Yarny Prizes including Superwash Malabrigo Sock Yarn!

The prizes for Malabrigo March came in last week. Tobias and I had agreed on 20 skeins of their soon-to-be new Superwash Merino wool and 10 skeins of their fairly new Silky Merino. Aren't they generous? They seemed willing to donate more but 30 skeins is about all I can handle at the moment in terms of organizing and mailing. Plus, many of the Junkies were donating prizes as well. =)





20 skeins of Superwash yarn! Isn't that insane? I've never even knit a complete pair of socks yet... but, having Malabrigo sock yarn is definitely inspiring me to do it. Here are a few closeups as well:



The yarn is so new that the colors aren't even named yet!
Want some Silky Merino action too?



Yum!
The 30 skeins were not all that I found in the bag however...

They included 4 skeins of their limited edition Organic Cotton! I love the natural colors they used for this yarn. I haven't done much cotton knitting, but, of course, since Malabrigo has cotton yarn I might as well start. ^_^



A few days after receiving my package I found another notice on my door left by DHL. The tag said that the package couldn't be delivered w/o my signature... and that it was from Uruguay. I figured they were confused but the notice came again the next day, so, I called and it turned out that there was another box waiting for me. I went to pick it up after work and it definitely was from Uruguay.
I could already sense Malabrigo as I opened the box. It was packed with more skeins of yarn! Another batch of sock yarn, 5 3-skein packs of unnamed worsted yarn (which I later found out was from a new dyeing technique), and 3 full packages of their Merino Worsted in 3 colors... Hongos, Purple-Lime, and one I don't remember.

The first thing I did when I got home was send a message to Tobias to see if it was a mistake... but, it wasn't. He said that Antonio actually 'smuggled' the extra skeins of yarn for me to do what I choose. I decided that I'll be saving these for future Malabrigo celebrations. =)

I'll take pictures of this new batch of yarn soon!
For now, enjoy a bit more yarn pr0n:



Yum. =)

Lightbulb!

I changed out the light bulbs in my bedroom today.
A few months ago I was listening to this guy talk about going green and one of his ideas that really hit me was switching out the typical incandescent bulbs for florescent. Mainly the idea was that they save energy and many of them are made now to mimic actual daylight. So, the next day I bought bulbs, and, me being me didn't actually change them until months later... two days ago actually. The result is tRiPpY. It's almost a very cold, stark, padded room in a hospital feel.
During the day though, when the sun is at the right point I'll flip on my lights and it'll get brighter but I won't notice any change in color... it's almost like the bulbs add to the sun. But, yeah, at night, which is when I mainly use the lights, it's weiiiiird. I feel good about saving energy though, AND the bulbs are supposedly able to last 5 years. Definitely a good thing.



This is my Koolhaas. I cast on for Malabrigo March in Paris Night. The pattern is easy, and quite easy to memorize, but, I've had to purchase whole new sets of needles. My Clovers were just too blunt to work the tight cable stitches and to constantly knit into the back. Luckily Wool & Co had great 16" Addi Naturas available so I first bought a set of 4's... and then after realizing my Clover 6 wasn't sharp enough bought a set of 6's in Addi. Hopefully my DPNs will cut it once I start decreasing.

Sorry about the blurriness in the picture too. The sun was going down when I took this and I just couldn't get enough light to make my camera focus on the dark color of the yarn. So.. yeah, don't look too closely and don't blow it up. ^_^

Still here!

I'm still here! I'm back from my very long 'hiatus'. That was almost 3 months of not posting! Working a 40+ hour week is really draining. I'm back though with a goal to post at least once a week. I'm thinking Sundays will become my official posting day.

A lot has been happening in my knitting life. Well, sort of. My main project since the last time I posted was the Uncle Argyle Scarf from Son of a Stitch & Bitch. I love how it turned out but knitting it was a long process. I almost quit until a random comment made towards Ivi resulted in a race between Nina and I to finish our longest projects. My argyle scarf and her yellow sweater. Who knows how far along I'd be if home made ice cream wasn't on the line. =)

Here are 2 pictures. One from the start and one at the end.





Twenty three whole pattern repeats = Fourty six argyle 'diamonds'!





Here are a few more Finished Objects:




My first Shifting Sands in Malabrigo




A buttoned neckwarmer for Idyl in cashmere




A scarf for Jazz in alpaca




A Noro Striped Scarf!

There are others but I think I've posted enough pictures. ^_^ You can find the rest on my Ravelry. I'm "simplethings" by the way.

In related news, in the Malabrigo Junkies group we're having Malabrigo March. Basically, there are loads of KALs and contests going on--the only requirement is that you use Malabrigo yarn. =) Many people were generous enough to provide a few prizes, Tobias (from Malabrigo) came through again and is donating 20+ skeins of their soon to be coming superwash sock yarn. I think I might just have to become a sock knitter and knit myself an actual pair. =)
Feel free to join the celebrations on Ravelry.

I'll have to spend some time now to read through my bloglines and catch up on everyone.