And more champagne, please!

Drum roll, please! Finished up still another pair of socks. Monkeys this time. They were sitting waiting for a complementary yarn to finish up the toes and a bit of cuff. Both of these colors are Socks that Rock Rare Gems. I tried about five colors, and frogged all five until I threw this one into the mix and I like it. There are absolutely no colors in common in the two skeins, which somehow made it work better. This running short of yarn on a regular basis is really affecting my knitting mojo. The socks are put aside waiting for another yarn to add in, and then they languish in their basket for far too long. I can live with the size 10s, but it does drive me crazy when knitting socks.
CookieA's Monkey from Knitty.com
Blue Moon Socks That Rock lightweight
Size 2.5 and 2.25 needles
Added 1 stitch to each side of the stitch pattern to bring the count up to 72 and then knit it tightly. Worked fine.
I love this pattern. I could happily knit all Monkeys, all the time.
Well, I was feeling so smug at finishing still another pair of socks out of the WIPs, that I allowed myself to cake up some Wollmeise and start a new pair. I had researched and actually bought several patterns to find something worthy of my Wollmeise, and ended up tripping over Momma Monkey's Brigit at the last minute, and just picked up the needles and started. Oooooh, I love this yarn, and the colors just glow. Quite a bit further along now and love both pattern and yarn. I love STR yarns and have used them a lot since I love Tina's color sense and yarn quality, but always run out of yarn before finishing due to tight knitting and big feet. Well, with something like 580 yards per skein, I don't anticipate that problem with Wollmeise.
And this, dear friends, is sheer yarn gluttony (and I know you all understand the syndrome). This is beautiful Brooks Farm Fourplay, Acero and Mas Acero. The Bookgrump from the Sisters talked the Brooks Farm ladies, Sherri and Dena, into visiting our weekly knitting group. They brought along Alissa, the Knitting Fairy, with some of her patterns knitted up to show off. They had planned to come for a show and tell, but we had been saving our lunch money up to do some damage and we managed to convince them to come prepared. Well friends, it was a bit of a free for all, everyone clutching yarn to their chests. I was standing near a basked, pulling out the skeins I liked and putting them down on the table hidden under the basket's edge between all the baskets. TxKnitter was across the table from me and kept pulling up skeins of yarn and oohing and aahing. It took some minutes to realize that she was pulling out my hidden skeins, thinking they had just spilled out of the baskets. Hilarious. It was a treat to finally see these yarns in person and they are much more beautiful than you can tell from their website. I came, I saw, I stashed!!! Plans for everything. Socks and scarves and shawls so far. Think I see another Clapotis in there. And one of KnitSpot's beautiful shawls.

The last two weeks have been a complete fiber overdose. Dyeing at Heritage Arts, receiving our much awaited orders from Some Assembly Required and then Brooks Farm coming to visit. Not to mention I'm still waiting for a couple of Sock Hop goodies from Teyani at Crown Mountain Farms. And am dyeing to order some more Wollmeise soon. Whew, I'm already calculating my Christmas checks and allocating them to yarn purchases. Must knit from stash, must knit from stash, must knit from stash. Repeat that 10,000 times. So why am I making plans to vist the Kid and Ewe Fiber Fest in Boerne? Just because it's in the beautiful Hill Country? Just because Brooks Farm will be there? Sure, right. CelticMemory, do you see what you are missing? Over in cool, green Ireland knitting away on 99 projects at a time? Chasing the elusive vest? When you could be revelling in the heat, adding to your stash???