A Tale of A Stash

Today we bring you the tall, tall tale of a stash.

Not just any stash, by MY stash. But maybe we should make this tale about the knitter....

Once upon a time, on the outskirts of town there lived a knitter. Many years ago this knitter decided to organize the tools or her trade and organized her yarn stash. It was a beautiful thing, including a spreadsheet with a listing of every odd-ball skein of yarn she had. During the course of this endeavor the knitter discovered that although she had yarn, quite a lot if the truth be told, she didn't have enough of any one thing to make the sweaters and cardigans she usually knit. This had not been a problem when her children were smaller, many a sweater was knit with two or three hanks of yarn*, but as they grew the yarn requirements got larger and larger and they were starting to get tired of stripes!

So, our knitter did what any reasonable person would do...she bought a ton of yarn online and went on knitting happily away putting sweaters on her offspring's backs on a regular basis.** As time went on, this hoard of yarn started to dwindle and she was again faced with a lack of "anything to knit with" and this time she decided on a different course.

Socks! our knitter said to herself, They only take a skein or two and I have lots of skeins or two to knit with. Alas, everyone soon grew tired of worsted weight (or worse yet lace weight) socks that didn't wear well and so she went on a hunt for a better answer. Of course she found it, in sock yarn. Amazingly there was actually a yarn specifically designed to wear like iron when knit at a fine gauge and so she started buying the "good stuff" and suddenly another stash was born...the stash of walnut sized and larger oddments of leftovers. I'll use them, she said to herself and threw yet another partial skein into the basket.

Well today I did!
That is left over Sha Sha from Land O Lace (I don't keep the tags with the left over yarn so I have no idea what colorway!) What was left from a pair of fingerless mitts paired with some Knit Picks Stroll left over from that Baby Vest I showed you the other day. You can barely see that I needed the Stroll through the lace! Match those up with Bad Cats Saint-Michel's Beret (rav link) or grab it from her blog here. This is destined to travel across the country as a Christmas gift. I almost wish I was keeping this one for myself!

While I was shopping in the oddments baskets I found the leftovers from my FrogCable Cardigan and paired them with leftovers from Skinny Durrow to get this:

Turn a Square by Jared Flood (You might know him as Brooklyn Tweed) This one has been washed again since that picture was taken yesterday as it is also destined to take a long trip across the country.

But, back to our knitters story.

The latest stash organization did turn up a couple of bags of yarn that our knitter did not recall as having, the spreadsheet organizer, being six years out of date at this point, did not help but she put them with like weights of yarn and today started using one.

Colorado Yarns, Durango. (rav link, I can't find another) and here is a picture of the started knitting :Now is it just me, or does that look like it spent time in a laundry room stash - right in the dryer vent???? I have been picking out the particularly big "tweedy bits" that seem to just lay on the side of the yarn as I go.

The moral of this story, you ask?

Wait for it...

You don't have to hide your stash in the dryer vent, there is a yarn company out there that will do that for you!

To paraphrase Bad Cat Designs....

Knit On ! Christmas is right around the corner, but I will be back tomorrow with more knitting pictures and a small, surprise delivery that is making me smile!

~M

*Part of the problem being that if you need 2 hanks of yarn to make a baby sweater she would buy three and store the third.
**Funny side story : One of the teachers my children encountered in school (preschool as it turns out) would start each day standing behind my child during the morning Pledge of Allegiance so that she could turn back their collar and see if that was a hand knit or a store bought sweater they were wearing that day! Apparently she made a game of it with herself, guessing each day if the item was a "real knit" or a "store knit".