A knitter's minimalist wishlist

---

As soon as the new year kicked off I've been wanting to clean up and rearrange my little craft area.

1. My stash grew quite signifiantly over the past few months as I have been growing my yarn and designing business, and storage started to become quite limited. I love keeping my stash in baskets, but at the moment the two that I am using are completely full with skeins, and it's becoming quite tricky to see what I have and thus be inspired by the yarn that I own when the skeins are not on display. The other day I came across a couple of really inspiring videos on the web, and I've been really eager to built with reclamed wood or palettes little triangular or honeycomb shelves where I could store my yarn. The one shown is available here.

2. I'm really interested in all kinds of crafts and pottery is one of them. Last Christmas as I was spending time in France with my parents, we decided to visit a medieval town called Provins. That same day, my mom gifted us a set of japanese-inspired tea set that an elderly man was making in his little studio/shop in the old town. Since then I've been obssessed with the craft, and I'm actually thinking of attending a class with mom in a near future. I don't think that I would ever be able to create a mug as quite as this one though.

3. As I'm working on a new pattern, I've ben dreaming of warm colors and yarns that I have not yet tried. I'm a little bummed that I didn't grab a skein or two of Quince's Finch when I was in Paris. The colorways shown are: Clay/Audouin/ Honey.

4. And last but not least, Twig&Horn minimalist birch knitting bowl. That's a little piece of art.

---

Yarn Along

Knitting/ Since reorganising my stash, and having beautiful yarn on display all the time, I started feeling the urge to cast something new. A few months back, Grace sent me the most wonderful package that contained some Quince & Company yarn.
Since the packaged arrived, I became some kind of "skein fetishist", keeping my "precious" yarn in my stash, with no plan to use it anytime soon. Before trying their yarn, I never really had a problem to cast on a project with a yarn that I had bought. I'm not a compulsive buyer, so when i have a project in mind, I just buy enough skeins to complete the project. Since I'm knitting "on a budget", I do not buy yarn without having an idea in mind, so there's no skeins sitting in my mini-stash for a very long time.
So I never had to face this kind of situation before. I knew that I didn't want to cast on socks - the yarn is far way too precious in my opinion, and I wasn't so sure about making a shawl either. But then after browing my favourites on Ravelry, I remembered this beautiful project that I could make.  And it's a shawl!
Over the past few days that I started knitting, the yarn has been flying on my needles. And before I could say "just one more row", I had already completed the stockinette section...

Reading/ The self-sufficiency issue of Extra-Curricular magazine. It has several interesting articles, including an interview with Rohan Anderson, soap making, slow fashion, and herbal medicine.

Watching/ Started to watch Bushcrafting (again), and planning to watch this documentary very soon.

*I'm joining Ginny's yarn along this week.

A swap, stash enhancement & a new design

A few months back, I got in touch with the dear Grace a.k.a Juniper Grace. She's hosting the most wonderful podcast, and I'm always hoping that she's going to release a new episode every week. So when she asked me if I would like to swap yarn + goodies with her, I was thrilled. I asked her what kind of yarn she'd like to receive from me. She immediately pointed the yarn that I've used for my very first cardigan -and she could not make a better choice than that. Ulysse is by far one of my favourite yarns. 

Then she told me that she could send me yarn that I cannot find easily in Europe. And when she mentioned Quince & Co, I'm sure you could see two stars shining in my eyes for a second. I've been dreaming of their yarn for months and months and months. It is so hard to get one tiny skein here in Europe!

I've also received the dilemma yarn from De Rerum Natura. Could Giliatt be better than Ulysse? I don't know, but it's perfect. 

And finally, I'm working on several projects. One of them will take place this summer. There's a lot of work and homework to be done, but that's something that I enjoy with all my heart. I'm also working on one more personal project this time. If everything goes well, I hope to publish it in the early days of fall. Have you ever knit with plant fibers? Nettle yarn?

Happy Spring!