what's in my stash?!

Hello ladies & bots, and welcome to my new series: What's In My Stash?!  I can say this at least, there is so much.  So, so much.  In fact, I've put myself on a yarn diet until I get things a little more under control.  In the mean time I've decided to document the yarns I have tucked away and what I intend to do with them.  So without further ado:

We have MORE left over Cashmerino Aran from my Miette sweater (you'll see it soon, I promise!).  I've already started using the leftovers from the sweater in my Zig Zag prototype.  I've had this yarn since February (the 14th, to be exact.  A Valentines Day gift to myself?)  The reason I have so so much of this yarn is because I bought a bag at Webs during a take-this-percent-off-an-entire-bag sale.  Very dangerous, but I knew I wanted to knit a sweater out of it.

I do have a plan for these extra extras though!  I have another cowl design in mind that should be beautiful in the Cashmerino Aran, and if that doesn't pan out I'll knit an Avery cowl for myself.

Remember my failed attempt to try to stretch a skein of Spud & Chloe Fine into a pair of socks?  I still have almost an entire skein of Fine after that, though it is from two almost indistinguishable dye lots.  I bought the first skein a few days before Christmas last year (I love buying myself presents, this is well documented!), so the yarn has been in my stash for a while.  These will become a pair of fingerless mittens a la the Spring Buds Mitts.  You'll probably see them very soon because a) I don't have any mittens right now, and b) I couldn't stop thinking about this as I was falling asleep last night!

I loved this Sweet Caroline hand spun yarn (picked up at the end of April at a sustainability fair) in the skein, but just couldn't get into the hat I made out of it!  I still have a decent little ball of it left since I was worried about yardage and was stingy in knitting the first hat.  My plan so far is to find a soft matchy solid yarn to go with the hand spun and knit something like my Not Where's Waldo hat out of the two.  I'd knit the brim in the solid and the crown in the hand spun, then I might not be so overwhelmed by it.  But don't expect to see this plan come to fruition any time soon because yarn diet = no new yarn, and I'm not feeling enthusiastic about this at all!

Next week I'll show you some more leftover yarns, then we can get into the exciting yarns that you've never seen before!

jayne hat

My former roommate has left for Budapest already, but not before I gave her this fabulous going away present!  Plus a half eaten package of Cadbury Mini Eggs.  Those things are seriously good.  As you can see she was pretty pleased with the hat and even wore it for the rest of her bowling alley going away party!

Years ago, when we lived together and I was just a budding knitter, I told her I could totally make her a Jayne hat and then never did.  I probably wouldn't have been able to at that point, but I didn't even try.  Mean, mean self.  Fast forward to six months ago when I watched Firefly and all of a sudden I remembered my promise to make this hat!

Not my former roommate, but a decent picture of the hat!

I used this Jayne Hat pattern as a starting point, but the only yarn I could find that was obnoxiously bright enough was definitely not bulky weight!  Yes, I could have held it double and used the pattern as written, but I had to be a knitting overachiever and rework the pattern.  After a couple false starts it all worked out, and my mods are documented on my Ravelry project page.

Pattern: Jayne Hat from Demonic Progress (free), my mods for using a DK weight yarn on Ravelry

Yarn: Universal Yarn Dolce Merino, it was even on sale when I bought it from Webs!

brattleboro, vt

A couple weekends ago D and I took an overnight trip to Brattleboro Vermont  to celebrate our five year anniversary!  It was incredibly nice and tons of fun, but you'll just have to trust me on that because I only took one picture while we were there!  Alas, I will never be a serious blogger because I can't be bothered to stop what I'm doing to document it.  I don't think this is a bad thing though.

Anyway, we stayed at the Latchis Hotel which was beautiful even though they're in the middle of renovating their Main Theater.  We didn't see any shows while we were there but plan to go back for a day trip some time soon!  However we did walk around town a bit: D scoped out Brattleboro Books while I spent far too much time in Twice Upon a Time!

Instead of pictures of beautiful Vermont I hope you'll be content with a couple of "things on my kitchen table" pictures.  On our way out of town we stumbled upon the Brattleboro Farmer's Market, then stopped for souvenir yarn at Knit or Dye.  Wow is that a nice farmer's market!  We brought home cheese and some amazing cider.  I couldn't even get a picture of the cider before we drank it!

No post would be complete without yarn so here is the skein that I picked up from Knit or Dye!  It is 4oz of DK kettle dyed yarn from The Spun Monkey, and is much prettier and much richer in person.  I'm pretty sure it will become a hat this winter, even though red is one of my difficult colors. 

Brattleboro definitely gets the seal of approval from me, which means an awful lot since I win the award for world's biggest home body!

wip wednesday: zig zag

Dear readers, the design bug has really bit this season!  Over the summer I dreamed up a number of cowls and now that the weather has cooled down I can finally start working on them.  Whether it's worth publishing them (and I really only mean self publishing and putting them on Ravelry for free, but I would still want them to look pretty!) is a whole other question.

This cowl is only a prototype since there are a few things I'd like to change for the final version, but it still makes a great holiday gift!  There's one present off my list already!  You can check out my project page on Ravelry, but I haven't added much information there yet.

firefly

Here it is my patient friends, my finished Firefly top!  This fabric is delicious, and I love the idea behind this design, but that might be all that I have to say that's nice about this knit!

So, the first thing I have to say is naughty self for not making my swatch big enough!  If I had made my swatch bigger I would have known how much the fabric would stretch.  Looking back at my work in progress photo makes me realize just how much bigger the top got after I washed it.  My major mod (documented on Ravelry) was to add in stitches under the arms and I definitely did not need the extra room!

To tell you the truth, I actually haven't worn Firefly since these pictures were taken.  Which is so sad!  Since I haven't been wearing the top anyway I think I'll put it in the drier next time I do laundry.  If it shrinks to a good size: hooray!  But if not I won't be losing anything that was in use before.

Pattern: Gemini by Jane Richmond, my mods on Ravelry

Yarn: Classic Elite Firefly

wip wednesday: cabled mitts

So, I may have gone back to my favorite thrift store the day after the turn over sale and scored more yarn!  I picked up another bag, this time full of mysterious blue partial skeins.  The yarn I'm using for these mittens is a mystery sport-ish weight with tonal variegation, very pretty!

These mittens aren't really turning out how I expected them too (they're too big because I misjudged the yarn weight, silly me!) so it's good that I have friends who don't have such tiny hands as mine! Here they are on Ravelry.

fifty-four

Well folks, I'm finally starting to catch up on finished projects!  I started this cowl in the beginning of June and now here it is on the blog, that's not so bad!

The yarn is definitely not something I would have bough for myself: I try to stick with natural fibers and, you wouldn't guess it from my recent projects, I have a hard time with green.  But the project came together so easily!  I got the Marble Chunky as a birthday present and as I was wondering what to do with it I saw one of the first finished projects for Thirty-eight go live on Ravelry!

As you might guess from my project name, I did mod the pattern a bit.  All of my changes can be found on my Fifty-Four project page on Ravelry!

Pattern: Modified Thirty-eight (free on Ravelry)

Yarn: Gifted James C. Brett Marble Chunky

wip wednesday: miette

Ok, I know it might not look like it from this angle, but right now I'm sitting on top of an almost finished Miette!  Over the weekend I visited the flea market and found the missing piece(s) to my sweater: buttons!  I've been rushing through this sweater to finish before the start of the knit along for Andi Satterlund's newest pattern, Hetty.  I'm definitely on course to be able to start a new sweater at the end of the week, I just need yarn for it!

recent thrift finds

In the last year I've really cut down on the amount of junk I take home from the thrift store.  Part of it is that the clutter bothers D, part of it is that the clutter bothers ME, and the other part is that while one thing may not cost much, bringing home everything does!  That said, one of my favorite little thrift stores in town had their fall turn over last week and I did manage to take lots of things home!

Most of what I picked up is useful, kitchen type things to replace our junky old ones: a metal colander to replace our plastic one, matching little crock pots to replace the unmatched set, and so on.

And then of course the yarn!  I was the first to make it back to the craft section when the doors opened (what, I didn't mention that there were fifty people lined up to get in?) and what I found was eight skeins of Cascade 220!  It's a nice heathered brown that I'm pretty sure will turn into a lounging sweater later this fall.  I also found the three partial skeins in the top photo.  I'm pretty sure two of them are alpaca, which I'm allergic to, so they'll probably become holiday presents.

All in all I'd say I didn't do too shabby on opening day!