From the girls at MDK: a ballband dishcloth in stash cotton. I'm stashbusting and decorating my new house all at the same time! This must be heaven.

the countdown to the end of basement shots starts now!

The base colour is what remained after Pixie's pixie hat. (Next time I make a shaped hat I'll be sure to use a lighter fiber than cotton!) The varied cotton was purchased by the Boy last year; he went through a knitting phase in which he decided he would only spend a few bucks for a ball of yarn. Hence, worsted dishcloth-type cotton. He soon decided that he hated knitting cotton, and was happy to let me use this as my first dishcloth experiment.

My bathroom is green...this may end up in the shower. Yee!

Labels: fo, mdk, stash

I went to the Knitter's Frolic today, armed with a full water bottle, a half-completed cotton dishcloth and $25 in loonies & toonies. As I've been sick this week, I decided that the shower was optional, a decision that I came to regret as I descended further and further into greaseball-dom. I wore my genius momasaurus sweater, a sartorial choice that never fails to garner compliments (although I have to confess every time that I didn't make it myself).

Despite my shoestring budget, I had a great time. I met Sophie & Lisa almost immediately, and was introduced to Sophie's mom. And wouldn't you know it, Sophie's mom is just as delightful as Sophie herself (only more vintage, y'see.) Cheryl & Andrea were also there, and I spent a great two hours watching them shop. Talking about my house and touching nice yarn is almost as good as getting it for yourself. No, really.

I found my own yarn almost immediately, but I waited till the end to buy it in case there was a yarn emergency. (There wasn't.) I also managed to scrounge up a few more bucks halfway through the afternoon, and was thus enabled to buy four cookies for a dollar. I had intended to share, but Andrea & Cheryl were already full of cookies…so I gave them to Rachael H. & the Yarn Harlot, who wandered by at the right moment. I think that I managed not to act star struck & doofusy, but then again, I had just given them cookies; I don't know if that adds or subtracts points to the Doofus Quotient.

As it was getting late, I went back for my yarn: 3 skeins of honey yellow for next year's scarf & hat, and one skein of grey for the anniversary (this year is wool!). I even had two dollars and twenty cents left over, which made me immeasurably proud of myself. Plus, I had lots of fun for free: Laura stamped my hand with the Lettuce Knit stamp & Jacquie let me read the list of raffle winners. It was a completely satisfying experience.

Labels: friends, outings, stash

So, I just bought a house. And to celebrate, I bought Mason Dixon Knitting and 4 balls of Cotton-Ease to do some baby kimonos. Because a milestone isn't a milestone unless it's festooned with yarn and yarn-related products! Take that, stash busting!

Labels: books, stash

More stashbusting, this time for Hugs for Homeless Animals. In the course of making this blanket I finished my last ball of blue Patons chunky acrylic from my first project and had to raid the "teach other people to knit" stash I have at Bat Masterson High (a.k.a. work) just so I can have a square instead of a strip. But half-way through we had a crisis, and so...

...with the other end of the ball, I started a top-down hat with the navy, modeled on a hat knit for my brother in the 70's and in heavy rotation on Blake's head until it was lost a few weeks ago at the grocery store. This took very little time, yet it stalled when I had to raid the work stash again for some powder blue...

...that allowed me to finish the blanket, since I used up so much navy on the hat! Phew!

meet the new hat, same as the old hat

I should also mention that Drea very kindly crocheted an edging around the finished blankie at the March Knit Night Out. It gives the square a finished look, rather than a "random crap from my stash" look. She ended up granny squarin' the powder blue, so she took it home at the end of the night. You don't say no to the Queen of the Grannies.

they're more fraternal than identical

Labels: bat masterson, blake, fo, knitting for peace, stash

All of my new year/new yarn resolutions are holding up remarkably well, and giving me lots of energy. I continue to knit stash yarns into great things, and I'm even diving into my work stash. Now, I built this small stashlet to teach other people to knit, so I feel like I get a free pass where its concerned, and nevertheless it is getting smaller. So that's excellent.

I bought yarn yesterday for Dirk's next birthday present: 3 skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash. I don't think I'll even need three balls for his socks, but since they're intended as kilt hose I don't want to take any chances. He was there and confirmed the colour choices and everything is good.

There are just three more days in February, and I've only finished 4 out of the 8 projects I wanted to end this month. We'll see what I can do in the next half-week.

Labels: naknisewmo, stash

A hat for Hestia! I clearly like knitting for this family. This is made out of yarn given to me by her mother and with inspiration from Vogue Quick Knits & a d6. The Vogue hat was alternating bands of purls & knits, so I decided to geek out and use a die to determine the number of rows. The picot hem on the brim didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it to, but that's ok. At least Hestia likes it.

she loves wearing hats, she's just not into being held in place

Despite swatching beforehand, it's a bit looser than I wanted it, which really makes it look like a flapper lid. Neat!

I love how the decreases and alternating bands turn the crown into a rosette

Labels: baby, fo, kal, stash

A little cotton bear out of left-over Sugar n' Cream for the Mother Bear Project. The Boy got me Knitting for Peace for Christmas and this was my first foray into the charity knitting therein. I had trouble with the facial embroidery (this is the third draft of that nose/mouth combo) and one of the seams is kind of gross. Other than that, I couldn't be more pleased at the way this little girl has turned out.

I finished her on Saturday night and took her to church the next morning so I could collect some good vibes for whomever will get her. While I was there I got many, many compliments; I'm playing with the idea of organizing a drive in which some parishioners will knit bears along with me, and we'll offer them for sponsorship to the rest of the congregation. The hard part is convincing a notoriously frugal congregation to pay $8 for a bear they don't even get to take home. Maybe it'll go over better if I read the article about the AIDS orphans in K4P from the pulpit.

Labels: embroidery, fo, knitting for peace, stash, toy

Because my Mom ignores my knitting as much as she possibly can, when I was asked to "whip up" an eyelash scarf for my grandmother I had little choice. (Guess I'm looking for approval still.) Fortunately for my stash-busting ways, I just so happen to have some black eyelash that Stacy gave me when she decided that she hated knitting. And with this yarn, no f'ing wonder she came to that conclusion. I used to think that experienced knitters who honked on about how painful it was to knit eyelash were just full of themselves. And now I am one.

Yarn is Bernat Boa in black. That's about the last definite fact I can attach to this project...I cast on 20+ stitches (I was in the middle of greeting parishioners at church when I cast on, so I can't be more specific than that. It prolly wasn't as many as 30 and I never bothered to count.) I dropped a stitch in the second row, picked up a stitch and kept going. I knit both balls to threads and called it done. And I cheated on the ends - double knotted them & trimmed. That might bite me in the ass later.

My general impetus in knitting it was concentrating on the people involved. Otherwise, I couldn't give a button, couldn't give a fig for this scarf.

Labels: fo, stash

As part of my stash-busting resolution for 2007, I've been digging deep & knitting remnants of other projects. This hat came from my desperation and boredom with the amount of marking before me, plus an honest desire to use up the bulky acrylic yarn that was the first purchase in my life as a knitter, plus a deep-seated need to get something warm on my head.

This is a Scarf Rescue Hat, inspired by the Yarn Harlot but largely improvised from the basic concept as my copy of her book has disappeared of late. As it was to match the first scarf I completed, I obviously used the same yarn. I did not swatch, merely cast on a goodly number of stitches on my first pair of needles (plastic on plastic - yum) and rolled the dice for colour changes. I knit at church, I knit while marking in the library. The grey disappeared first, then the blue-grey 2-ply. There's still a half-ball of medium blue and enough navy for a border should I get off my bum and knit a blanket for a shelter animal.

That I finished this hat so quickly is a testament to my dislike of both marking and frostbite.

u of t jacket, u of t scarf, u of t hat. could i be more collegiate?

Labels: fo, stash

I'm a bit visually backlogged these days. The Boy's mittens, which were done in time for Christmas, await their closeup, as does Opera Sarah's flaming elf hat, finished last week. (I cheated on the gift-maker's code of ethics yesterday and test-drove it during a walk with Blake. It is G-E-W-D gewd.)

I can, however, offer one wee picture, and an observation. Observation: now that I'm knitting from my stash, I find myself digging really deep for inspiration. Not that I don't have lots of gaw-geous stash yarns awaiting their turns on the needles; in fact, I have so much yarn potential that going through my stash makes me feel vaguely nauseated with panic. The only thing I can liken the feeling to is my journalling, and how I feel guilty when I take an exciting trip and delay in the writing. Going though my stash makes me feel like I've taken a year's worth of trips and failed to even note the restaurants I liked or what colour of striped tights I scored. Some trips I've even forgotten altogether (hello, cheap Nova Gothic tweed).

But my core observation is this: I'm not only knitting from my stash this month, I'm knitting up my remnants. Left-over acrylic from my earliest days has become a storage issue and that Knitting For Peace book is a godsend; there are a million and one ways to use up my odds & ends of acrylic while feeling good about myself. The soft acrylic that I thought was going to hang around until I died is destined for the Hugs for Homeless Animals' Snuggles project. The bulky acrylic left over from my first scarf is almost completely gone, knit into a matching Scarf Rescue Hat (thanks to the Harlot for the inspiration & pattern), and what's left will also be a H4H blanket. The worsted acrylic? More bears for the Mother Bear Project, and through them, AIDS orphans & victims.

This is actually way more fun than I thought it would be. For one thing, it alleviates any guilt I may feel about Pre-resolution SEX (stash enhancing expeditions). For another, my stash bins are emptying, which means more room for the yarn I love. The only problem is that I'm knitting more than I'm finishing. I think I need a new KAL - February is for Finishing, maybe.

The other good news is that the latest pair of blue koigu booties have been photographed beautifully:

knit protection program

If only my yarn was as beautiful as him.

Labels: kal, stash

Seeing as my next major life-goal is to buy a house before I asphyxiate with irritation/shame living in my parents' basement at the age of 30, and

As yarn does constitute a major part of my soi-dit "frivolous" expenditures, and

As I certainly have enough yarn to last me through the next 9 1/2 months,

I declare myself a big knitastic joiner.

My Rules

1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 8, 2007 and run through October 31, 2007. Longer, if I can take it.
   
2. I will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:

   a) Yarn for Blake's projects does not count.
   b) I can buy yarn for a birthday project as long as the amount spent does not exceed what I may have reasonably spent on that present otherwise.
   c) If I am knitting something and run out of yarn, I may purchase enough to complete the project.
   d) Yarn for design projects does not count.
   e) Vacation yarn is allowed but must not exceed what I would have otherwise spent on souvenirs.

   
   
3. I am allowed to receive gifts of yarn.
   
4. Knitting gadgets, tools, etc. are exempt.

Labels: kal, stash

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting and do it all the time. While finishing a piece is the plan, you still love the process, and can't imagine a day going by without giving some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation involves leaving ample space for the stash and supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn ends and you begin.http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!

In other news, I did some stash enhancement this weekend, as Knit-o-matic stocks the ball I needed to finish the Boy's Christmas present from last year (gulp). While I was there I picked up some manly Noro for another cabled hat and some yummy German stripey sock yarn (mit Aloe Vera!). I think I paid too much for the sock yarn, but considering the length of time I take to knit a pair of socks, I'll get good value for my money. And the Aloe Vera will soothe my spirits.

Christmas is coming too quickly. Even if I strike almost everyone off the handknitted gift list, I still have a bunch of yarn from last Christmas that hasn't gone anywhere. And Blake's birthday is less than a week away! At least I got the zipper for his sweater this weekend - now it's just a battle between time and the seemingly endless finishing.

Labels: silly, stash

Went to Romni Wools this afternoon to return some Rowan Wool Cotton that I bought 2 weeks ago without checking the price. I love Blake, but I'm not making him a $70 bunny hat. Not only did they return the yarn without fuss, but in exchange I got:

• one more ball of chunky red Topp't Ta (Blake: ladybug mittens)
  
• one more ball of navy Elsebeth Lavold "Silky Wool" (Grandma: lace scarf)
  
• two balls of green DK for another Christmas present
  
• enough DK superwash wool to make Blake his bunny hat
  
• a note for 14 dollars & change in CREDIT!

How much do I love Romni? A hell of a lot. They don't always have the exact wool I need, but they always have an excellent substitution. The staff has always been extremely patient with my dumb questions, and has gently coached me to the point where I now arrive with enough information to get good product for my patterns. They always steer me to the cheapest yarn in that class, and they understand me when I say that I have more ideas for projects seething in my brain than I can possibly knit. Also, when I explained my reasoning for changing yarn weights to make an adult hat out of a baby hat pattern, the clerk called me a rockstar.

The side effect is that my stash is totally out of control. It fills an Ikea storage bin and a large plastic bag. I have enough yarn to last me for years. But will I go to Romni again before the year is out? I'll probably think of something to need.

Labels: stash

The Boy, supportive of my knitting mania, has bought me the next Stitch n' Bitch book for my birthday! I wonder which pattern will be the first to jump the queue in front of everything that needs finishing...

I'm thinking that the Henry Rollins doll is a strong contender.

Labels: stash