My stash seems to grow much faster than I can process it. I have 154 items logged into Ravelry. That does not count the few miscellaneous balls of yarn that I can't seem to identify, nor the balls of remnants that I have housed in an old sweets container. A rough calculation, although ambitious, supposes that I knit a project per month. That has me knitting non stop for the next 13 years. By conservative calculation, stash now exceeds life expectancy. I have to cull the heard, and put yarn acquisition on hiatus.
Cataloging my stash on Ravelry has allowed me to play around with the various methods of sorting my yarn. For example, I love sorting by color, so pretty. When I am looking to knit from the stash and have a specific pattern in mind, I will sort by weight and hope that I have the required yarn to meet the needs of the project. Since knit a lot of socks, this has not bee much of a problem. I have also managed to find patterns and place them into my Queue and then attach a stashed yarn to the project. This make me feel superior and organized. Unfortunately, I easily stray from that plan by casting on something that is not scheduled, or queued.
My latest method of working through the stash is to organize it by date added. This places all yarn in chronological order with the newest item at the top and the chestnuts at the bottom.
My plan is to knit up...from the bottom of the stash. I have some lovely chestnuts that are begging to become something, anything.
Having said that, I was able to turn some two year old yarn into a beautiful shawlette. I found Keiran Foleys shawls in the Ravelry database. My first purchase was Emily Dickinson. The light gossamer fabric and the beads really appealed to me. I also purchased Teardrop for its repeatable pattern, its simplicity and elegance. My choice of yarn was Knit Picks Shadow in Basalt that languished in the bottom of my lace bin. After many false starts, I was able to get the first few rows down pat. The beaded row tripped me up. I didn't have the correct crochet hook size to place the beads so I prestrung and knit away. That was a disaster because the knit fabric is so airy, the beads tended to wander, spoiling the symmetry. I tried using a dental floss threader to thread the beads and that, while successful in bead placement, was a huge chore. I finally had an excuse to make the 20 mile trip to our local LYS for a 1 mm crochet hook and what a difference that made.
Here is the finished product. I used every yard of yarn, knitting 14 repeats. Blocking was a breeze and th shawl was dry within 15 minutes of laying in the morning sun. I love this shawl and took it out to dinner and a walk along the Indian River. It's neutral, light, and sized just right for pocket or purse.
Next up, a couple of sock skeins that date back several years. Socks That Rock Silkie and Yartini, shake of the dust, 'cause I'm going for a stash dive and you're up.
Cataloging my stash on Ravelry has allowed me to play around with the various methods of sorting my yarn. For example, I love sorting by color, so pretty. When I am looking to knit from the stash and have a specific pattern in mind, I will sort by weight and hope that I have the required yarn to meet the needs of the project. Since knit a lot of socks, this has not bee much of a problem. I have also managed to find patterns and place them into my Queue and then attach a stashed yarn to the project. This make me feel superior and organized. Unfortunately, I easily stray from that plan by casting on something that is not scheduled, or queued.
My latest method of working through the stash is to organize it by date added. This places all yarn in chronological order with the newest item at the top and the chestnuts at the bottom.
My plan is to knit up...from the bottom of the stash. I have some lovely chestnuts that are begging to become something, anything.
Having said that, I was able to turn some two year old yarn into a beautiful shawlette. I found Keiran Foleys shawls in the Ravelry database. My first purchase was Emily Dickinson. The light gossamer fabric and the beads really appealed to me. I also purchased Teardrop for its repeatable pattern, its simplicity and elegance. My choice of yarn was Knit Picks Shadow in Basalt that languished in the bottom of my lace bin. After many false starts, I was able to get the first few rows down pat. The beaded row tripped me up. I didn't have the correct crochet hook size to place the beads so I prestrung and knit away. That was a disaster because the knit fabric is so airy, the beads tended to wander, spoiling the symmetry. I tried using a dental floss threader to thread the beads and that, while successful in bead placement, was a huge chore. I finally had an excuse to make the 20 mile trip to our local LYS for a 1 mm crochet hook and what a difference that made.
Next up, a couple of sock skeins that date back several years. Socks That Rock Silkie and Yartini, shake of the dust, 'cause I'm going for a stash dive and you're up.
