My Life in Stitches: What Do You Want to Be?

My yarn fast is going well. I’ve taken three trips to two different yarn shops and didn’t buy yarn. I’m quite proud of myself. I’m also enjoying rediscovering the yarn I already have.

I have, however, added to my stash. I made my one yarn purchase for the year. A dear friend gave me a gift card to Jimmy Beans Wool. I decided to use it to buy yarn I’ve “dreamed” about for a long time. Welcome my skein of Dream in Color Smooshy (In Vino Veritas colorway). It’s quite lovely but I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. It has a lot of yarn in the queue ahead of it that doesn’t know what it wants to be, either.

That is one of the challenges of knitting down my stash: Trying to figure out what the yarn wants to be. Case in point, I had a skein of Ellen Cooper Zohar's Socks that I bought at Knitting Addictions in Kitty Hawk, NC that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. I think I tried at least five different patterns before I settled on Multnomah.

I also had a skein in a half of Rowan Tapestry that went through multiple cast-ons before I came to the Just Knit It scarf. Although I didn’t think it would work, the scarf came out very well. Well enough to be featured on the pattern page! I had to keep trying until the yarn matched the pattern.

I think that’s the moral of the story. Sometimes that match doesn’t happen right away. Sometimes you think you’ve found the right pattern only for it to end in an ugly ripping break-up. Just keep trying because in the end, you’ll come out with not just a lovely project, but a lovely pattern made lovelier by determination. 

My Life in Stitches: Yarn Fast

I've added a few more lovelies but here is my stash.

(Cue dramatic music) I am on a yarn fast.

I knew this day was slowly creeping up on me, the day when I felt like I have too much yarn. I know all my yarn friends are screaming, “You can never have too much yarn.” I know that’s the saying, but I’m afraid I can have too much yarn. I’ve decided to try not to buy any yarn this year outside of using a gift card a friend gave me. It’s March and so far so good.

Two occurrences brought about this decision. The first happened around fall of last year. I lost a skein of yarn. This was the first time that ever happened (and prayerfully, the last), but it was disconcerting none the least. I was sure that I had put it back in my stash. I tore up my stash multiple times but still couldn’t find it.

I did, however, find something else in my stash: lots of really great yarn. I have great colors and good quality yarn in my stash. My husband would call that being yarn snob (so be it). It’s like I own my own little mini-yarn store with skeins tailored just for me. Why buy more yarn, when so much beautiful yarn is before me?

Second, I found myself often being overwhelmed by my stash, which isn’t that big. I would wonder about how long would it take me to knit it all up. See, I’m a big fan of the queue feature on Raverly. At the beginning of last year, I went through and “queued up” most of my yarn. I realized at the beginning of this year, that I’d made very little progress on the queue, but I had added quite a bit of yarn in my stash. For some reason, that annoyed me.

Under the power of those two events, my mind is made up. I’ve even shared my plan to my anti-stash husband, who will do all in his power to keep me from buying…I mean help me keep my conviction.

What are your feelings about your stash? Do you feel overwhelmed? What’s your sign that it’s time to stop buying yarn?

My Life in Stitches: Project Before the Yarn or Yarn Before the Project?

Last night my husband asked me a very thought provoking question: Do you buy yarn with a project in mind or do you buy yarn because it’s pretty?

Normally, I am Johnny-on-the-spot with an answer to his knitting questions. But for this one I had to pause because I have done both. I think most knitters, except my husband, have done both. So what’s the right answer? The answer, for me, depends on your perspective on stash management (I guess I’m creating a new term).

My Stash!

To let the non-knitters in our interesting knitting world, your stash is how much yarn you have stored in your house. Most knitters try and manage our stashes, but most of us do a poor job of it, When I returned to knitting, I was very anti-stash, mainly because I had a “stash” of other crafts I’d done cluttering up my basement (and I’ve never met a craft I didn’t like). Unfortunately, I’ve failed at keeping my stash small. It’s not big, but I think it would take me a year to knit through all the yarn I current have.

So I think that if you are anti-stash, you should buy the yarn with a project in mind. I find that when I do this, I usually only buy the yarn I need for the project, thus helping with stash management. My husband is a testament of that. He has a very small stash because he only buys yarn for the project he has in mind. 

Emotional purchase.
Malabrigo Finto. So soft...

Now when I go yarn “shopping,” that’s a whole different story. Any kind of shopping, I think, involves emotions. When I go yarn shopping, I buy yarn for the emotional response. Something is a lovely color, or wonderful to the touch, and then you buy it. You pet it and take it to your knitting group so everyone can ooh and aah over it. Pure emotion.

I have, however, found the wicked downside to emotional yarn shopping: when you finally figure out what you want to make with the random skein or two you bought, you many not have enough yarn for it. It’s hard to figure out how much yarn you need when you don’t know what you’re making.

Still, this is a personal preference. I don’t think there is a wrong answer or a right answer. I think a little yarn shopping is good, but if you don’t want a huge stash, stick with buying yarn by project.

What do you think? How do you buy your yarn?

My Life in Stitches: I Love Yarn Day

Today is I Love Yarn Day. Normally, I’m not a fan of random holidays, but this one is right up my alley.

Over the years, not only has my love for yarn grown, but I've turned into a bonafide yarn snob (and trust me, my stash confirms that). 

I think the thing I love the most about yarn is the possibilities. A 400-yard skein of fingering weight yarn can become a scarf, or a pair of socks, and in some cases, decoration (Don't act like I'm the only one who strategically places yarn in view simply because it's pretty). And now that cooler weather has settled in, I love yarn even more.

I tried to think of something to celebrate this holiday that didn't involve me going to a yarn shop. As much as I would love to go yarn shopping, I just did some yarn shopping last week. I decided to highlight some of my favorites from my stash. Also, this will remind me that I have some great yarn in my stash and curb my desire to buy more.

I bought this friend, Malabrigo Sock, colorway Stonechat, in St. Louis last year at a shop called Knitorious. The color just spoke to me. I have this slated to become a Woodland Shawl. I love the name. Stonechat. 

Yes, this yarn is pink, but I had a very good reason to buy it. One, it's Miss Babs and two, the colorway is called Jane Austen. One of my favorite things to do is to knit and watch Pride & Prejudice (Colin Firth version, please). Jane doesn't know what she wants to be yet, but you must allow me to say how much I ardently admire and love it.

So I have no idea why this colorway struck me, but for about a month, I was totally obsessed with it. It's Lorna's Laces, Cornelia colorway. I have no idea what to make with it, but it's a cheery addition to my normal grey and purple stash. This yarn was home decor for a while before I actually put it in the bin. 

How do you plan to celebrate I Love Yarn Day?

My Life in Stitches: Back in Paris

Paris is an interesting city. Some people love it. Some people hate it. I am among the hate crowd. Maybe not as strong as hate, but I did strongly dislike it. It was a little too dirty for my tastes and I think maybe my expectations were a little high. And honestly, I would go back to see Notre Dame and the Louvre and actually go to the Eiffel Tower (I saw it from the window on the trip back).

Apparently, I like knitting projects about Paris more than I actually liked being there. The knitting "trip" to the City of Lights begin with my $5 in Paris sweater, which was delightful project (see post). This time, my "trip" was the Dinner in the Eiffel Tower scarf by Jessie Dodington. I'd added this scarf to my Ravelry favorites last month and discovered that I had enough DK weight yarn in my stash to try it. I was also excited to try a semi-circle scarf with that much lace. Most of the ones I've done were triangles. I must say that this scarf wasn't as fun as the sweater, namely the lattice lace section. 

One of the things I love about knitting is that one project can pretty much solidify your likes and dislikes in knitting. This project reminded me that I don't know knitting lace on the wrong side, especially when you work on 200+ stitches of lace. 

Also, I realized I have a "hate it on the needles" problem. I repeatedly told my husband that I wasn't going to like this pattern, until I casted it off and blocked it. I even didn't like the yarn that I was using while I was knitting it (Sidar Flirt, 80% bamboo, 20% wool), but when I blocked it, it has a good weight to it. It's heavy than what I'm used to in my shawls but with cooler weather coming, this may be a good item to have in my wardrobe. 

Thanks, Renae for the pics. 

My Life in Stitches: Yarn That Doesn't Count

My entire yarn stash.
Isn't it cute?

My knitting life has been a little slow lately. So slow that I asked my seventeen year-old daughter what I should blog about. She said, “You can blog about how much yarn you have.” Yeah, that’s a subject to blog about.

I don’t have a huge stash. I have four 16-quart bins and two 25-quart bins. It’s sorted by weight for the most part. My most recent yarn purchases are in bags sitting around the bins, including my birthday yarn.  It would seem like a lot, but it’s not because half of it doesn’t count. Why doesn’t it count, you ask? Because when yarn purchases fall into certain categories, it doesn’t count towards stash building. Those purchases are “special.”

Here is my unofficial list of yarn that doesn’t count:

• Holiday yarn. That includes birthday, anniversary, Mother’s day, and Christmas yarn
• Travel yarn. Any knitter worth his or her salt has already mapped out the directions to the nearest yarn shop before they even leave for vacation. And besides, vacation destination shops often carry brands of yarn that your LYS doesn’t carry. Consider those purchases as broadening your cultural experiences.
• Sale yarn. Absolutely doesn’t count! It’s on sale for crying out loud.
• Special events yarn. This includes yarn festivals (for me it’s Maryland Sheep and Wool). This also includes yarn purchased at Vogue Knitting Live, Stitches events and any other knitting getaway.
• Gift/Gift Card yarn. Any yarn you don’t pay for doesn’t count.
• KAL (Knit-a-long) and test knits. For the sake of building community during a KAL, the guilt of buying more yarn is waved. And as for test knits, most knitter test knit for friends or people they admire. Why not buy yarn in their honor, too?
• “Not enough” yarn purchases. Most of us have lived through the horror of starting a project and then realizing more yarn was needed than what was purchased. You can’t just leave your UFOs (UnFinished Objects) floating in limbo. You have to quickly go and more before the dye lot is gone. Besides, no one wants to be in Raverly purgatory, having to search other people’s stashes for the right dye lot and praying they’ll sell it to you. 

Got more additions for yarn that doesn’t count?