I am unapologetic for my love of yarn…. Some yarn( okay a lot) came in the other day, and I am still enjoying the yarny fumes….
Month: March 2017
200….
I don’t know what your number is but I delude myself into thinking that if my Raverly queue is below 200 that I have sold control and am managing the patterns I want to knit reasonably well. Last September when I was at the Glamping with Plucky event several of my friends had a conversation about how big everyone’s rarely queue cold be and how we manage our wants and needs. I purposely put a lot of the patterns I want to knit in to the “favorites” to keep my “queue” number about 200. I have friends in the 15 range, 400, 2000, and 4000+ so it was clear to me that everyone has a different take on queue management.
With my Mad Hatter March challenge I am so close to hitting or getting below 200. It has me pretty excited. The nice things about knitting up a hat is how fast you can check them off your list. I think their is a nice pile of sweaters in my queue.. I’ll have to get creative how to knock those off my list, because the majority of them are adult sweaters.
My cup runneth over….
Stash seems to be a common knitter’s dilemma, and I know I have mentioned once or twice a couple of other areas that get neglected but add to the clutter (i.e the partial left over skeins that accumulate and the finished items that stack or hang neatly in your front closet). I am not sure I am being proactive on the front of trying to avoid more knitwear but it dawned on me this year that I could give a lot of my Mad Hatter March hats away to knit worth friends. There are a lot of you out there, but I can’t knit fast enough to give everyone a hat (If I could I totally would). I need to get better at more regularly culling through the finished objects and partial skeins to let go.
It is really hard to let things go…. I like many look at the amount of dollars and time that was spent knitting an item. and while you want to give thing away you have no idea if a person even a “knit worthy” person will cherish and use the gift that you knitted up, but I need to try because it is not going to get better if I don’t put some effort towards that front.
So in the meantime I have 3 of the 8-9 hats I am knitting slated for friends. I hope that a couple will be teacher’s gifts in about 7 months time and I plan on taking one of the hats to me with Shetland and Edinburgh in September.
In a few years time I am hoping that I can get courageous enough to let go and gift a crochet blanket, but I am so not there yet.
Oh, and I will finish this post with a R A V E about a new yarn I tried. I knit the Escher hat with BC Garn Semilla Organic( I know it is available at Fibre Space and LOOP London). I first hear about this on Michele Wang’s podcast and have had some in my stash for a while. OMG people I love this yarn. It is the perfect balance between “wooly” and “refined” I.bought the dk wight but hope to use more in the future.
Little Boxy
I was really excited when I saw the Joji was going to be publishing a kids version of her Boxy pattern. My daughter has been growing like a weed lately and I needed to make her a new sweater, and getting to test knit Little Boxy was a perfect win-win. I have been wanting to see how a drop sleeve would work and have yarn on hand( your shocked aren’t you?) for an adult version of the pattern. I really think knitting a kid’s sweater pattern is a great way to learn new techniques or understand the pattern.
I used the Plucky Knitter’s Primo Fingering in “Some Pig” and played a little game of yarn chicken. I opted to use a contrast color in a Canon Hand Dye’s merino cashmere nylon blend in her ” Silver” colorway and stripe the sleeves to ensure I had enough yarn the knit the sleeves. I really like the end result and while I did have to buy another skein of yarn I was able to used up 2 skeins in the stash so I can say I still made a dent in the stash:)
This is the 2nd test knit I have done for Joji and I really like the way she writes her patterns. They are clear and easy to read. I think this would be a great pattern for a newer knitter the pattern is straight forward and you have some options on how to knit this sweater there are two options that allow the knitter to choose if you want to knit the body flat or knit it in the round. Other things that a newer knitter can learn is short row shaping at the shoulders, a three needle bind off and learning how or getting more comfortable with picking up and knitting stitches.
I won’t lie the body is a lot of knitting (but perfect for mindless knitting, especially if you opt for the “in the round” aka “seamless” version) but it is such a beautiful sweater and may daughter loves it. the oversized drape makes for a really lovely casual sweater, and when I was at the pharmacy the other day I was asked if I had bought it in a store.
Mad Hatter March Day-1
Yup.. It is actually happening. I cast on last night for the Origami Hat by Lori Versci. I remember when the pattern was released earlier this year and for me it was one of those moments where you bypass even questioning if it should be queued and just assume it is going to be made. I think it is the perfect pattern to use handspun yarn and I have decided to cast on in Koneko Handspun’s 2 ply. I have wanted to use Caterina’s yarn for a long time and I have to say it feels so nice on the hands. Her yard is less dense than mine and I am already getting some ideas about how to experiment with my spinning. I need to correct that last statement, to add when I actually have time to spin, because Think I will be quite busy with knitting hats:)