When I first taught myself how to knit, I was psyched. I thought that I would make all kinds of cute scarves and sweaters, and that I’d save a ton of money from buying them from a store. Then I went to a yarn store. Holy shit, yarn is expensive! The wonderful ladies at Northampton Wools directed me at the best yardage-per-dollar yarn in the store, but I still balked at the cost. Eventually I discovered how to be a savvy yarn purchaser, the Webs 20% discount and where to get good deals. I think I’ve done pretty well over the years - I’ll drop some big cash on small things (like, um, Koigu), but I’ve never purchased a sweater amount of yarn for full price. Well, that’s not quite right - Green Gable was knit with full-price Knitpicks Shine, but that stuff is cheap!

The gist of this is that I’m very likely to take advantage of a good deal when I see one. Yarntopia was having a 30%-off-all-summer-yarns sale this past weekend, and I really, truly, could not resist.

Rowan 39: 20% off. I really like two patterns in this: Rambling Rose and Crinkle.

Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy: 30% off. Will become something summery. The yarn is sportweight, which is awesome for the unbearable heat and humidity that is Houston.

RYC Cashcotton: 30% off. A cardigan for me. I would have picked up a different color (I realize that I own way too much purple yarn), but the other colors were very meh.

Handmaiden Sea Silk: 20% off. Yum. Seriously soft. This will probably be a gift for someone, maybe my mother. The yarn is dyed very interestingly - the bluish-green is very dominant. I’m curious to see how it will look knitted up. Anyone know a pattern that takes one skein of this stuff?

The next day I got my Knitpicks order in the mail. Crap, I had forgotten about that. It was a cheap order though, right over the $40-for-free-shipping line. Pictured is some Wool of the Andes, I have two balls of each of those colors. I’m planning on making a felted cat bed - I’ve been wanting to teach myself Continental knitting on something where I don’t have to worry about how uneven the stitches look. I also purchased a size 5 Options needle (the Trellis Scarf? Impossible to do a k7tog in the Habu silk with a blunt Addi. Truly impossible.), some dyeable yarn, and the Hanging Garden Lace Stole pattern.

Time to get knitting. No more yarn purchases until I put a dent in what I already have.