ZOMG, Fun Fur!

AAAAHHHH!!

I actually bought this a while ago....

I don't need any more yarn. I know this. Really. But the bulk of my stash is heavy, wooly, wintery yarn, and I couldn't resist some of the delicious spring yarn that went on sale around March. Most of it has already been worked up, but here's some that's still in skein form (3 of them, actually):



It's President Shine Lame (yes, it's spelled that way on the label) by Motohiro, 52% polyester/20% cotton/28% rayon.

Continuing on that review

After working two weeks solid on a project using Lion Suede, I can now make a more detailed review. The rugburn feeling was indeed caused by over-knitting, I got the same feeling from my trusted Wool-Ease as well.

What I did notice about Suede is that it's a very "sticky" yarn; that is, it likes to cling to the needles and itself. This is both a blessing and a curse: it's difficult to drop stitches, and if you do, it probably won't unravel too far. On the other hand, it takes a bit of effort to slide stitches up the needle, and if you need to frog it, sometimes it snags and can break.

Another odd quirk about it is that it needs to be held taut in order to keep the stitches neat, otherwise they tend to be a bit saggy. My natural knitting style is fast and loose, so having to concentrate on my tension slowed me down a bit.

A very brief yarn review

I like how Lion brand Lion Suede feels when it's knitted up, but I'm not so sure I like knitting with it. I feel like it's giving me a rug burn on my middle finger as I feed the yarn through my hand. Of course, this could just be from over-use after all the crocheting I did this weekend.

The Dangers of Clearance Sales

In the past two days, I have acquired an absurd amount of new materials. My original intention was to buy more of the blue merino yarn, enough to make the Unseamly Sweater from SnB: The Happy Hooker. Not only was I able to obtain said yarn (I was really afraid they'd be sold out after the pumpkin-color disappointment), but I also picked up two skeins of tan (for what, I don't know) and one skein of rose to make a hat. The lilac I had purchased became a scarf and hat which I'll post later.



Now, you're probably saying, "but Marisa, there are four kinds of yarn there, and you only mentioned three!" Or maybe you're not. Either way, the fourth skein is Katylana Soft Colorful (100% nylon and wonderfully pettable) which I found today in the clearance bin for half off. As yesterday's post said, I just barely ran out of yarn while crocheting a hat, so today I went to pick up another skein of the rose. Silly me, thinking I could escape with just a skein of yarn!

Thanks to their clearance, I also stocked up on beads:


The palette sets are really nice: each one contains a mix of seed beads, pearls, faceted beads (is that the correct term? I'm so not up on bead lingo), glass beads, and nylon bead cord. The smaller vials are a mix of seed and tubular beads. Here they are after being organized (more or less) by category:


They're much easier to see without the plastic baggies, aren't they? Plus, I have 2 extra palettes in case I buy more beads.

As an aside, this particular craft store offers a stamp card, for every 10,000 yen you spend, you receive coupons worth 500 yen towards your next purchase (basically for every $100, you get a $5 credit). They also offer some sort of special bonus if you complete 5 cards. I'm already 3/4 done with my third card -_-;

Also, I was right, they're getting rid of the winter yarn to make room for the spring yarn. It has arrived. It's delicious.

When being prudent with money bites you in the bum....

During the month of December I was eyeing some beautiful pumpkin orange merino. Every time I went to the craft store I would pet it, thinking about how I could turn it into some sort of sweater, or a cabled scarf, or invent some sort of pumpkin hat. Unfortunately, as I was spending a lot of money on holiday presents and preparing to fly home for the new year, logic got the better of me as I told myself, "Wait until after winter break, until after the next paycheck comes."

Today was my first trip to the craft store since I've been back, only to find that the store was clearancing out most of their yarns, probably to make way for lighter spring yarns. Japan is very particular about only selling seasonally appropriate things- they have limited edition flavors of just about everything, from candy to cereal to noodles. So of course there was no beautiful pumpkin orange left. I did, however, pick up some lilac and dusty blue, in quantities to make a scarf and hopefully a sweater, respectively. I also obtained some curly pink novelty yarn that is just begging to be made into a poodle.



The blue and purple is Motohiro Premium Merino, 100% wool (and buttery soft!), the pink is the same brand as the green stuff in my last post (still can't tell if it's supposed to be Hands or Hans or what, it's written in katakana ha-n-zu), and the yarn in particular is called Lovely, 100% polyester.