Too Much Yarn, Part 2 -- A New Hope

Learning to RESIST yarn emporium emails and catalogs is actually therapeutic. The hoarding shows all claim that learning not to accumulate stuff requires repeated exposure to the things you normally can’t resist. They might be right! I’m really enjoying “shopping” my stash and not adding to it.

I mean, damn. Lookit that.

That said…a whole bunch of the yarn that I’m most eager to play with needs winding. A whole bunch. Four skeins just for WIPs (where I wound half the skeins and decided to wait to wind the rest). GAH. Winding is BORING. 

Everything needs winding.

Everything.

EVERYTHING.

SO MUCH GODDAMNED WINDING.

What's worse than winding? FROGGING. Ripping apart something you worked on for possibly hours and days, because you completely failed to notice something was deeply wrong and just kept going. Because you really liked the yarn but got the gauge wrong. Because you really meant well to make a baby blanket but didn't have enough yarn and nothing else to do with it. Because halfway through you realized you were totally sick of making even one more chunky wool sweater you'd never wear. 

I recently frogged a hat I’d created in great enthusiasm, because a) kept screwing up the pattern, but mostly b) 100 stitches is way too big for my head even in fine sock yarn. How is it possible so many hat patterns use 100+ stitches for the headband?? I have a fairly average-sized head and that’s too much. So I cast on again with 80, the next size down, and I hope it will go better now.

Don't be fooled by the cute doggie button.
This stupid thing needs frogging too. It's big enough for the Jolly Green Giant.
Anyone want to ask him if he needs a blue hat?

If you catch it in time, though, and you have enough yarn, an overly large hat can become a nice cowl.

Nice cowl, even if it started out as a beret.

I had fun re-organizing the pattern stash and WIPs while prepping for a four-day trip during which I knitted for HOURS each day. Every year we go to our favorite science fiction/fantasy convention, Readercon, which is heavy on books. It’s like attending grad-level lit courses for 3 days, which really is fun if that's your idea of fun. All those panel discussions are full of people knitting, crocheting, needlepointing, spinning and embroidering. It’s fabulous. We also had 5 hours riding in the car each way, so I brought 4 projects (3 WIPs and 1 new) and ACTUALLY worked on all of them. Didn't FINISH any, but made lots of progress. 

Organizing the stash takes time, that might be spent knitting instead, but it's not a bad thing to play with the yarn and re-engage with why I bought it in the first place.

Except for all the freaking winding.

Too Much Yarn, Part 1

I overdid buying yarn last year. And the year before that, and before that. And at the beginning of this year. One night not long ago, I realized that I’d forgotten to enter a whole 2-gallon bag of yarns from late 2016 into my Ravelry stash. (I knew they existed, but not being on Rav they weren’t ready to be claimed by queued Rav projects.) I wasn’t a very good girl January, February and March of this year either…but I’ve been good ever since. I HAVE TO BE.

No regrets for these final skeins. None at all. 

Digging into more neglected parts of the stash in order to log them properly, I found myself seriously wondering WTH I was thinking on some occasions. Just 1 ball of Lion Brand Kool Wool?? I gave it away. (Along with a bunch of other odd skeins not worth combining with others in a project.)

One thing struck me very hard, as I was hunting for a couple of skeins for a new project.

All those storage bags and bins of yarn I have -- eight or nine, packed pretty full -- represented dreams and POTENTIAL when I bought that stuff. Potential new sweaters, new shawls and hats and scarves. SO many pretty things -- so many patterns! I locked myself into a yarn shop of my own desires. At my present best rate of usage -- about 12000 yards a year -- I’m set for the next ten or fifteen years of knitting. And I’m in my mid fifties.

Mild regrets for this stuff.
I'm sure I'll love the sweater I'll make 5 years from now. 

Giving away the excess yarn -- something I’ve been doing for years anyway -- is becoming an even bigger goal than just knitting it up as fast as possible. I give a few bags to a friend for charitable knitting every year, some to a women’s shelter. I sell some on Rav. I give some to friends who are down on their luck but love to knit. I'm keeping only what I really love. 

But even if I give away more things than I keep, there’s still only so many sweaters my spouse and I can wear or stuff into drawers. Only so many scarves and hats. Only so many throws to pile on the sofa. I surprised myself by giving away a shawl I spent weeks and weeks working on; I didn't love the colors once it was finished, but my friend had been admiring it so now it's hers. 

I like piling up small projects like hats, cowls, scarves, simple shawls and baby sweaters to give away. It’s entirely win-win. I get to enjoy the yarn for a while -- or not, as sometimes happens. I get to try another new pattern. I get near-instant gratification of a finished project. And I get that yarn out of the house entirely! So back in April, I decided to make a game out of my goal, similar to plowing through a book a week, to cut my To Read list down a bit each year. I decided to knit a hat or cowl every week for the rest of the year, in addition to the usual scarves and shawls that I work on while I commute. Depending on the gauge, it takes me 3-5 days to make one.

This one took 2 sessions watching TV.

To speed things up a bit, I organized the stash better, and made a bag of "ready-to-knit" skeins that don't need winding (thank you Big Yarn Companies) or I already wound. Imagine my joy when I dug into one bag and came up with a bunch of Deep Stash skeins I'd forgotten about, all set for hats and stuff! I’m capable of whiling away a whole evening browsing my pattern printouts and fondling bags of stash instead of actually, you know, KNITTING. But I hit a new realization, as I was digging in the bag of Ready To Knit skeins a little while ago.

Like, What the hell was I thinking?

Noro at its worst...

While it feels good to have rediscovered some yarn I once loved -- I quickly made a giveaway hat and planned a few others -- I have to curb that impulse a bit. Because my stash is vast and life is short, I need to -- I deserve to -- knit the yarns and patterns that I love the most first. Not just stuff that happens to be easiest to access because it’s sold in pull skeins. Good thing I already wound a bunch...

Knitting up Gradient Shawls

I don't know how this yarn is created, but I had to have it. I'd seen similar yarns on Etsy and Ravelry, like Kauni, and was determined to someday get some. Before I could hit the PayPal button, though, I ended up at Vogue Knitting Live 2013 in NYC, and THERE IT WAS.

Knitwhits Freia. OMG. A whole booth of amazing color. I bought lots. Well, I bought 7 skeins, at any rate. More would be overwhelming.

Shawl, I thought. Has to be a shawl. Something simple, because I would mostly be staring bewitched at the color shifts, not the lace design. So I picked a nice rhythmic pattern called Garden of Allah, free on Ravelry. The yarn was a dream to knit with: strong light lace yarn, quick to work on Addi turbos. And I made this. And I love it.

So in 2014 I went back to VK Live and bought more of this yarn. And since then I've made three more shawls from Knitwhits gradients.

Above: Light and Up Shawl, in Lichen colorway (which matches THREE outfits I own):

Below: Summer Sea Shawl, in Dusk colorway:

Calandra, in Blue Velvet colorway:

I really like the construction of this shawl, not just its geometry: the central spine increase of an otherwise conventional triangular top-down shawl is made with a double yarn-over, making a set of extra-large holes down the center. 

There are a few more gradients in the stash, from different sources, and a few more nice simple shawl patterns that will strike a nice balance between "simple enjoyable design" and "whoa nice colors!" So, more to come...

Knitting up Bugga!: Green Dragonfly Fern Hat

I'm a certified sucker for cool yarn names and cool pattern names.

Want to sell me armloads of yarn? Slap a name on it like Flamboyant Cuttlefish or Golden Tortoise Beetle or Amber Trinket, and I'll happily fill my shopping cart to overflowing.

"Oh I just love that yarn in colorway 342!" just doesn't have the same pizzazz as "That scarf will look great in Malabrigo Mechita "Mandragora!" I quite understand that most huge yarn companies are reluctant to worry about color names when they change them every year. But still.

Want me to buy your pattern? Call it Parseltongue Hat, Iron Maiden, Sea Dragon Shawl or Hypernova Shawl. I often feel disappointed by the relatively colorless names given to patterns in the knitting magazines--or worse, when the project is named for the color of the yarn they picked, not some unique attribute of the design. An indie designer on Ravelry of course has to market harder than Vogue Knitting; a great name becomes an insider byword. Say "what a gorgeous Leftie!" or "I can't wait to finally cast on a Honey Cowl!" and a whole lot of folks in the yarn store will chime in.

So, "Fern Hat" isn't an exciting name, but the hat does look very ferny, so that's OK. At least the yarn is called Green Darner Dragonfly. I tried so hard to use that skein sooner, as it was one of the first things I ever bought from now-sadly-defunct Cephalopod Yarns. I really wanted to use it for a shawl pattern called Dragonfly -- so appropriate, right? -- but alas the yarn was a bit too fat for a delicate lacy design.

And I still have Gather Ye Rosebuds Hat, Butterfly Sunset Beret, Song of the Sea cowl and Vitamin D cardigan in my pattern queue. So I'm good.

Knitting Up VK Live 2013: Freia Flux Twisted Rib Mitts

It gets bloody cold in New York City some winters. I dislike the "gadget" gloves on the market, that let you touch your smartphone screen through the special panels on the fingertips. I like knitting gloves. I love fingerless mitts. I love to buy colorful yarn. I really like gradient yarns like those dyed by Knitwhits. I can't resist buying pretty things I have no plans for.

I bought two skeins of Freia Handpaints Flux Worsted yarn, colorway Ultra-Violet, because they struck me like two glowing eyes from the shelf. It's a thickish yarn, single ply, dense, rich in color. I had no idea what to make of them, but initially thought perhaps a hat, perhaps a cowl, perhaps I'd mix them with something else. Finally during the winter of 2014/15, confined to the sofa by leg injuries, I decided they would look wonderful as fingerless mitts, just big enough to fit over thinner fully-fingered gloves on a really cold day. As I was spending much of December and January clutching a cane in one hand, that made a lot of sense. So I made these up as I went along. I have no regrets.

Knitting Up Rhinebeck 2012: Spirit Trail Fiberworks "Nona" Cascata

My handpaint obsession nearly burnt itself out at Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool in 2012. I got lotsa stuff in gorgeous multicolors, but also a few things more muted in tones. I loved the watercolor effect of this merino, silk and cashmere blend from Spirit Trail Fiberworks. Their yarns are absolutely delicious.

The colorway being Beach Glass, seemed a natural fit with a shawl pattern called Cascata, meant to evoke flowing water. Behold:




I LOVE this pattern. I might even make it again someday, because unfortunately the skein ran a bit short for the full pattern, but I got the important parts in! (The rest was just a lot of short-rows making a sort of collar. Not fully necessary, IMHO.)

I wore this shawl a LOT at Readercon, and it kept me warm even in the notoriously chilly Salon F. And it flings nicely, due to the soft, silky yet firm hand of they yarn. Love it.

Knitting up Cephalopod Yarns: Cinnie in Spanish Shawl

I no longer remember how I found out about Cephalopod Yarns. I was definitely in the grips of Handpaint Many Colors fever. I built up a stash in no time. I was determined to crank out projects from newer yarn at that time as well, and so dove right in and MADE something right off, with the first CY skeins I got. The colorway is called Spanish Shawl (named for a species of aeolid nudibranch) (a sort of sea-slug).

This is the nudibranch.

This is the yarn.

Since I have an endless appetite for lace cardigans, I went and made a lace cardigan, using a recently purchased pattern called Cinnie. I liked the construction: center back panel first, then pick up stitches to knit sides, fronts & sleeves, then pick up stitches to make the whole business as long as wanted. It works very nicely, as an alternative to the top-down raglan sort of cardi I'm otherwise addicted to.

The leftovers made terrific lace fingerless gloves too!

I'm very sorry Cephalopod Yarns had to recently close due to the illness of its owner. But I've got plenty of their yarn to keep me busy, at current rates of consumption, for at least another 2 years.

Knitting Up Rhinebeck 2012: TuckerWoods Twinkletoes

I discovered that it's helpful to approach a BIG shopping trip, whether Costco, Ikea or a craft fair, with at least a few actual goals in mind. It helps keep one from being completely overwhelmed by giant packages of croissants, tea lights or whimsical ceramic jars. Or yarn. Well, yarn is different, sort of like chocolate or earrings...

When I considered my Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool 2012 wish list, I felt I didn't have enough sparkly yarn in my life, though honestly I"m not the sparkly sort, and hadn't much felt the absence. I did have some sparkly yarn -- some rather nice Blue Heron rayon, for example -- but hadn't done much with it other than one rather uninspired "wear this on holidays" top I made from Patons' Brilliant. My dream list includes several shawls made of elegant but shiny stuff that I could fling around my shoulders for special occasions -- light ones for summer, dark ones for winter or dark outfits -- but after so many years of thinking about it, nothing had happened. I kept making sweaters. And scarves. And hats.

So I picked up a skein of pretty sparkly TuckerWoods Artisan Yarns & Fibers "Bailey's Twinkle Toes," in colorway "Black Orchid," which I found completely irresistible in both color and name. I like when fiber people give their products and patterns interesting names. It's a nice squooshy merino/nylon sock yarn with a bit of metallic sparkle spun in. The farm doesn't seem to have a website, but they have quite a large sales booth at Rhinebeck, filled with very nice yarns that include a few luxurious items.

So I found a fabulous amazing shawl pattern called Iron Maiden, that suggests using a yarn with a metallic "feel." Seemed a natural for the yarn! Alas. Oh alas. I knitted it just slightly too tight a gauge, AND the yarn fell short! So I ended up with a smaller shawl...more like a scarf. I do wear it like scarf, but I don't get to see the awesome design. So since I actually paid for the pattern, I'll have to make another one!

Knitting Up Rhinebeck 2012: Spirit Trail Fiberworks "Birte"

As part of my program of impulse buying in a more "sensible" manner, at Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool Festival 2012 I allowed for the possibility of non-variegated yarns. After all, some patterns just look better in a solid color -- especially cables. And I do like cables. And I do like hats, so I bought some heavier weight yarns that could be used for hats, and even mitts.

Spirit Trail Fiberworks makes some wonderful yarns using luxury fibers in wonderful ways. "Birte" is 75% Merino, 15% Cashmere and 10% Silk, squooshy and irresistibly soft with a subtle sheen. The lovely "Roman Bronze" color I got really looks almost metallic. Having it next to your skin is heavenly. So I made a hat. Logically, I made a pattern that shows off well in a bright solid color, and even makes sense in that particular color. I knitted owls, to wear whilst birding.

Knitting up VK LIve 2013: Lights and Lichens Shawl

I don't know how this yarn is created, but I had to have it. I'd seen similar yarns on Etsy and Ravelry, like Kauni, and was determined to someday get some. Before I could hit the PayPal button, though, I ended up at Vogue Knitting Live 2013 in NYC, and THERE IT WAS.

Knitwhits Freia. OMG. A whole booth of amazing color.

I bought lots. Well, I bought 7 skeins, at any rate. That counts as lots, when most of it is lace-weight.

First project was a lovely lacy shawl, that I still haven't photographed properly.

Second project was this very simple scarf-sized shawl, another free Ravelry pattern. I've come to admire simple arrangements of solid/eyelet knitting, and quite liked how the banded colors of this skein fell very naturally into the pattern's bands. Alas this skein of fingering weight only has 322 yards, and so the shawl came out quite small compared to other versions. But it's quite nice to wear as a scarf. And the weird gray and yellow combo works quite nicely with my spring wardrobe.

Knitting up Rhinebeck 2008: The Original Stash

 

Despite the fact I've finally been digging deep into the immense yarn stash I've accumulated over the past 10 years, I seem to have forgotten to remind myself just how fast the stuff can accumulate...as it did in 2008.

I did not approach my first Rhinebeck, NY Sheep & Wool Festival thinking I would find bargains. I wanted the amazing artisianal stuff that would inspire me as I fingered and smooshed it and sighed over it. I happily paid the dyers and spinners what they asked and deserved, and I loved what I got.

Oh boy. I went nuts. I always went nuts at yarn sales before, buying 10-skein bags at crazy prices and thinking always in sweater quantities. But this was different. Intoxicating in different ways. So I filled up a couple of bags with yarn yarn yarn yarn YARN and then I went home and took the picture above.

Then life got busy, and though I wound a lot of the yarn into ready-to-knit balls I was a bit slow to work on them. I didn't have a lot of hat, scarf or shawl patterns lying around. I had to find one-skein projects for my wonderful new stash. (Not too hard really, as some of those skeins were BIG.) Fortunately I had just joined Ravelry a couple of months earlier, and so the world's greatest database of knitting patterns was at my fingertips. Bwa-ha-ha!

Recently, I was quite pleased to realize that most of the 2008 Rhinebeck yarn is actually used up! I still have a few skeins of navy blue lace-weight (a couple of shawls are queued for this), 8 hanks of orange and green-grey rayon blend (really still no idea), some very neon-bright purple/green/turquoise worsted that really better become a sweater someday, and a couple of random, very colorful sock yarns.

Knitting up Rhinebeck 2008: Sliver Moon Rose Garden Shawl

Knitting lace shawls is endlessly entertaining. I credit my visit to Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool in 2008 for starting me on my shawl odyssey. I picked up a lot of sock-weight and lace-weight yarns mostly because ooh pretty but I really did intend to stretch my knitting horizons, one skein at a time.

This very pretty orchid-purple fingering yarn from Sliver Moon Farm was completely irresistible, and so much of it for so few $$! I first envisioned a sweater. As time passed and I became addicted to shawl-knitting, I decided to use it for that instead. So 1/2 the skein became a pretty Rose Garden Shawl (free pattern, yay!) for my friend who recently completed grad school. (She hadn't completed it when I started this, but I had faith!) Even the name fit...her younger daughter's name is Rosie!

The rest of the yarn is destined for a shawl, too. Haven't quite decided which one.

Knitting up Rhinebeck 2012: Red Hypernova Shawlette

It's not easy being a yarn magpie. Well, the shopping part is easy. But then deciding what to make of each skein, or set of skeins...and figuring out where to put them in the meantime...those are problems we usually don't think about when we're doing the shopping.

I did try to be mindful, when shopping at Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival 2012, of what I already have and why I have it, and therefore avoid duplication and fill in gaps with things in my current taste. Because as I've been playing with my stash over the past year, rearranging the storage bags roughly by Do These First, Do These Next, etc., I realized that a whole bunch of older yarns had fallen out of favor. Stuff I really wanted to work on last summer, suddenly not so much. Which is great, because now I just have to relocate them to a new Giveaway bag and re-prioritize everything else.(And the trouble is, all this playing with stash takes time away from actually knitting any of it. But really that's another post.)

While my absolute favorite colors remain dark turquoise, leaf green and deep purple, preferably all together in one yarn (indie dyers all over seem to agree), I'm not committed to having all my yarns be just variations or combinations of those. I like black, hot pink, orange, red and dark blue too. Even gray. Even brown, if it's delicate and toasty and warm. I think the color least represented in my stash has to be red. Several friends of mine are fiends for red, and it suits them, but putting it too close to my fair skin doesn't work all that well so I learned over the years to avoid it (despite the bright scarlet sweater dress I wore in my 20s, among other experiments). I certainly wouldn't knit a red sweater for myself.

But a shawl? In exotic shades of red ranging from chestnut to pink? Well, there it was, hanging on the wall at Persimmon Tree Farm's booth. 2 skeins of unique Piggy Toes merino sock yarn, luscious squoooshy soft 560 yards of pure awesomesauce. 2 skeins was enough for a cropped cardigan, but really one skein just cried out to become a Hypernova shawlette. The destiny of the other skein awaits, but it certainly will become some other shawl...one of the couple of hundred patterns in my Ravelry queue. 

Knitting up VK Live 2013: Dragonfly Fibers Super Traveller

I obviously did not have enough yarn stash, so I went to Vogue Knitting Live in January 2013 to remedy that situation. Seriously, only a few months after Rhinebeck 2012, I realized my stash lacked certain things. Big bouncy fluffy yarn for warm hats, for example. I bought 2 skeins of that sort of thing at Rhinebeck -- but otherwise my stash was now almost entirely lighter weight yarns, especially the nice hand-dyed stuff.

Normally, this has never been an actual problem. Knitting with 2 strands of yarn works very well. I've done it any number of times, when a bulkier yarn was wanted for a scarf or hat. Combining 2 different yarns this way isn't exactly rocket surgery. I just didn't feel like it, this time around. My last attempt, combining 3 yarns, was very pretty but not actually successful: a bit too bulky, too stiff. Discouraging.

Insanity aside, I did manage to find a couple of skeins of lovely bulky wool. Dragonfly Fibers satisfied my urge for beret material: Super Traveler. Amazing smooshy squooshy 100% merino wonderfulness. AND THE COLORS. Bad Moon Rising (pictured above) was impossible to resist. So was Admiral Benbow:

You see my problem, right?

So, hats. The Bad Moon Beret has become my favorite warm woolly winter hat. It's just a tad too big at the headband, so it slips a bit if I move my head fast or bend down for a few moments, but I can live with that.

The Benbow Hat is a bit too snug, but again, I can live with that. Warm and toasty rules.

Knitting up Rhinebeck 2009: Kid Hollow Cowl #2

Having happily solved one Boucle problem by creating a fluffy warm cowl/scarf with one skein of luscious hand-painted Kid Hollow Farm mohair/silk/merino blend, I was happy to solve the second Boucle problem the same way! The skein of "Brilliant Jewels" became another fluffy warm cowl/scarf, this one a gift for a friend. Small amount left over -- I miscalculated the amount needed for bind-off -- became a hat. (The other yarn there is a leftover amount of Dream In Color Classy.)

Knitting up VK Live 2012: Sound of Waves

Well-made yarns cry out to be something, even if we don't always figure it out right away. That's why we pet yarns, and fondle them, and contemplate them...we need to take their full measure, and help them become what their destiny demands of them. Even if it's just a potholder. Or a hat. Or...

I seized this skein of Happy Fuzzy Yarn merino/tencel at Vogue Knitting Live in 2012. Not fuzzy at all! Silky. Soft. Luscious. How could I resist a colorway called Purple Kale? That's right. Just look at it!!

So...what to do with 400 yards of silky soft fingering weight yarn? Why, lace scarf, of course! One of my ongoing fancies is to create a whole armload of lightweight, lacy, chiefly decorative scarves in a vast array of colors and fibers. But which lace scarf pattern would do this elegant yarn justice...?

Kieran Foley to the rescue. His lace patterns make me crazy. I want to make all of them. His Sound of Waves wrap caught my eye a while ago on Ravelry, and seemed a perfect fit for what I wanted.

I bollocksed the pattern a bit -- I cast on an extra repeat, and ended up with a ridiculously long and quite narrow scarf. It took a looooooooooooooooong time to knit each row, and for a simple pattern it was surprisingly tricky to not screw up -- and on the rare occasions I dropped a stitch (as when knitting whilst riding in a car) OW it hurt a lot. Then I added insult to injury by blocking the finished product in my usual bizarre way: stretching out the wet thing over the shower rod. (I can't lay wet knitting projects out flat to block, I have a Manhattan apartment, and I have a cat.)

Despite all that, I likey! And I'll make another, in some other luscious lacey yarn. This time I'll make it shorter and wider, as Mr. Foley intended.