New Knitting Video and Mum Gives Me Some Rare Knitting Yarn!

Boy the Holidays are upon us already, this Thursday is Thanksgiving and it won't be too long now before Christmas. How is everyone enjoying themselves today? I've been cracking down on some knitting, mainly focusing on my sock and Chrissie's blanket. I also have a brand new ZAK Knits Episode for everyone! After the last ZAK Knits Episode I wanted to do some more knitting videos, they're really enjoyable to make. So about a week ago I recorded some footage of me working on my sock, some of it was when I was still using DPNs and the rest was recorded on magic loop (Recorded on magic loop... Okay that may be a confusing use of words for non Knitters. Hahaha.) I put it all together into this video with some commentary on top, I guess you could call it a showcase of my sock. Unlike the first video though this is actually post commentary. I did it like this because of the nature of the video and the fact I had audio issues on the original footage anyway. So sit back and enjoy! It's 12 minutes long so it's a lot shorter then the first episode.

That was pretty fun to put together, was my first time trying out post commentary. I might try this again in the future but I think I prefer live commentary. I'll probably mix things up and try it new every time.

So somehow I managed to convince my mum to give me more yarn... I have no idea how I did it, I didn't even ask, but I got to go back into her yarn stash (This blog post tells the tale of the first time I did this.) and I got ahold of some new yarns for some awesome new projects.

The yarn on the left is Knit Picks Imagination Pixie Dust. It contains 50% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Superfine Alpaca and 25% Nylon. This is hand-painted fingering weight and one skein of this has 219 yards and 50 grams each. Dye lot number being 84788.

Yarn in the middle is some Lana Grossa Lord yarn. It's 70% wool, 20% silk and 10% polyamide. It's worsted weight and it weighs 50g per skein (Okay technically these are balls not skeins) with 131 yards per skein. I was amazed to find out that this yarn is actually kind of rare now as it's been sold out and discontinued for a while now! Amazing what Mum keeps stashed all this time huh? Anyway this yarn says its worsted but its a much heavier yarn then what I'm used to with worsted.

Finally the two yarns on the right... The purple yarn is some hand dyed (And by hand dyed I mean my Mum actually hand dyed this yarn!) fingering weight sock yarn. I believe this has 462 yards in it and after weighing it on my handy dandy scales it comes out to 90g. We believe this is 75% Merino and 25% Nylon... But Mum says its been a while since she dyed it so it could actually be 25% silk. It feels like sock yarn anyway.

Last but not least the orangey yarn is some Fingering Weight Knit Picks Essential Gold Kettle Hand Dyed. It is 75% and 25% a mixture of Nylon and Polyamide The yardage is 237 yards and it weighs 50g. This is another rare yarn actually, it was discontinued because the yarn wouldn't dye correctly so a lot of the yarns out of the dye lots would end up being unevenly dyed.

So it seems I got some pretty rare and awesome yarn out of all that actually! I have plans for all of this yarn actually. For the Imagination Pixie Dust I've decided to knit my very first shawl. I've been eyeing some patterns for a while now and I've decided to use the Traveling Woman by Liz Abinate. Mum says this would be a pretty good choice for my first shawl and uses some cool stitches. It looks easy enough but still with that wanted challenge and a really nice design so I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens. This pattern is actually only for purchase for 6.00 USD so it's not free but with how pretty this looks it may just be worth buying.

An idea I have for the Lana Grossa Lord yarn is to use a hat pattern called The Natural by Homero Luna. I think this'll be a great introduction for me into cable knitting.

Pretty excited to start all these new projects but there's some I need to finish first such as Chrissie's Blanket which I'm just about to cast off.

I'm on the home stretch with this blanket, just got two more rows to do then I'm finally casting off. It's going to be kind of sad to see this project end in a way, this is my very first knitting project I started over two months ago, before I even started this blog. But all great things come to and end eventually and I believe Chrissie, my little brother, will absolutely love this blanket for the winter.

Now I can't end this blog without updating people on my sock, the video was actually a tad bit behind on my current progress.

I've finished the gusset on my sock so I'm just knitting all around now in the usual stockinette until I get so far (About 8 and a half inches) then I'll be decreasing once again and using kitchener to end my sock. I'm just about done so I need to power through so I can finally, FINALLY start my second sock. I know it's not a race but these socks seem to be taking forever so I need to speed up a bit I think.

So that's about it for the blog today! But before I go.. I have to say something.. My mum is teasing me... She's so mean I swear.

Yeah that's exactly what you think it is... It's Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon.. ONLY PROBLEM IS I have to wait until Christmas. See we're a pretty tight knit (Haha, Tight Knit, oh my god I'm getting worse somebody help.) family and we like doing Christmas so I'm having to wait for my copies of Pokemon Sun and Moon. I don't mind waiting... But the problem here is Mum keeps teasing me. Don't you worry you two... You will be mine soon enough. Anyway to keep myself satisfied on my Pokemon craze I've been replaying Pokemon Black 2.

So that's finally the end to today's blog. Oh boy it was another long one wasn't it? Maybe I should spread the stuff I want to talk about out more I don't know, it never seems long in my head and I even edit out most of the rambles... Hope you enjoyed the video and hope you enjoy your day!

See you on the next blog!