As I mentioned in my last post, I've been making an effort to turn over my stash, and trying use up more yarn than I usually do before making another purchase. I've gotten to the point, now, where I'm down to a few colors of my stock tabi yarn, and I'm trying to decide how to proceed.

I've been trying to fill my shop for the holiday season, but it's tough to feel motivated to do that when things are soooo sloooow during the anti-knit season. I've been sticking with it, making breaks for my own projects and experiments, trying not to burn out, and have made pretty good progress. I'd hoped to have more listings, but I still did better than I expected.

It's now to the point where I should start ordering more yarn, but I'm a bit stuck on colors, even after looking at color and fashion predictions for the fall. I know I need some more traditionally feminine colors (purples, pinks), and came to realize that I need more greens (which I'm totally not feeling), earthy tones, blues, and yellows.  

I just need to shake up the whole set, and that's tough for me. I've spent the past few weeks poking at the Pantone Fall Color Report, and it really gave me a place to jump off, and I encourage anyone currently struggling with color to check it out. What colors are looking for this winter and fall?

For the past couple of weeks, I've really gotten into scrap stripes for my tabi socks. While winding out yardage for my latest pair ('Firepit'), I realized how much of a dent it was making in my stash and how much old yarn has been made into finished objects.

I usually buy a minimum of two skeins of each color when I make an order. I always have enough to make an extra pair, if one pair sells quickly or another size is requested, without having to reorder. That logic has worked out well for me over the years, but it's also resulted in stagnant skeins of accent colors. Usually, these are neutrals: grays, creams, tans, blacks, etc. Colors that work really well as a 'base' for stripe combinations.

It's nice to see the 10-20 yd scrap balls in my scrap bag being incorporated into new socks, and it's equally nice to see the neutrals being given a punch of color. I know lots of people like neutrals and single tones, but they don't inspire me like contrasts and complementing colors do. This has turned out to be a great, useful project.

Of course, now it looks like I'm crazy stripe lady!

I've been holding off on buying yarn, recently, in an attempt to work through my stash.  As a result, I've found myself stagnated and avoiding knitting for my shop; new colors and textures are what keeps me going.  It has been pretty productive, this avoidance, because I've been working on projects for me, my family, and finishing up things that have been hanging around for awhile.

But...I know I need to work on building up more stock!  I'm already starting to get a trickle of custom orders for the holidays, and I was dreadfully unprepared last year for my etsy sales.  Breaking down and buying yarn currently isn't in the cards, so I decided to whip out my bag of scraps and pull a couple of skeins of yarn out and see if I could come up with anything that suited my fancy.  My goal was to use up some of my scraps and to use up an idle skein.  

Last night in the HAF critique chat, someone mentioned 'sunset colors' in relation to my orange and pink ribbed socks.  I had about 5 yards of each of those colors in my scrap bag, so I pulled them out on the table and saw that a winey red looked quite nice with them.  I also had about 5 yards of that, so I wound off bobbins and have them paired with a skein of cream yarn.

When I finish the pair of socks I'm working on now (for me!), I'm going to get started.  I'm actually excited about it!  Maybe this'll keep me from splurging on supplies for a tiny bit. :)

I'm dying, here!  We left to visit family, and I got notice today that my alpaca is waiting at the post office for me!  All of this time, I've been waiting and waiting and pining away for it, and it arrives a day after I leave.

Oh the injustice!  Oh the humanity!

My MIL is checking on the house, so I'm going to beg her to go pick it up for me so it doesn't wait too long in the cold, dark, unloving post office. :)

I've posted about a bazillion times about the alpaca yarn I've ordered, but today I'm very excited.  The Bolivian post service update shows that the yarn left the country three days ago.  It's not tracking in the US yet, but it's so nice to see it finally moving along on its journey.

It takes an average of two weeks to arrive, according to them, and it's only been one week.  I'm champing at the bit to get my hands on those lovely little skeins!  Until it arrives, I'll be compulsively running the number through track-trace and the USPS website to see if there's any news on its location.

I've mentioned a few times the lace piece that I'd been working on for my grandmother for Mother's Day.  Well, it went out in the mail on Tuesday to her after I soaked (mmmm, grapefruit Eucalan!) and blocked it.  I'm a terrible blocker, but it turned out pretty well.  It's 70% Angora, 25% Wool, 5% Nylon, so it's pretty crazy soft and a bit fluffy.

So here it is, for your viewing pleasure.  Don't look for any mistakes or you're sure to find them! ;)