5 posts tagged “yarn”

• The remaining large totes turned out to be a) smaller than I'd thought (it was actually two small totes and a medium one stacked together funny), and b) not so easy to destash. One of them was "multiple skeins of brown acrylic, no two alike, that I intend to use in a single project together", and it got put back more or less intact (other than pulling the brown mohair out of it - last time I did the stash, I sorted it by color). The others were the fabric stash, and I'm not ready to go through it yet.
• Should I concede that I'm never going to make the "multiple skeins of brown acrylic" afghan and destash it all?
• I think this time I'm going to dump it all on the bed and sort by category, then by color. If I want a bunch of mohair for a single project, having some of it in the "white and offwhite" tote and some of it in the "brown" tote is nutso.
  
• The Stray Yarn Roundup completely filled the large tote I'd emptied. I think I might need to try this process one more time, because I know there's still stray yarn I haven't come across yet, and I put some questionable things into the stray yarn tote. And it hurts my brain that I've removed a large tote's worth of yarn from my stash, but the large tote is still full.
  
• Hubby loves me anyways, because I cleared out the shelves I was just stuffing spinning fiber onto wherever it would fit.
  
• I need a ball winder like nobody's business - I don't know if my nostepinne skills are up to the tangled mess some of the pull skeins have turned into. Happily, I have $13 left on a JoAnn gift card and they've got 50% off anything coupons for next week, so I might be able to get one for very little out-of-pocket.
• Is it weird that I made better yarn balls using a toilet paper tube as a nostepinne than I did with a real one?
• Why did Firefox flag "nostepinne" as misspelled once, but not after that?
  
• I found all the yarn and the completed squares and the hook and pattern for the 63-Square Afghan. This is a good first step in finishing it. :) I had more squares done on the second row than I thought, and one from the third row. I still need to decide what I'm going to do about the white squares, though.
• The stitch pattern for one of those squares would probably make a really good dishcloth. It's nice and textury.
  
• I also found two needlepoint projects I started years ago, only to discover that I don't like working on a painted canvas. Compensation stitches make me nuts. Trash?

Last night I got a couple boxes and started going through my stash - which totalled 3 large Rubbermaid totes, 2 small ones, and a collection of yarn and fiber that had gone loose in the wild.

I got through one of the large totes and two of the small ones, with the end result that when I went to round up all the "loose in the wild" stuff, I had a completely empty large tote to put it all in, and two very full cardboard boxes to send off to charity. There will be at least one more, but I need to come up with another mailable box of decent size. I think I have a trip to Office Max in my future.

The yarn (and probably some fabric, and maybe some of the crochet hooks and knitting needles I have duplicates of) is going to a fiber arts program at a charter school for "high-risk" girls. The program is apparently a huge success - the girls in it are doing academically and behaviorally better than their peers - but all their materials need to be donated. If anyone else is destashing and interested in helping this group out, the address is:

Ava McDowell
Clara B. Ford Academy
20651 W. Warren Avenue
Dearborn Heights, MI 48127.

(I'm keeping Clara Parkes' "Slow Stashing" in mind as I destash, and being reasonably aggressive about it - I'm getting rid of every skein that doesn't make me smile when I pick it up and pet it, or that I don't know what I want to do with it. Actually I'm probably even keeping more than I should...but there's nothing that says I can only aggressively prune the stash once. Ideally I would like to not be embarassed to put a picture of any skein in the stash on Ravelry...)

Whew. Tux Scarf #1 is done. The final product is huge - 11" wide, probably about 5'8" long. I would say "never again", but I've already promised another one... On the other hand, while I'm sure the recipients will inspire awe and jealousy in their fellow geeks, they will be instructed to repeat the following phrase if someone actually asks for one: "Find your own knitter." At any rate, this one must be photographed and mailed, and yarn obtained for the next one.

In the meantime, I'm working on a baby blanket. When I last went yarn shopping, I said the words "baby blanket" to the shop owner, and she handed me a model blanket she had in the shop and said "Hug this." I did so, and said "Sold..." - this blankie is so soft and squishy and cuddly and huggable that I can only hope it's destined for woobie status. Even better, it's worked double-stranded on size 13 needles; I'll be astonished if it takes me more than a week.

The Jaywalkers are almost done. I think I need to work through two more changes in the color repeat, and then work the toe. Again, shouldn't take me more than a week to finish. (We've all heard that before, right?)

Compared with the #2 needles for the socks, or even the #6 needles for the scarf, the #13 needles for the blankie feel like knitting with broom handles. I've never worked on needles that big before. And I'm thinking I might need to transfer it onto a circ at some point to manage the weight, or maybe learn to knit with one needle in my armpit.

I've signed up for the Fair Isle Knitting class this weekend at FiberExpo - scratch another item off the To Do list! I'm hoping the yarn left over from Mom's bag will work; the gauge looks about right, but it might be a question of "Do I have enough left". I suppose I could weigh the skeins, and buy a new skein of whatever I call the "main color" if I've got less than half left. (Not that I want a hat in '70's colors...or maybe I do...or maybe Mom does, but I don't think she wears hats. But it's a learning project, right? Worst case I can add it to the Hat Stash, and threaten Daughter with it if she loses all her hats again this winter.)

Of note: In addition to Lion Brand putting out Sock-Ease, Patons has introduced "Stretch Socks" - it looks pretty comparable to Plymouth Sockotta, but it has elastic in it. The price works out to be a little, but not much, cheaper than Sockotta. How weird to get sock yarns at the megacraftmarts...