I was wondering today just how old my oldest pair of socks are, and wandered over to Ravelry to relive some of my knitting history. Then I wondered when I last knit myself socks, considering my current resolution not to knit myself any. Oh, check that out. My last pair of socks for myself was finished a year ago. So I’ve been on-track with that resolution all year!

Then I thought to myself, if that’s the last pair of socks I knit myself, how much have I knit this year?

Turns out, not much.

The next logical thought was, “Wait… haven’t I been buying yarn this year too? Have I been secretly not knitting enough but still acquiring too much stash??” Which prompted this post: a look into my yarn acquisitions of 2011, yarn either given, bought, or swapped.

Let’s start with Dream in Color Smooshy, one of the two yarns I received for my birthday. (The other yarn I received turned into Multnomah.)

Pretty, isn’t it? It would make a lovely shawl. I just haven’t gotten there yet.

There is also this red yarn that I found at my school yarn group’s end of year swap in April or May:

Yes, it is destined for a gaudy sweater.

Sometime between those two I acquired this Berroco Blackstone Tweed with which to make the Climbing Vines Pullover.

And, as I pulled it out of the bag to photograph, look what else tumbled out:

This is probably enough for a Cable-Down Raglan for me too, considering how tiny I am.

Over the summer while I was not knitting much I fell down the rabbit hole when I saw a yarn booth at a neighborhood festival. I really hate when that happens.

At least it supports a Central American women’s collective? I guess?

And from a Green Gifts Festival a couple of weekends ago, I present:

Yarn made from corn. I can’t wait to turn it into a pretty shawl, because remember: no socks allowed.

So with all this acquired and very little knit up, am I allowed to buy Wicked Royal and make myself a Breakwater? I better get on that other resolution I had to knit every day.

Although this time around I don’t have a whole lot for you. The shawl looks pretty much the same as it did last week, with just a few stitches bound off, so I’ll just show this picture again:

Most of the knitting on the vest is finished, but it needs to be washed and blocked before I’ll start sewing it together and finishing the neck- and button-bands. However, I’ve been meaning to wash my handknit socks for ages, so they were the first to get a bath, and now I have to wait until they’re dry. Which takes foreeeeever. Bah!

I did make this while watching a movie the other day (Wings of Desire—pretty good movie, except for one monologue at the end!):

Mom’s been going on about how she loves the one dishcloth I made and left home, and how she needs new dishcloths, so when we went to RiteAid one day I picked up a ball of Sugar ‘n Cream to tide me over before this:

Yesterday I got out all of my yarn and tried to organize it a bit, so I know what’s where and where to look for interesting things. On the left is leftovers of yarns, and on the right is full skeins (and partials, if there are matching partials). There’s a little more yarn than that, but not much. I try not to keep a lot of yarn or I’d get confused. The only thing is that right now I’m between projects, and I don’t know what I have and what I could make with it! So I might be knitting dishcloths for the next week and a half, then get myself to a yarn store once I’m back at school. Or maybe I’ll do something more exciting with the worsted-weight leftover yarns. Not really sure yet.

That’s not to say I haven’t been knitting—far from it. It’s just that letters are easier to talk about lately. However, I’d like to point out that I wrote the other day in my journal that I’ve been obsessed with two things the last few days: writing and knitting. No one can prove that I wrote that, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway. Did I mention how cheap of a hobby letter-writing is? Buy a bunch of paper, envelopes, stamps, and a pencil and go. I may or may not have mentioned here how cheap Berlin is, but in this case you people in the U.S. have it better than me: did you know it would cost you a mere 94¢ to send me a letter? (You know you want to.) To send you a letter, though, costs me €1.70! That’s over TWO DOLLARS at today’s exchange! You totally get the advantage, even if the cost goes up a few cents in May. It’s okay though, I use my college’s money to send mail, so I don’t mind spending the extra. I usually just send postcards, which are €1. (I finally found out how to make a €! so happy!)

You know, when people told me “Berlin is so cheap!” I didn’t realize they also meant that the YARN here is cheap. O hai really-expensive-brands-of-yarn-at-home. Here Cascade 220 would look expensive.

*waits for the sounds of jaws dropping*

I know, right?!!!!!!!

So I was thinking, I should buy 2-3 sweaters worth of yarn and ship it back. Then I have a purpose when I go to the yarn stores, so I don’t get overwhelmed. And 2-3 sweaters worth of yarn isn’t much, and definitely won’t cost much. Plus, ooooh. Pretty yarn.

I think I should mention before I go any further in this entry that I am somewhat sick and therefore my brain is not really working the way it should.

I do know however, that I should get back to the letter-writing topic, even if I don’t know how to transition back to that. So here’s some links:

Emily Post (!!!) on letters, or why I need to read a dictionary: how do people learn such elegant ways of phrases?! I guess you have to practice.

I really want to do this, except I’m not in the States and I have a feeling I might need to be to sign up.

Actual ideas for the post office to utilize to optimize its business. Activism! And letters! It’s, like, a blogger after my own heart!

Also in the vain of saving the USPS, the Sunflower Address Book from its online store. I need it. Or more accurately, I want it. I am tired of having to have my computer turned on and my address book open to address postcards. I get how the computer is a time-saving invention, but it is also a great distracter, and with it on who knows what kind of trouble I could get into for hours? Better everything were on paper so I don’t have to turn on the computer, and then I could take all my letter-writing supplies down to the nearest café and hang out there for hours while I write letters and postcards! Doesn’t that sound heavenly? I thought so too.

Yes, I have completely convinced myself that I need a paper address book. But do I buy it here? Or wait until I get home and don’t have to drag everything around everywhere? Decisions. Ugh.

Now that I’ve rambled enough (I’ve told myself I’m going to blog EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. let’s see how I do huh?), I had better tuck myself into bed… and GET BETTER. I am bad enough that it’s a great excuse to not go to class tomorrow, but not so bad to take away my urge to knit… odd combination for me, that! So I think I will get quite a bit done. I love working on the Firestarter socks, but I have another project I also want to work on. Yay! Until tomorrow, adieu~

Actually, scratch that. I’m really not ready for the weekend. I hate weekends. No one to talk to. On a weekend such as this at home I would say WHO’S UP FOR A MOVIE?? Friday night and then watch one of our favorites (a Will Smith scifi movie, or a Star Trek, or Legally Blonde or The First Wives’ Club), and laugh and laugh and make popcorn and talk to people. Destress.

Now, though, I don’t know how to destress anymore. How to relax. So when I ask, “Is it the weekend yet?” I really want to know, “How can I get rid of this knot in my back that is growing greater by the day and I can’t seem to unclench my jaw?”

And of course therefore I said some stupid, rude things in the comments section of some people’s web sites today. Argh.

See, there’s this exciting part of Socktoberfest that’s the Mystery Sock, and man do I want to take part. Unfortunately… I am out of ‘unclaimed’ yarn. Period. None here and two skeins on their way home that I’m not ready to turn into socks yet. So I whined a bit in some people’s comments areas of their blogs, and for that I apologize.

But see?! See see???

This is the extent of my yarn stash here. Not shown: the yarn for the sweater I’m currently working on and the cream Koigu for Grandma’s socks. Shown: three skeins of yarn for stranded socks for my uncle, the second skein of yarn for my aunt’s socks, two skeins of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted in two different colors, at first for a Uniscarfity from Magknits, and now that I’m not interested in scarves… why didn’t I send it home again? Two skeins of Koigu, one of which I’m going to turn into a Good Luck Cowl very soon, one skein of Mission Falls 1824 Wool in case I ever decide to crochet the edging for my Nantucket Jacket, and some random dishcloth cotton for those ARGH I NEED TO KNIT moments.

And what’s at home? Mostly leftover yarn, with the exception of a sweater’s quantity of Berroco Ultra Alpaca, enough sock yarn for 2 pairs of socks that already have designated patterns that I want to use with them. What I just sent home? Leftovers + two skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that I’m unsure what to do with + two skeins of sock yarns that I’m not ready to use yet.

So, this Socktoberfest is not particularly inspiring, what with only being able to knit gifts in sock yarns that don’t totally inspire *me* in patterns I didn’t choose (with the exception of my aunt’s).

But I can’t do anything else because I don’t have any yarn for anything else. Sometimes that makes me sad. This is one of those times.

I guess this is why people grow their stash, so that they have lots of yarn to play with in times of economic emergency like this one, where we have to tighten our belts and so forth. Wish I’d gotten that chance sometimes. Maybe it’s a GOOD thing I have to re-knit my sweater. I’d run out of yarn to play with that much sooner otherwise.

Maybe I am still whining. I blame stress. Tomorrow I’ll just post a picture so that no one will hear me whine.

Since hearing that Caroline is only using 4 for her February Lady Sweater, I’ve been thinking about how much I have. I started browsing Ravelry to see how many skeins people used of this for various sweaters.

Guys, someone made a 40.5″ Tilted Duster in just 6 skeins.

I am SO going to have extra yarn. Like 3 skeins extra. I am going to have to make a lot of gifts out of it. I’ll match people!

So today I went to the community garden and helped harvest—more green beans! Yay. And ground cherries (ever heard of THOSE before? I didn’t think so), some peppers, and tomatoes. Why am I not over-ecstatic about the tomatoes? Except for the lemon cherry tomatoes, they all had Blossom End Rot. :( So sad. Kind of grosssss. At least now I know what it looks like. Here’s hoping the lime treatment we added will make it better.

The people there really know what they’re doing. I’m excited to join them. Also, the meeting was at 2pm, basically lunchtime, so I got fresh food for lunch! Whatever the members don’t eat gets sold to the cafeteria, so hopefully I’ll see some of the food there.

Oh yeah, and my mom hasn’t sent my package yet. She will be hearing from me tomorrow. She will be hearing from meeee.

No, the reply. The backyard.

At which I jumped. These green beans were from the backyard? There’s actually something this good growing back there? WHOA! And Yay! Alas, my dad then said that those were the only green beans on the plants, so we’ll have to wait ’til next weekend for more.

I’m not entirely sure he was prepared for how much more.

I don’t often go into the backyard, but when Dad said yesterday that there were a lot more green beans this weekend, I decided that that was what I wanted for dinner tonight (with tomatoes, though not home-grown ones: our tomato plant is doing really badly and all tomatoes have for a few years now. Dad suspects a fungus in the soil). So I went out to pick them. I picked almost enough for dinner, then realized I had only visited a quarter of the green bean plants in the row there. I hurried through to the end, trying to get the biggest, most ready-to-be-consumed green beans off of the plants so they had space to produce more. Then I came in and told everyone that we’d be eating green beans for a week, a large smile on my face.

The green bean plants look the best in the backyard, too. Out of all the basil and lettuce and spinach and broccoli, they’re the ones that are flourishing and growing. Wonder why. I’m not a gardener, but it was definitely really satisfying to go outside and get dinner right off the plant. And I’m going to be doing a lot of that this week. Daily, I think. Don’t plants produce better if they are harvested more often (than once a week)?

My favorite tomatoes are those fresh off the vine (and tomatoes are my favorite foods), which is why it pains me that our tomato plants are so sad looking. There are a few green ones right now, but they never quite seem to ripen. Or maybe they just wait to ripen until after I leave.

Why am I talking about this? Because it seems like a good thing to talk about. Plus, I like food. And I like food from the backyard. And even more importantly I like feeling like we’re taking care of at least a little bit of our food supply. We won’t be canning or preserving these beans, but we will be enjoying them a lot in the next week.

In another direction entirely, Sara and I went on a yarn crawl. Why we hadn’t done this sooner, I don’t know. You know how there are some stores you hear about ever since you’ve begun knitting? For me, that’s Imagiknit. I always thought I should go there someday, but was a little afraid of navigating SF on my own. Now I just want to know why I waited until I have a week left in California. It’s not even an hour away! It’s the biggest yarn store I’ve ever been in and it has sooo much yarn. A little of everything: affordable yarns, staple yarns, luxury yarns. Why, why, WHY hadn’t I gone in sooner???

I came home with this:

I almost got this in a color very similar to that of The Nantucket Jacket. Thankfully Sara was there to remind me. My color palette for sweaters is really stuck right now between blue and red. Hopefully this purple will take care of that. Also, it’s Berroco Ultra Alpaca and a sweater’s worth was around $75. Which is about how much the yarn for the Nantucket Jacket cost, and that’s just superwash wool. I think it’s a good amount and I’m soooo excited about it! I wonder what I’ll make? I have so many choices…

(The other two yarn stores we went to really weren’t worth talking about in comparison with ImagiKnit! Possibly unbelievable, but there you go.)