Scary Knitting!

I have to admit that there is a bit of knitting that I really really need to get on but I am kinda scared of it.

My dear daughter Jessica and her family went on a European vacation last summer. They took time out of their day (more than once) to locate and visit a LYS (local yarn shop) !!!! Just for ME! European yarn! How exciting is that!

Jessica apparently spent quite a bit of time with the store owners. They chose a sweater pattern at each store and then purchased enough yarn from each store to complete these wonderful sweater patterns. Isn't that the sweetest thing a non knitting daughter and son-in-law ever did for their Mom/Mother-in-Law ?? I think so too!

I put it all in a basket to keep it together.

Nice isn't it? There is even two skeins of Regia sock yarn in there. Check out one of the sweater patterns. It is beautiful. Jessica has wonderful taste.

The yarn is really good quality too. Nice soft merino in beautiful rich colors. I love the labels. I can almost read them!

Here we are entering the spring season. I've had this since last summer. That is dangerously close to a year.... poor yarn.... sitting in the basket so long. I'm so afraid to dive into these projects though! I need to make the sweaters that Jessica chose for me. Oh my.. Oh my... what the heck am I going to do. I can't read these patterns. Take a look.

I don't speak or read either of these languages! Egads! Patterns in German and Spanish? I can sigh in French though.  Le Sigh

It Is My Stash !!!!!

If you are familiar with the website known as Ravelry skip this paragraph. Ravelry is an online fiber artist community that I have become addicted to. In addition to the forums where you can make yarn friends or ask questions, it has a nifty feature in each users profile where you can keep track of the yarn/fiber that you currently have hoarded   stashed around your home. You can upload pictures and descriptions and it has come in handy when I have been out at a store... wondering if I still have that hot pink eyelash yarn at home because I see a pattern or complimentary yarn that would go well with it. I can look it up on my phone! Look at that i have three skeins of it! Perfect.  Here is a screenshot of my ravelry stash page.

Lately, like twice in the last couple of weeks, I have logged onto Ravelry to find a message waiting for me. Yippee! Someone wants to talk to meeeeeeeee?????? When I go read the message I am a little confused.  First of all it is from a person that I do not know. . that isn't alarming really. It is a site to meet and get to know other artists, after all.  Here is where it begins to get weird.

This person whom I do not know is saying something like  "I'll take that blue chenille". Uh, ok???
 It takes me a few minutes to remember that I do indeed have some old Lions Brand blue chenille in the stash. Then I look at their next email. They sometimes have sent several because I wasn't writing them back. Hey, I sometimes don't log on for a week or so..... real life takes over. The second and third emails from them get more and more frustrated.

"I've written to you for 4 days! I want to buy the chenille!"

About this time I begin to wonder out loud to myself. Am I the one misunderstanding what the "stash" feature is for on this site? I thought the stash gallery was to document MY STASH!!! I may want to trade or destash some of it, but until then can't I just keep track of it? Did I accidentally open a store here? I am really not sure anymore.

I am going to go read the Ravelry FAQs to make sure I am not using the site incorrectly. I DO want to sell some of my handspun online. I just haven't opened a store yet. .  . or at least I didn't THINK I had!