Sheep On My Stuff

Oops — forgot a few worsted-weight yarns. So here's worsted-weight yarns plus Wool-Ease. As a teaser, I've also weighed the sportweight part of my stash, so here's what we've got:

And now for pictures!

1. 2.
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7. 8.

And the rest of these are Wool-Ease!

Continue reading 'Stash post (3/7)' »

I'd like to be more environmentally conscientious than I am. One of the ways I've thought about using a reusable, rather than single-use, resource is by using reusable bags for grocery shopping. Ah ha!, I thought, perfect! I'll crochet some!

Well. The patterns around for crocheted market bags tend to make these enormous things that stretch so far they drag on the ground if I'm carrying them on my shoulder. And they take a huge amount of yarn. Not what I'm after.

I decided to try designing something that takes the natural stretch of a simple cotton yarn into account, and this is what I came up with. It's a granny square bag with two short handles. Experienced crocheters should be able to extrapolate how to make larger (or smaller) bags (and handles) just by looking at the pattern; instructions aren't given for changing the sizes. This is the size I like, and I think it's a good one. I've taken a few of these to the store and come back with comfortably-sized bags of groceries. And if they get messy, you can throw 'em in the washer and dryer with your towels.

Please follow the link to my Small Market Bag pattern! Like everything on this site, it is Creative Commons licensed; please feel free to share and distribute (as long as you keep my name and website attached). :) Many thanks to Wyoming Knott, Sorcha, and Moonrose for testing the pattern for me!

The bulky yarn lulled me into a false sense of security. Here's the list of what I'm going to need to tally up:

• Bulky yarn (finished) 3550g
• Worsted weight, non-Wool-Ease
• Worsted weight, Wool-Ease
• Sport weight
• Sock weight
• Lace weight

Today I give you the second of those categories: Worsted weight, non-Wool-Ease.

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3. 4.
Continue reading 'Stash post (2/7)' »

So, while I haven't quite given up on the idea of working 2 stash projects for every 1 new-yarn project I make (2:1 ratio), I know that the completed/tossed/frogged-to-new ratio is going to be impossible to manage (goal was 1.5:1; I'm currently at 0.8). It's time to set new goals, and this time they aren't connected to a calendar year. (That way I won't be going crazy with "ZOMG YEARLY GOALS!" knitting at the same time as I'm going crazy with "ZOMG HOLIDAYS!" knitting.)

My goal is this: on my 30th birthday (September 26), I will have X grams of yarn in my stash. By my 31st birthday, I will have X/2 grams of yarn in my stash.

A lofty goal full of stashbusting! But I think maybe I can do it!

Of course, in order to complete that kind of goal, it's necessary to know how much yarn I'm starting out with. And in order to have a number for the goal by my birthday, I need to spend the next 39 days doing the math. And thus begins the stash cataloguing project.

I started off tonight with an easy goal: find all my bulky yarn, photograph it, add it to Ravelry, and post the stats here. So here's what we've got:

That's 893 (round up to 900) grams of handspun wool from Spring Hill Romneys (mmmm, so soft and pretty; I'm thinking a vest for Grant this winter), 1900 grams of Storm Wool of the Andes Bulky from Knit Picks, two balls of Ecological Wool from Cascade at 250g each, and about 250g of Merino Light that's partly worked up (woohoo, head start!).

Total: 3550 grams of bulky-weight yarn, all 100% wool.

I actually didn't go through as long a bulky-weight period as many new knitters; I knew one knitter who spent over a year trying not to work with needles smaller than a size 15. As a result, very little of my bulky-weight yarn is from "the early days" — the Merino Light sure is, as is the Ecological Wool, but the rest of it is stuff I bought because I loved it to pieces and am still willing to work with it now. I'm also excited to note that all this yarn is wool; I had this fear that most of my stash would end up being acrylic or some other fiber I've outgrown, and it seems that won't be the case at all. Yay!

Now, mind you: I'm not going to try to hold myself to knitting up half of my stash by weight in each yarn weight. So maybe I won't touch this at all — or maybe I'll knit it all up because it'll be a quick 3550 grams. >_> However, I have a shocking amount of stash (this is not even the tip of the iceberg, it's a grain of salt on the tip of the iceberg), so it'll probably be a hell of a lot of yarn by the time I'm through. Maybe I should consider working all this up…

(And, hopefully, my last catch-up post. Whew!)

Crossposted from elsewhere, in a list of things that make me happy:

I really, really like knitting lace! I love the slender yarn, the sharp pointy needles I use (Harmony from KnitPicks), the semi-delicate nature of what I'm turning out, the YOs, the k2togs, the blocking process. I love that you can get a ton of knitting out of a single tiny ball of yarn. I love the patterns out there, and I really, really need to make myself another Sheep Shawl (the first one, I gave to my grandmother). I also want to make the Pacific Northwest Shawl for myself. But I have so many other shawls in the works before that happens; after the current one I'm working on, I plan to do one for an upcoming wedding. And I can't wait; it's going to be gorgeous. I have two other shawls on needles right now, too, and I love them both to pieces.

One of these days I'm going to design my own heirloom shawl, and even if I don't have kids of my own, I'll find someone to pass it down to. I'm really quite happy that my cousins are starting to be old enough to get married; the next generation in my family may have been delayed a bit by the fact that Grant and I seem not to be likely to have kids, but that doesn't mean the buck stops here. :)

(Another catch-up post.)

It's hard to believe there was a time when I didn't know there was an online knitting community, but it had never occurred to me to look for knitting blogs, tips, tricks, or patterns online when I first ran into At Knit's End. I think it was sometime in 2005 or so; I know it was a couple of years after Stephanie Pearl-McPhee started her blog. I remember looking at the back cover and thinking Yarn Harlot? Is this woman crazy?

But the book was full of hilarious observations (some of them, I admit, are the kind of jokes you only get if you're a knitter or close to one), and so I picked it up without thinking about what I was getting into. I looked up her website, and suddenly realized OMG, there are knitters on the Internet!

Several years later, I have a knitting blog of my own. :)

(A catch-up post for 8/7. I'm still lagging from vacation, among other things!)

I couldn't tell you why, but when I first started knitting, one of the things I thought I'd do was knit shawls.

Little did I know. Back when I first started, I was using acrylic-based worsted-weight yarn. It did not go well. And yet I loved it — the lace patterns, the drapey fabric, everything. (I knew nothing of blocking back then.) In looking for patterns, I turned up Folk Shawls, and I found almost everything in it to be just gorgeous. The first shawl I knit — yes, in acrylic-based worsted-weight — was the Wool Peddler's Shawl. (In a blue-green variegated colorway.) I have to laugh, looking back on it, but I really did have a good time with it!

A few years passed. I put laceweight on my wishlist one Christmas, and got two laceweight samplers — one from my parents, one from Grant. I immediately cast on for the Irish Diamond shawl. I needed more yarn. I ordered more yarn. I ordered more and more and more yarn… until a good percentage of my yarn ended up being laceweight. I'm not sure if, today, I have more laceweight or more sock yarn. :)

So far, out of this book, I've knit the Wool Peddler's Shawl (kinda), the Irish Diamond lace shawl, the Basic Black Shawl (in a color that was anything but basic black!), and I've tried out the Box Lace shawl. I think by the time I'm done, I'll have knit up nearly every pattern in the book. Cheryl Oberle is definitely one of my favorite designers, and I'm thrilled to have this book in my collection!

Sent out today: six squares for a rainbow afghan (which raised money for the same charity as the Rainbow Sheep!)!

My pictures are horrible and awful, because the good camera is currently in Las Vegas along with SheepLad. However, here they are anyhow:

From left to right, the stitch patterns are: the 'prismatic' diagonal herringbone from this scarf on Feather and Fan, stockinette, seed, an unvented garter rib, stockinette, triple rib.