The three colored (purple accent) cashmere cowl by Joji Locatelli.... made from stash yarn and not cashmere... is done.
It matches the three colored (lime accent) cashmere cowl and the three colored (red accent) cashmere cowl already living in my closet.
I think I'm done with this pattern for awhile!
Two weeks into the new year....and I'm still attacking the stash. (For someone with the attention span of a gnat, this is very very good.)
'My cup of tea' socks are finished. The leftover ball of yarn got tossed into the bag holding the sock yarn blanket. One skein out of the yarn closet.
Next...
Joji Locatelli's Three Color Cashmere Cowl...out of stashed yarn, not cashmere. I've made this cowl twice before, and obviously love it or I wouldn't have made it the second time. It's portable, and easy, and you can use any kinds of leftovers in the stash. Three colors? Four would work, as would five or six. The black yarn was gifted from a dear high school friend who was helping HER friend who closed her yarn shop. The grey was bought in Damariscotta, ME three years ago, and came from a small spinning mill on PEI. Souvenir yarn...which counts as a souvenir and not officially 'stash', but today I'm counting it as stash. And the purple? Honestly...who knows? One skein of mystery yarn. This cowl won't use up all the yarn, but I'm making a dent.
OOPS.
Stash diving, I found this UFO. (what was I thinking when I started this?? STRIPES?!?) If only it wasn't using my FAVORITE FAVORITE Jamieson Spindrift....sigh. I couldn't throw it out...and I'm NOT leaving it 'UF' forever. I'm ripping this apart. I'm adding it back into the stash.
Four skeins out of the stash....four skeins into the stash.
Holding my own.
Strip knitting. No relation to strip poker. (sorry to disappoint)
It's actually pretty simple...you make a strip, then attach a second strip as you knit, and a third, etc. A wonderful way to use up bits and pieces of leftovers...
I made this blanket years ago from leftover sock yarn...left over from a mitered square sock blanket. Leftovers from leftovers.
This 'probably-never-to-be-finished' blanket is using leftovers from the above leftover blanket that we all now know was knit from leftovers from another blanket using leftovers. Follow that?
BUT...another good reason to use the strip knitting technique is to eliminate pooling with varigated yarn. In this case...you change balls of the same yarn at regular intervals as if you were doing intarsia knitting...and follow the pattern as written. Years and years ago I made a pullover sweater using Noro's Kochoran yarn---a very bulky, wool/angora/silk blend that made this sweater SO HOT I NEVER WORE IT. Actually, that's not quite true. I wore it once, and not only did I feel as if I was in a steam bath, but it was so bulky I looked like the Michelin Man after Thanksgiving dinner.
The yarn, though, is so beautiful. It's Noro after all. Beautiful, pricey Noro, and I couldn't bring myself to toss it. At some point (years ago as opposed to years and years ago) I decided to rip it out; in my recent quest for stash to bust I came across a baggie full of it.
So, I knit another pair of Malabrigo Hand Thingies mitts. I love them. (check) I used up almost the whole baggie of old yarn. (check) HMMMMMM. Wasn't this a sweater at one time? oops.
Another dive into the stash, and look what I found...
The sweater...minus the sleeve I had frogged. Oh, this yarn is so wonderful....and there is so-o-o-o much of it left. A shawl! More gift mitts! A cowl!! Maybe a cozy scarf! Why didn't I finish frogging it when I attacked it years ago?
Well, let me TELL you why. Unknitting strip knitting is MORE fiddly than knitting it.
At one point I was juggling and untwisting 7 balls of yarn.
I ended up with 8...and assorted ends and bits that got tossed.
It took the entire Rose Bowl Parade to unravel...
and this was just the other SLEEVE.
I've added another baggie full of yarn to the stash. At the moment, I'm knitting like crazy, not buying any yarn, and yet still adding to the stash. This isn't the way it's supposed to work.
New Year..almost..and same old resolution, which in the past has been little more than a suggestion. This time I mean it. Really. It's time to knit down the stash and let's finish up a few UFOs while we're at it. Reminder to self: this means you cannot ADD to the stash while reducing it.
Since this actually was last years resolution, I suppose it's OK to show my 'now' progress towards 2020.
First up is Malabrigo Hand Thingies, a free pattern on Ravelry. This falls in the 'UFO' category; I bought a skein of Kureyon for this while on a trip to Maine in October. I bought one skein and the pattern takes TWO skeins. The shop keeper wasn't feeling well that day, and even though she knew I was going to make THIS pattern...of course, there was a shop model...she only sold me one when clearly that wasn't going to cut it. I could have double checked...and didn't. I'm a big girl knitter. I know better. So, one mitt has been sitting in limbo since I got home because, naturally, there was nothing in the stash that could come close. I ordered. The yarn came. And now I have the first Christmas gift to go in the Gift Stash for 2020. I'd say this is sort of a win-win-done. (The El Salvador bird is setting there to prove that all these colours go together.)
Next...a pair of My Cup of Tea socks using some Hauteknit Pampered Sock Fingering Weight yarn bought at a Great Yarn in Chatham, MA in 2016. Not deep stash, but it's lingered there long enough. The yarn is lovely, but what was I thinking when I bought this colour? This will be a big check-off-the-list when done because I don't like it.
And last (that I'm going to show you today. Really? You think this is all I have on the needles?? HA! You Dreamer You) is Winter on my Mind by Melanie Berg, who we all know is brilliant! The orange just got added to the stash last week BUT!!!! the grey has been in deep stash for years...and years...and years....and has made several beautiful shawls. There was one lonely skein left over. Sometimes you have to buy something to use up something else.
That makes perfectly good sense, right?
What are YOUR knitting resolutions this year?
The short answer is no. The long answer is N-O-O-O-O.
Believe me, I've tried. We all know the famous sock yarn blanket.
This is actually the second one I made. A very (VERY) dear friend and probably the most knit-worthy person I've ever known had a house fire and lost all her precious handknit things. I gave her blanket #1. So, I happily made myself blanket #2, and upon its completion, I gave away all the extra bits of sock yarn still hanging around. All of it! Yes, I was an enabler, and proud of it. I had busted that stash of sock yarn....or so I thought.
While rummaging through the yarn bins....in search of the next great project...all this etc. sock yarn kept rising to the surface. Obviously my storage methods need some refining, but really? This much was still hanging around? Let's really really get rid of it all this time and make another blanket.
(old picture....Fred really loved this blanket!)
And once again, I gifted the leftovers to others who were obsessed with their scrappy blankets. Phew. Finally, I busted the sock yarn.
Time to move on to the dk weight odds and ends.
(Freddy loved this one, too)
It used a lot.
These two blankets used the rest. ???? (Fred was pretty fond of both of them, too)
And then there was the worsted weight...not quite as much of that.
Yes. Gave away all those mini-balls when the blanket was finished.
You would think I would be in great shape, stash-wise, wouldn't you?
What's this? More sock yarn!!!?
Blanket #3 (remember, #1 was gifted)...finished.
Blanket #4 on the needles.
Moral of this story...if you are a knitter, you can never ever ever bust your stash. You can try. You just can't do it.
And I'm a knitter.
Mitered square blanket (#4), Northeasterly blanket (barely begun), and another huge basket full of sock yarn bits. Before it all gets knit into those blankets...I turned my needles to knit a pair of booties. I might knit several pairs. Maybe even several dozen pairs. There will still be plenty of leftovers for the blankets. But, therein lies the rub. Lots of single skeins in this stash of mine, so lots of blanket fodder. But no longer any sweater's worth of stash, even if that sweater is baby-sized.
And yet....I have a whole closet FULL of yarn, and I'm determined to bust at least some of this rather useless stash. Motivation is a little hard to come by.
So, I've spent more time with abandoned buildings (and Topaz plug-ins)...
and demolishing buildings...
and playing with my new toy...
Once upon a time, a new 'toy' meant some shiny new Signature needles or a bagful of beautiful, soft luxurious yarn.
'New toy' has taken on a whole new meaning lately....
oh, 24-70mm lens, I love you!!!
I woke this morning to this view out my window.
For most people this is considered a dusting of snow and life goes on. (Note: clear streets and ice-free sidewalks.) But in my world (western KY), my photography class got cancelled ...not only leaving me with a totally free morning, but a free morning when hubby is elsewhere. You'll see why that's important in a minute.
I decided to do a little rearranging. While I dream of being a minimalist and living a stuff-free life, that simply isn't ever going to happen. But in spite of having WAYYYY too much stuff, I abhor clutter, so I must spend lots and lots and lots of time organizing the 'stuff'. While I try to keep on top of it....my 'stuff' seems to migrate. Let's face it....some of my Stuff has taken on its own persona.
Photography Stuff has grown....and started invading Knitting Stuff's domain. Truth be told, Knitting Stuff ran out of space in its closet a couple years ago and took over the bottom of a cupboard in the room that Photography-Stuff now lays claim to. They've been bickering for months....each blaming the other when some of their stuff is MIA.
Today was the day to fix this.
I emptied the bottom of Photography-Stuff's cupboard. It was storing just about all of Knitting-Stuff's vast collection of patterns and books, a couple of nearly finished projects, and some other junk that I couldn't stand to look at and smushed in there.
Next, I emptied Knitting-Stuff's closet. This was actually a big deal because not only does it hold all of Knitting's stash (minus bulky weight yarn that lives in a suitcase), but it also has an amazing collection of project bags, books that didn't fit in that cupboard, ALL MY UFOs!!! some cute knitting tchatchkes that I apparently love but don't want to look at all the time, and three finished sweaters that are awaiting a trip to the frog pond.
All this came out of three little cubbies. (There are 30 cubbies in the closet.) Use your imagination.....soon every inch of the floor was covered with yarn and baskets; I was sorting it all by weight. (Now, do you understand why this kind of project is best done while hubby is out of the house?)
Freddy was in heaven, by the way. Do you have any idea how many stray ball bands we found?!?
Hours later....all the books fit, yarn is back in by weight. Knitting Stuff couldn't be happier.
OK. So....none of the UFOs made it back in, but they are either going to become FOs or get frogged. A concession Knitting-Stuff and I were willing to make.
Photography-Stuff is NOT happy....
They got jammed into half of her cupboard.
An FO. I know. I can't believe it, either.
Especially since it's knit with probably the worst fiber I've ever knit with. The end result....a sweater that I swore I was going to rip out at least two dozen times.
Let's talk fiber first.
Many (many many many) years ago a friend called me and asked if I wanted to go to a moving sale that one of our lowertown artists was having. She had heard that there was yarn.
Sure. (Just what I need. More yarn, right?)
There wasn't anything I was interested in......this artist was a former weaver-turned-potter who had lots and lots of coarse, chunky fibers that she had used for utilitarian weaving projects. Rugs, placemats. Bright colours. Not me. (This was back in my 'brown' days....which preceded the current grey phase.) But stuffed in the way back of one of the closets, I spotted this lone cone of lace weight, sand coloured linen/rayon blend. Yardage was a mystery, but it looked like a lot. It was fifty cents. Last of the big time spenders here. It came home with me and got stuck in the back of another closet.
When my knitting mojo left, apparently so did my knitting common sense. I resurrected this yarn, my tried and true featherweight cardigan pattern and decided that even though I didn't need a fourth featherweight cardigan....nor did I need a cardigan in this sandy-ivory colour, that this was just the perfect summer knitting project.
Go figure.
Before I had knit two rows, this is what I was dealing with.
Seriously....and I do mean s-e-r-i-o-u-s-l-y......over spun yarn. Kinky, twisty, awful. I should have stopped immediately and tossed the cone in the trash. But, because I'm me....I thought I'd knit just a bit more.
Rarely, I'd come across a bit of yarn that was OK. And then it crimped up again. And again. And of course, we all know what happens when you knit with over spun yarn, right? No amount of blocking is ever going to get that biased business straightened out.
I think if I had ANYTHING else I really wanted to be knitting on, this would have been trashed, but (sigh) it's such a good summer project....in spite of the fact that it is totally crappy yarn and (for me) an unwearable colour. So I kept going.
To the bitter end.
Biased? Of course.
Look at those sleeves twist!
(Yes. I know. I should have photoshopped the wrinkles out of that shirt. I certainly wasn't going to get the iron out!!!)
But overall, it's not awful for a fifty cent, throw-on summer sweater.
I just wish it was grey.
Remember this?
No? Let me remind you. This was going to be the project that found my missing mojo. But, something just wasn't quite right. I knew it, and in true knitterly fashion, I continued to knit anyway. I finally got out the pattern (I was on a long car ride....Fred told you we were gone last week.) Yep. My mistake was on row two when I failed to do a braid after doing the two coloured cast on. Now I have just a roll-y cuff. I could maybe pick up stitches and do an I-cord edging. Maybe. So I continued knitting (still not happy) until it was time to put the thumb on hold. Man, I'm using a lot of yarn. Time to get out the pattern again. Oops. See that lovely ginger coloured skein? I have one of them. And guess how much it takes for TWO mittens? TWO!! (duh)
Just for future reference, please note: it took less than two miles driving time to rip out a week's worth of knitting.
Now what?
I have this great spool of cotton/rayon blend that I got from somewhere sometime ago. No label. (sorry, Fred) No yardage. But....it sure looks like lots of yarn, doesn't it?
I think I'll make another featherweight cardigan. I've made it a couple times before, so I'm probably not going to mess up the pattern.
I wonder how many miles it will take to rip out a not-quite-done cardigan?
First up, is this cowl that has spent much too long in an unfinished state. It's actually not really finished now, but it's done. By that, I mean...I decided it was time to end this project. First of all, it is very, very wide....and it's knit in the round, which mean that you have a double layer of wooliness going around your neck. To make it a reasonable width, I have to fold it in half. So...that's like having 4 layers of wooly wool going around your neck once. Had I continued to the stated length in the pattern, not only would I have been knitting sometime into the next millennium, but this lovely monster could easily have wrapped my neck at least 3 times...doubled over, that would have been an even dozen layers thick?!? Unreasonable. It's done.
Rill is also finished. It had been hanging out almost as long as the cowl in a partial state of un-doneness. Now it's done. Thank you German short-rows. I love you.
One short sock is finished. I apparently put it in a good safe place, because I couldn't find it for a photo op.
A couple more hexagons are off the needle. I've 'stored' the finished ones in a basket on a really high shelf. I toss finished ones up into it (my version of knitting basketball) and I'm such a lazy-butt it's been probably close to a year since I've counted how many I've done. I still have worsted weight yarn left, so I guess I'm not done yet. And here's a mystery for you..... how have I accumulate so many odd skeins of WORSTED weight yarn----and in colours, yet!!----when I really only knit with grey fingering or lace weight yarn?
Speaking of which...
I needed a mindless project, and I really hadn't started anything in quite a while (which may account for my recent knitting malaise), so I started this Polka Dot scarf by Churchmouse Yarns.
I'm a sucker for polka dots...of any kind. These are big holes, which will need a nice blocking before they show up well. This is EASY...mindless...and lovely. I hesitated actually buying this pattern...how hard is it to make holes in knitted fabric? But like all Churchmouse patterns, the attentions are in the details, and the details in this one will make it a very classy, very well finished scarf. The yarn was in the stash.
And it's grey.
And it's lace weight.
What's not to love?
wife, mom, grandma, knitter, photographer, traveler, gardener, antiquer, bookworm, cook--trying to tread lightly on this earth
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