Lately I’ve been having silent conversations with myself that go along the lines of:

“Oooh, purty yarn arrived! Mine! All mine!”

“Yeah, but where you gonna put it? The stash is overflowing already.”

“Ummmm. I’ll knit/crochet/weave it straight away!”

“No, you’ll finish your WIPS.”

“Okaay, I’ll put it on display until I’ve made more room in the stash.”

“And in the meantime?”

“Okay. Okay. No more yarn purchases. Happy now?”

Which is usually followed by…

This particular batch of yarn is the result of buying up cotton yarns to ‘test out’ on the new loom, along with:

These, which I separated from the others because they aren’t machine-washable. In the store I kept telling myself I was going to weave tea-towels for Christmas gifts, but didn’t think to check the washing instructions of the yarn. But it kinda makes sense that the Cleckheaton Natural Cotton and Lion Brand Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton haven’t gone through any nasty treatments to make them machine-washable. And the Spotlight 4ply cotton? Probably just because it’s cheap.

The yarns I’m most excited about, however, are the Patons Washed Haze Aran and the Lion Cotton. The former not only because there’s finally a local brand cotton of a good gauge for washcloths, but I started remembering a whole lot of projects I’d liked but dismissed because they required aran weight cotton, like Topi, the Dovetail Pullover, the Modern Cabled Baby Bib, and the #19 Short Sleeve Cardigan (ravlink) from VK Spring/Summer 07.

The Moda Vera bamboo cotton was a surprise. It’s actually quite nice. I associate this brand with walls of novelty yarn, which I usually walk past as quickly as possible, but I think Spotlight had separated their yarn by fibre content this time and the yarn had a chance to catch my eye.

The Lion Cotton is the solution to my baby blanket yarn dilemmas, I hope. Not wanting to use wool because it can’t be bleached and babies might be allergic to it, or acrylic because it melts if it catches on fire, I’ve settled on Bendy Cotton even though it’s not fully machine washable and only comes in pastels. But the Lion Cotton is machine washable and comes in fantastic bright colours.

Speaking of baby blankets, I FINALLY crocheted the last row and started the border last night. Soon I’ll reach the fun part – the musical notes. Then I’ll have to sew them on…

I had a very crafty weekend. Saturday morning I hung out with the girls at s’n’b. Sunday I went to the Handweavers and Spinners Guild for a casual meet up. Got lots of weaving on the Manly Scarf done at both.

There was a weaver at the guild, and I was hoping she could name the method I’m using. She said it was ‘kind of like the opposite to pick-up sticks’. I decided that the opposite to a pick-up was a put-down, so ‘witty put-downs’ is what I’m calling it for now.

I also managed to spend money on non-yarn purchases:

Lots of back issues of Handwoven.

Linen warp ready for rag rug weaving, and a boat shuttle and bobbins. All I need now is a loom. According to Wondo, it has left New Zealand and is somewhere between there and here, or at Aussie customs. The anticipation, along with my work computer being at the shop, means I’m a wee bit twitchy right now. I think I need to do some nice, soothing weaving.