine cuppa early grey and knitting!

Also, she included a bag of chocolate chip cookies and a box of chocolate dipped biscuits (that was consumed in one sitting!) A very cute and clever mug was in the box too. It's a "memo" cup that came with chalk to jot down all my To-Do list. *sigh*, if only my to-do list was 4 lines long!

Along with all these great things, she included 5 balls of Callista that would be perfect for Arison's next sweater. Thank you thank you sooo much!