Ok, so I admit, I must be addicted to knitting, or at least to the process of finding projects to make and buying yarn. I've only been knitting for a month or two at most, and I've already put 14 projects on Ravelry (4 in progress at the same time), with 25 different types of yarn in my stash (some partially used), and almost 200 patterns that I have tagged as favorites, with 41 projects in queue in Ravelry. If this is not a testament to my quickly growing addition, today I purchased a whole bunch of yarn online at Webs and Yarn and Fiber for future projects, and some because they were on sale. With all the growing number of projects, finding deals on yarn is paramount! Since my first yarn purchase at Yarn and Fiber, I've received a coupon in the mail. With the economy as it is these days, I'm sure you'll find lots of coupons and deals too! What I love about the Yarn and Fiber site is that they have free shipping, if you don't mind waiting 7-21 days for your delivery. Since my projects are future projects and I have enough yarn stash to keep me going for awhile, that was no problem for me.
If you're interested in buying yarn at www.yarnandfiber.com, here are a few coupon codes that are valid this hoiday season. Coupons expire on 1/14/09.
$5 off purchase of $50 or more: XCH4VC
$10 off purchase of $100 or more: WL7NTL
So, another thing that really shows my quickly growing affinity towards all things knitting is the fact that I purchased a yarn winder. After my excursion to Knitty City in NY, I had a whole bunch of yarn that I wasn't able to wind there before I left since they were closing. And since I was from out of town, I wouldn't be able to go back there to wind the yarn myself anytime soon. And after a bit of contemplation, I thought it wouldn't be polite to bring in yarn purchased at a different store into a local yarn shop and ask them to wind it for me. Since I knew this passion wasn't going to die anytime soon, I decided to invest in my own yarn winder. It just came in the mail recently and I finally set it up in my home office. It is so much fun and gratifying to know I can wind my own yarn. Such simple pleasure bring me great joy. Please excuse my messy desk...lots of receipts and things still to be filed.
I found this yarn ball winder on Joann.com and used a coupon to purchase it.
I'm taking it one step further... are you ready for this one? Today, after much contemplation, I decided to also buy a knitting machine. I know, the whole point of knitting is to knit things by hand, but I want to use this for the simple projects where I need to knit scarves or baby blankets with simple patterns. I'm finding that I want to knit so many gifts for people, but there's no way that I could possibly knit all those gifts and knit all my new projects too. At this rate, it would take me my entire life to knit all the projects I have on my favorites and queue on Ravelry. So, where I can, I'd like to shorten the time frame to completion.
The reviews for the knitting machine said that the machine is cheaply made with cheap plastic and that you need to take the time to really learn how to use it before it will be of value to you, but once you learn how to use it and have the patience to move slowly to prevent from dropping stitches, that it's been very helpful. I don't think I'm ready for a real commercial knitting machine yet (although that sounds exciting), so I decided to purchase this one anyway because it's the only alternative I've seen out there. I purchased the Ultimate Sweater Machine on Joann.com again. It was on sale and I was able to get free shipping.
Here's the Joann promo code if you plan on buying over $35 on joann.com before 1/3/09:
EAD003
There is also a Deluxe version of the sweater machine. It looks like it is the same machine with a few add-ons, an extender (for longer blankets or larger sweaters) and a row counter. I didn't see anything else that was different.
Stay tuned for my first experiment with the knitting machine when it arrives!