Digitaldiina's Blog

My stash is currently contained in the Stash Cabinet, with room to spare. However, DH thinks it is too big and encourages cold sheep. I did 7 months of cold sheep in 2011/2012, but I cannot continue strictly on that path because of obvious voids in my stash (such as sock yarn for SockMadness and Sock Knitters Anonymous  (SKA) challenges and yarn to make sweaters for the kids). That said, the Stash Cabinet is in the spare guest bedroom that will be turned into toddler´s room in a year or so. When that happens, the stash will need to fit into a smaller space somewhere. I will not reveal the overall size of the stash in terms of skeins/balls or yardage, but I will report on yarn going in and out 🙂

My current rules and goals are:

• Knit up as much as possible from Deep Stash (2010 or earlier)
• Knit up the 3 sweaters worth of yarn bought in the fall, 2012
• Buy no wool yarn from Sandnes Garn or Per Tyrving (I hate working with it. When it is gone, it´s gone!)
• 1:1 ratio for fingering sock yarn – Knit one pair of adult socks or a shawl, may buy 100g of new sock yarn
• 1:5 ratio for all other yarns, based on yardage
• It is OK to buy yarn for specific projects for the kids, especially daycare sweaters, but the project must be started within 2 months of purchase
• Yardage from my pre-2012 sweater UFOs do not count (mostly knit, need finishing), but the two scarves do count
• Vacation yarns do not count (but may only buy yarns not available at local-to-me yarn stores (LYSes)
• Gifts and prizes do not count

So, how did I do for January? (If you do not want to read all the details, scroll down to the status at the end.)

OUT:

• I finished the Marius sweater for DH out of  one of the three sweater quantities of yarn bought in the fall. I used a whooping 1763 yards of sport weight yarn for this! I have another Marius on the needles for me, also out of fall 2012 yarn.
• I finished the 2009 Henry scarf: a deep stash hibernating UFO. This ate up 764 yards of fingering baby merino.
• I used two balls of fingering vacation yarn from Hamburg, Germany (2010) to make a shawl and some vanilla socks for me.
• I knit  a sock yarn blanket with various left-overs of Garnstudio DROPS Fabel, 676 yards total.
• I knit up a toddler hat, a preemie hat, and a pair of women´s gauntlets out of deep stash, consuming 379 yards
• And I used up 14 yards of worsted weight scraps to make an owl puff
• I returned five 50g balls of Dalegarn Falk (sport weight) and three 50g balls of Dalegarn Baby Ull (light fingering weight) to LYS after finishing the intended projects and having these left over.

IN:

• I have not bought any of the forbidden yarn brands.
• I got one 100g ball of Opal sock yarn and four 50g balls of Dalegarn Lerke (DK weight) free for the yarn I returned  – with change to spare for some knitting notions as well.
• A friend picked up four 50g balls of Rowan Creative Focus Worsted on sale for me to knit a sweater and a vest for the baby. The yarn is yet not here, so it will count towards February totals.

STATUS:

The yarn trade at LYS ended with 100g more out than in, so a negative stash balance and also technically not a purchase. I used two balls of fingering sock yarn for shawls/socks and close to 3600 yards of yarn for other projects. Six of the nine finished objects were knit out of deep stash yarns! This brings my unspent allowance to two balls of sock yarn and roughly 760 yards of any yarn.