stash enhancement goodness

I had a couple of opportunities in the last week to visit yarn shops outside my usual roaming range.

I've been plugging right along on some projects and making good progress so I felt pretty good about going into Knit Happens in DC and coming out with something a little different - a single skein of kettle dyed laceweight cotton.

Araucania Lonco Solid. It has very slight variegation and is a beautiful rich rust. I'm picturing a simple lacy stole for summer. I had to stop myself from buying two skeins - at 440 yards I'm pretty sure I can do whatever I'm going to do with only one. Olgajazzy was working, so I complimented her on her latest pattern in IK. I wanted to gush a little more but I was with two non-Ravelry casual knitter friends and felt a bit self-conscious!

Since I was in DC for WWKIP, I missed the events in Halifax. Several other knitters from my Tuesday group missed it as well and we hatched a plan to get brunch together yesterday and then visit a yarn store outside of the metro area - totally unreachable without a car. There was a 40% off sale on everything at Basket of Yarn. Eeek.

I had almost talked myself out of some lovely wool but then realized that the sale was on - it had been rumored before we got there, but then there were no signs around and it was a small shop so I didn't want to ask my friends. As they were starting to get their purchases totalled however, I managed to ask about sales and then when I heard about the 40% off business I went straight back over to the shelf and grabbed four of these beauties:

I always feel good about taking all of the skeins in a particular color rather than leaving one or two behind, smaller amounts being possibly harder to use if you need more yardage. In this case the yarn is basically sock weight though so even one skein would be good for a pair of socks. I love the slight variations in color and the yarn matched the shirt I was wearing perfectly. Such a great color. I'm thinking of another lightweight cardigan for fall. I might have to design it myself, as fine gauge sweater patterns are hard to come by sometimes.

Once I did the math on how much things were going to cost me I went over to another shelf where I had petted some lovely 100% alpaca in burgundy, and decided to buy the pale gray color instead since I'm trying to be aware of what colors I tend to buy - and branch out a little bit. I'm thinking of a cropped cardigan or stole for this as well, I got four skeins.

Earlier I was on Ravelry in the forums and stumbled across a post where people had pictures of some of their massive stashes. Made me feel a lot better about my own modest one - almost everything is in one bin and I have plans for most of it. Just not enough time to put all those plans into action but I'm trying. I will be pattern surfing on Ravelry lots this week, I think!