Mother's Day Gifts

Stumbled across this pattern on Ravelry Friday night. After much head-scratching, grumbling, eye-straining, and back-hunching, I have 2 crocheted bookmarks for Mother's Day gifts. Yep, pulled out my handy-dandy Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework circa 1979 and taught myself how to crochet. I had done croched edgings before (using the same handy-dandy book) but that was it.

What's funny (and telling) about this experience is that I dipped into my long-neglected stash of perle cotton that I'd bought for hand-quilting years ago, thinking "hooray! A use for this stuff that's been languishing!" Then, after finishing the first one and using about 80% of a ball, I got online and ordered about 15 more balls! (Hey, Joann.com had them on sale for $1.60!) And I didn't even enjoy making the darn things. They're beautiful and DD wants one, and I'll probably make a couple more, but I already have about 20 balls! There is something wrong with me. (In my defense, the ones I had already were mostly boring solids, most of the ones I ordered were cool variegated ones that make awesome bookmarks. [I saw some on ravelry.])

April is Kaput

And I didn't do so great on my knitting plan, except that I did knit 80 yards more than I bought! Turns out that about 75% of my knitting was done on the go or in 5 minute snatches, which is not condusive to most lace projects, which is all I had on the needles. I did finish the Yarn Chef cowl in April and have already finished the Travel Shawl this month.

It's been very grey here for the past few days, so I have no pictures yet of the Travel Shawl.

Stash enhancement:

Madelinetosh Tosh Worsted in Turquoise - not quite as turquoise as I'd expected, but I think I still like it.

I also have some Yarn Chef goodies that should be here tomorrow. Two skeins of Mulligatawny and one of Souffle.

I've started a wishlist of Yarn I Want -
Tanis Green Label in Olive, Moss, Garnet, Sand, Amber (I'm not sure she's doing Olive anymore though...)
Dream in Color Classy/Smooshy in Shiny Moss, Purple Rain, Chinatown Apple, Cocoa Kiss, Gothic Rose, November Muse, Strange Harvest
MadTosh Worsted in Dahlia, Fjord, Kale, Logwood, Moss, Norway Spruce, Olivia, Oxblood, Rose, Sequoia, Silver Fox, Wash
Malabrigo Lace
Yarn Chef Chiffon
Sundara Worsted or Sport in sweater quantity
Apparently I only want to knit with hand-dyed yarn anymore.

Here's another attempt at predicting what I will be knitting this month (I don't know why I'm bothering with this!)
1. Continue to work on Apres Surf. Finishing would be nice. But lace on 3's is slow going. Plus there's a hood.
2. Finish the Blackberries scarf already! Geez.
3. Pull out my mostly finished top-down raglan in Seafoam Comfy. Work on it.
4. I really should finish up the afghan that's supposed to go to college with DD.
5. Start Amelia.

Previously on Tossing the Stash...

Former plan:

March
finish Blackberry scarf - put on back burner for now as it wasn't done in time for gifting
finish Ribbed Hoodie - put on other back burner for now as it needs reknitting from armpits up and I can't deal with a heavy wool sweater right now anyway
sweater from one of my Sundara FSMs for Knitalong - still chugging along, but not finished as planned
start Yarn Chef project for Knitalong - did, but have decided I don't like the pairing of the Picholine Cafe au Lait and Wakame, so I cast on for another YC project last night

April
finish Yarn Chef project - this will happen
Random Small Project - I think the new YC project qualifies
Amelia - still planning to start it this month

May
Random Bigger Project - reknitting Picholine as a top-down raglan?
more that I will decide later - let's wrap up that Blackberries scarf, shall we?

So March went bust, although I did manage to knit 1520 yards more than I bought, but April seems to be on schedule so far. I do hope to finish Apres Surf this month also. I'll decide what I want to do in May at the end of this month.

Here's the new Yarn Chef project:

A zigzag lace rib cowl in Brickworks Mulligatawny. This color is yummy. It makes me happy :o)

Stash Management Plan

Using Ravelry's handy-dandy download of stash into Excel, and knowing I average around 30 yards knit per day, I figured out that it will take me 12 years to knit up my stash. Although it's kind of a relief to find out I haven't (hopefully) reached SABLE ("Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy") status, it occurs to me that I do need to try to keep the outflow slightly higher than the inflow. With this in mind, and using that cool knit-o-meter feature, I am resolving to knit more yardage than I acquire every month. I can bank deficits just in case there's a big purchase I want to make. (For instance, 3 skeins of Sundara's Fingering Silky Merino would be 1500 yards, meaning I'd have to average >50 yards a day to buy a sweater's worth.) This also gives me incentive to keep my knit yardage up since it won't 'go to waste' if I don't use it that month. There needs to be a penalty for non-compliance.... how about NO yarn can be bought the following month?*

To make it interesting, I'm going to use my job-jar approach whenever I can. Depending on what else is on my needles in a given month, I'll draw from my big project and/or small project stash jars and knit with whatever yarn comes up. Ravelry will make finding a suitable project for the chosen yarn easy, and it will be fun to revisit yarns I feel in love with once upon a time.

Some progress to report - I finished the first sleeve of my Sand and Surf hoodie:

Words can't express how much I love this yarn and this colorway. Cool oceany aqua and warm sandy taupe.

* Yarn bought in Sundara's sweater subscription is exempt from this. 1500 yards of this showed up this week. Technically it was bought before I started this.

Reboot

I can't seem to get myself together this month. I'm not waiting until the 31st to redo my goals, 'cause I know already I'm not coming anywhere close to achieving them.

I did finish my Dad's mitts last month. Check. (And the shoulder did stop hurting.)

Haven't touched the Blackberry scarf since it became obvious it wouldn't be done in time for my friend's 50th birthday. I gave her this instead:

I got the body (sans hood) done on my hoodie, but the shoulders are too narrow. It will have to be ripped back to nearly the armholes and reknit. Can't get psyched for that right now with spring almost on us, so that is in hibernation until fall.

I got started on my Après Surf Hoodie in my Alpine Algae Sundara FSM -

LOVE this color! Very beachy. Aqua and taupe. Will I be done by 3/31? What do you think...

I will accomplish one of my goals for this month - I just had to start my Yarn Chef project -

Did. Wakame tunic from Interweave Knits Summer '08 in Yarn Chef's Café au Lait in Picholine. ("Little olive(s)" I believe.) This color is the devil to capture. I love this yarn. I hope I'm 25% done 'cause my yarn's 25% gone.

I still have 10 days to work, and there's a knitting retreat in there. So knitting will be done. I may start Amelia ahead of schedule to have a project to work on when I'm not up to lace.

The Weatherman was Right

10 inches baby.

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of my favorite things about this house is watching snow fall in the woods while sitting inside drinking tea and knitting. We've only had a couple of small snowfalls since moving here about 14 months ago. This one could be as much as 10 inches! Yay!

Now I'm gonna go brew a cup of tea, and sit here and knit -