Stash! Every knitter has a bit of yarn or boat loads of it. Some knitters cram this stash into the deepest recess of their closets while others prefer to proudly display their piles-o-yarn for inspiration or…decor! My stash is what I call, um…moderate 😉 and I try to keep it stuffed into the two large-ish bins in my closet. Any overflow and I go into a state of panic. You know the feeling… “Oh no, I spent all my money on yarn! Now I won’t have any money left for groceries so we’re all going to starve and die!” The best way to keep this panic at bay is to keep knitting from these bins of stash. Twisted logic?
I joined a fantastic group on Ravelry last month called Stashdown. The focus is to embrace your stash in 2011 and knit projects using what you have instead of hoarding yarn or going crazy with all of the pretty yarn that’s out there for the grabbing. Some of the members in this group have set incredible challenges for themselves like declaring 2011 a no-buy year for yarn or to cut down their stash by half! I ain’t pulling off any of those crazy stunts coz I’m weak like that. That being said, I was determined about stashing down this year until…
Pffft, I fell off that wagon when I cheerfully handed over my credit card to the sweet lady at Three Bags Full last weekend and walked away with these lovelies.
I didn’t stop there, I went to Unwind Yarns because I needed another set of 4.5 mm needles and walked away not only with the needles but also these babies.
The madness doesn’t end because I lost my cable needle and I needed it desperately for almost all the projects I’ve been working on recently and I had to make a trip to my LYS, Black Sheep Yarns, for this when I swear I heard these skeins calling out my name!
Of course, there were yarny presents under the Christmas tree…
I’ve reached a state of major bin overflow and have thought a couple of times about breathing into a brown paper bag. This is a good thing because driven by this panic I have knit feverishly ever since and I’m happy to report that I’ve completed two projects this year. Well, they’re smallish, but still woot, woot!
The first project is a test knit that I recently mailed off to the designer. I can’t talk about it until the pattern is published. So, that will have to wait.
The next one is a hat that I knit for Vineet seeing that he braved the crowds of “squeeing” knitters at Three Bags Full (it was their Belated Boxing Day Sale!) and picked out the yarn and pattern himself. This project took me two days from start to finish. Actually, strike that! This hat took me the exact time it takes to watch two movies. The pattern is Windschief by the charming Stephen West and is my first go at a Westknits design. I loved it and highly recommend this pattern. FO pictures for this one coming as soon as I block it. In the meantime, here’s a progress shot when I was half way through.
I am hoping that I make good progress with Stashdown this week because I have two sweaters on the needles that are going quite well and Kiki has been begging me for a blue sweater. Good thing then that I bought those two skeins of blue Tosh DK from my LYS:) I may not finish them in January but I can be optimistic!
And before I forget, here’s a modeled picture of the husband’s Mowl.
Have a great week all!
