Taming the Stash

Stash. We all have one. It lurks in your house, full of oddments and extra skeins you didn't bother to return to the store. It is a very personal, but universal, knitter problem. Yet we still buy yarn. I have been on a yarn diet for over a year but it hasn't worked very well. Inevitably I pick a pattern I don't have enough yarn for, or I think I have enough yarn and find out half way through that in fact I don't (after emptying out my stash baskets searching for what I SWEAR is there), so just in case I go to the store and buy two more, just so I don't run out again.

Perhaps the best deterrent to buying more yarn is just to see exactly what you already have. After being gifted with a friend's late grandmother's yarn stash (the winner doesn't get to take it with them, do they?), and my old college roommate stuffing half of hers into my bag last night ("You'll do it more justice than I will, I have no time cuz I'm a music student"), I decided I needed to sort my stash. Yes that's right. Sort the damn thing.


I spread the yarn out on my bed, sorted into the colors, the neutrals, black, white, and those varegated yarns you love but don't fit into any color category. First was my original stash:

The neutrals and variegated got cut off at the bottom but you get the point. Then I added the late grandmother stash, after I weeded out what she had cut for latchhook. I got a wonderful surprise. Four full skeins of virgin wool, some of them the labels yellowed and falling apart. Those were later placed in their own special bag so that they would not be lost. Now I can actually try felting! Should I make a purse, or something useful like coasters? Hrmm.

There now you can see everything. But wait, there's more. My roomie is to blame for this now.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is my yarn stash. It covers my bed. So what do you do with your stash now that you see it in all it's gory detail? You organize it. You can do yours however you please, but I am a simple girl with little furniture and only a bedroom in which to store all my things. One day I hope to have an entire room devoted to my plethera of hobbies, but not yet. So I used plastic grocery bags for each pile, after pulling out the yarn I'm using for my Rainbow Afghan of Awesome (or Doom. Depends on my mood), and stuffing them back into my baskets. It looks something like this:

It didn't take me that long, and it didn't hurt at all! And now I finally know what the hell I have to work with. Let me know how your Taming goes!

[The only yarn not counted in the stash is the yarn I'm using to make KnitPicks' Abundance Afghan; a wedding gift for a friend. I only bought the 7 balls the pattern called for.]

Cat Scarf

Well it's been a while but I have a free pattern for the blog! A scarf for your cat =^-^=

Xander, my friend's cat, was confused by his first modeling shoot. He quickly turned diva, however, and cut the shoot short for his fish treats.

Cat Scarf

Size 6 needles
Worsted weight yarn, two colors


Body of scarf:

With MC, CO 8 sts
Work garter stitch until you have 4 ridges
Change to CC, work garter stitch until you have 4 ridges

Work stripe sequence until you have 9 stripes. BO stitches and sew ends together.


Tail 1:
CO 8 stitches in MC. Work stripe sequence until you have four stripes. BO.

Tail 2:
CO 8 stitches in MC. Work stripe sequence until you have five stripes. BO

Tassels (optional):
Cut 8 four-inch pieces of MC and 6 of CC. Each piece is one tassel. I used a yarn needle to hook them on, but you can use a crochet hook if you like. I put a CC tassel in the middle, then did the two end MC tassels, and eyed the rest.


Line tail 1 up with tail 2, so that the top of tail 1 matches the last stripe of the same color, right sides facing. Center tails over the join in the main body of the scarf. Sew tail 1 to tail 2 AND scarf at the same time. Sew top of tail 2 to edge of scarf.


Put scarf on cat, and take lots of funny pictures.

Cascade Tastes, Red Heart Budget

New Blog! First Post!

My first trip to the yarn shop my college roommate lives by was this past Saturday. We completely lost track of time in there; it was huge, the people there were so nice and talkative. We had a great time oogling the shinies, and I was checking out those high-end yarns I've read so much about on the net. I've come to the realization I'm more a fan of pure alpaca than pure wool - it's less scratchy. But silk paired with cashmere - hoo boy! There's a new weakness. My roomie was bragging about my knitting abilities because I'm so much faster than her, but she's a music major, I have all the time in the world compared to her. I did break down and cheat on my yarn diet (I have like two laundry baskets full I swear). I bought one ball of misti laceweight baby alpaca, because I have one skein wonders and I knew a ball of that yarn would yield lovely lacy handwarmers for the office. Now I just need to get the size 0 DPNs *eye roll*. I knew I was crazy before this, don't worry.

As for my recent projects, I have a sweater of my own design I did for a friend that's going in my eventual self-published knitting book, a hat for a dear friend's fiancee who is in the hospital, and a bag that was going to be a scarf but with which I got bored. So it became a bookbag. Next up is the Pinup Sweater from Stitch n Bitch, in Dark Rose Heather Wool-ease. (I had bought the yarn around Christmas time thinking to make myself a heart-themed sweater by Valentine's day but that came and went. I found that pattern no longer inspires me, and Pinup does. Hence the switch.)

SO, picture time!

This is what I call, the 'circular needle of doom'. It's that sweater after one cable repeat. More pictures will follow once I can sew the zipper in and have the recipient model. =D

This is the scarf-turned-bookbag. I was trying to make the Modern Quilt Wrap from Knittingdaily.com but it was too thick and I got sick of it after I only worked half the pattern. So now it's my overnight bag. Far more comfy to tote around than my duffel. And I finally used up that international distress signal orange. Yay!

Camden is modeling the hat before I wrap and ship it. There's a story behind this hat, the pattern for which can be found here (If the designer or translater of the pattern sees this btw, this is a GORGEOUS pattern!) I've had this long-distance internet friend for five years, he's like my little brother. I've seen him fall hard and fast for girls and get his heart broken. So needless to say when he came back to the face of the Earth Thursday night (we tend to lose touch for long periods of time because of his work schedule) I was skeptical when he said he found his soulmate. But he told me all about her, and she sounded like a real incredibly good match. So he puts us in touch with each other. We hit it off instantly, I like her a lot, and I almost feel like I found a long-lost sister-in-law. Friday night I get a call, but I couldn't get back to him till Saturday cuz he was working. Turns out friday night she was in a car wreck, and she's been in the hospital ever since due to bleeding on the brain and a blood clot (which burst in surgery Easter Sunday). He's been beside himself because he can't go see her. And get this: she blurted out they had planned to elope when she visited this weekend while in post-op. I nearly whacked him through the computer for that one because she's a student, and that's going to mess up her financial aid. But that can be worried about later. She fought for her life all weekend, and she was worried he wouldn't think she was pretty because they had to shave her head (we women can be so silly sometimes). While we were talking, after she was feeling better, she mentioned to me she used to knit. Then she said she ought to knit herself a hat because of her bald head. This was before we almost lost her the third and fourth times. After those close calls I got it into my head that I would knit the hat for her, being that she's not in condition to work with even blunt pointy objects. And it's my way of feeling useful. I asked my friend what her favorite color was, and lo! I had a huge ball of buttery-soft Caron in that exact color. I started it last night, and finished tonight after dinner. This hat is awesome for her because it's smooth on the inside but it's still interesting to look at, and the flower makes it cute and girly. It should be just the right thing to help her feel pretty again. And I'm all proud of myself cuz it's the first time I actually managed to crochet something that wasn't a straight line. So thank you, Laura koo, for this awesome hat pattern. I shall post her reaction later, and maybe some pictures when her hair comes back.