In that case, I've been looking ahead to next week, when I head back to Idaho for Christmas with my family. I've been trying to decide what knitting to take with me. A sweater? Lots of socks? Unfinished projects? I seem to have collected quite a few of them lately (if you haven't noticed over there =>). I could finish up about half of them this week. I will certainly try.
I almost always knit sweaters over Christmas break (or any time of the year), but I've had the urge (perhaps spurred by a recent realization about how large my stash has gotten) to knit smaller, quicker projects. I have quite a bit of sock yarn that will make beautiful socks or stranded mitts and hats. I just have to decide what to knit with which yarns.
I spent the better part of Saturday (I wasn't feeling well and could only watch so much Downton Abbey and Sherlock) organizing my queue and linking projects to suitable stash yarn. I think I've got some pretty good combinations of patterns and leftover yarn. These two patterns, for example:
For the Branching Out Mitts, I'm going to use black and white alpaca, but I haven't decided whether to do black on white or white on black. They will be so fuzzy and warm!
I am winging A Most Bespeckled Hat with this Berroco Vintage. I have smaller quantities of two neutral colors: grey and light tan. I'm not sure which will speckle better and be a cuter pom-pom. Hell, maybe I'll make two: one with grey speckles and one with tan!
It's actually been pretty fun to scroll through my stash, then through my queue, and try to match up odds and ends with patterns that have been buried in seven pages of patterns I might not ever make. It looks like my mad stash-down might turn into a decent queue-trimming, so it's win-win!
How often do you revisit your stash and queues? What are your favorite stash-busting projects? I know I've seen quite a few of you stash-down in interesting ways, but I'd love to hear more!
i was the kind of kid who always ate the things i was least interested in first so that i could spend more time with the food i really enjoyed... and while i never really managed to apply that to homework vs playtime, it's kind of the theory i apply towards stash busting. i always try to get rid of yarns that don't inspire me first. those and the projects i matched up yarns and patterns to a long time ago, and my ideas never changed. if i've wanted to use a certain yarn for a certain pattern for a certain period of time, then it's just time to make that come to fruition, you know?
ReplyDeleteand of course, i save all of my scraps... my scrap stash used to just be for random pom-poms or provisional cast-ons, but now i find as much inspiration playing with my scraps as i do in my stash!
I love the ways you use your scraps! I've always been more of a dessert first kind of girl, but I'm really enjoying my scraps and non-dedicated stash right now. My main problem has been that I have begun to acquire yarns without a project in mind, so they are harder to get rid of. I have seen the error of my ways, though, and will only buy with projects in mind from here on out (and play in my scraps a bit more)!
DeleteVintage is definitely one of my favorites which is surprising because it has acrylic in it, Berroco just knows how to make wonderful acrylic blends. I'm amazed that you can keep up with posts! Before I know it the day is over and my classes have been done for four days now and I'm still running. I really hope that you are feeling better by now, you must have really been down if the drama of Downton wasn't enough to keep your mind off it! I hope you have a safe trip to Idaho!
ReplyDeleteOnly two episodes were up on PBS for me to watch, otherwise I would have spent days watching Downton! :D Thanks!
Delete