Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Discovering a "New" Knitter

Even before Knitty's "Flash Your Stash" day, the School for Wayward Skeins had a mini-outing with my bestest friend. She and I have known each other for, oh, 20 years or so and she's just recently started knitting after being inspired by her 14 year-old daughter's efforts. Suddenly knitting is the hip thing for Israeli teens to do. (Pardon me while I collect my jaw from the floor!)

When we sat down to go through my yarn stash (we only got about a quarter of the way through it because we were looking through magazines and books too), it really hit me that, er, my stash is kinda sizable. It's not that I didn't know this before (what with taking up a third of my son's 2.50m closet, top to bottom, with two additional large Tupperware bins at the end of the hallway), but this is the first time I've ever done serious stash diving with someone else present in the room. All I can say is thank God she's a really good friend!

The punchline is that my best friend is knitting a.g.a.i.n. That's right. We've known each other for 20 years and she's never mentioned even once that she used to knit, even when she's come over and seen me knitting on something. (She's one tight-lipped Brit! Though being British I should have probably guessed...) So now I have another local cohort in fiber and even more importantly, someone I can share my yarn stash with!

Friday, April 15, 2005

Stash and more stash

Now that I've had to face my stash I find that I have some yarns that I really want to knit. I just have no idea what to knit with them. The yarns are Idena Flamenco (which I bought five years ago) and Rowan Cashsoft DK in Sweet (I adore this color). Flamenco is a boucle in a beautiful sunset colorway, deep purples, vivid oranges and reds.

So, now I must face my pattern stash. I have books here and there, with various slips of paper marking patterns that I like; I have some printed patterns in clear sleeves that I'm put in random order in a notebook; there are purchased pattern pdf files in one folder on my computer, but not organized; and the biggest mess of all are my bookmarks of favorite patterns on the internet.

Is there a simple solution? For now, mine is to put them back in the stash. And start a new project with summer cotton yarns. Hey! the temps are already in the 90's here. Which means that I can buy more yarn, right? Because I don't have any cotton in my stash.

heh heh!

What are you knitting this Spring/Summer?

Friday, April 01, 2005

Jen, I accept and meet your challenge!



(Another Flash Your Stash Entry below this one.)


TA DA!
Presenting my stash!

It's not that impressive, I guess, but it sure takes up more space than I wish that it did. All told, there's enough yarn there for about 10 projects and at least 1,000 scarves. That's not a typo. I have a bad habit of buying single balls of yarn just so I can see how it knits up.

BUSTED!

:)
pearl

April 1-Flash Your Stash Day!




Yes, thanks to the good folks at Knitty, today is "Flash Your Stash!" Day. While my stash really hasn't grown a lot over the past 5 years, it's still kinda on the large size because: a.) I hardly knit a thing over the past two years (knitting slump) and b.) I'm the world's slowest knitter.

If you think you're up to looking at all the class pictures of Ms. Yarnaholic's School for Wayward Skeins, just click on the thumbnail below to go to my Flickr photoset.

01-Ms. Yarnaholic's School for Wayward Skeins

And you can find a complete list of all the participants in today's "Flash Your Stash!" here.

(P.S. Hahaha...I'm laughing now. I thought I'd managed to flash all my stash. Five minutes ago I found a canvas bag in the living room with three more projects in it!)