What I made, by Sharon

and hello LOSY V. My LOSY stash entries are all the L eft O ver S ock Y arn I have at the beginning of the entry. This then becomes inaccurate over time, since it gets added to through leftovers, little gifts from friends and just random accounting errors. This week I made a charity hat and officially finished all the yarn in LOSY  IV . When I started this entry in February 2022 I had 850 grams of yarn. I've knit 17 projects from it and used up all 850 grams.... and now I have 736grams for the beginning of the LOSY V entry!  So much potential! I would like to get this big bag of yarn small fast, so I think I'll make a jumper and booties to match the hat I just finished. Then we'll see because there are so many things I want to knit, and I'm having so much fun.   This does take my stashcount to  18616 over 33 number of entries.It's been hovering around 17 km for a while now, so that's not too bad.

As everyone knows, I try to keep as small a stash as possible. It's not that small, it fluctuates between 15 and 25 kilometres. The other day at knit night I announced that I had decided I needed orange socks, but I didn't have any orange sock yarn. Kris piped up "I've got orange sock yarn". Sonia announced that she had orange sock yarn - Collinette Jitterbug, a discontinued yarn I adore and Kate said she had some that she had ordered one day when she was not feeling well. I pointed out that it was very nice that they all had orange sock yarn, but that was their orange sock yarn, and I am a big girl who can buy her own yarn. Sonia then decided to give me her orange yarn - not one but two skeins of Jitterbug, which was once my favourite sock yarn, but has been discontinued. It's the perfect shade of orange, and knit up beautifully into Cookie A's Sake Socks. I had put off making these socks, because every knit stitch is twisted and there are cables on ever...

 At the beginning of  2023 I had 25 km of yarn. At the end of 2023 I had 21 km of yarn. In between I knit 27 km of yarn. Given that (I like to believe) I only buy thoughtful purchases for specific projects which I then knit immediately, why is this number so high? And mainly for last year it's that yarn kept coming to me (#blessed). I found some in an op-shop, I was given some. I have the willpower to not buy yarn except when I plan to (festivals, for specific project) but when someone comes to knit-night giving away a colour of yarn I had wanted to buy but it was sold out  it would be churlish not to say "thank you very much" and take it home with me. And especially when Kris has a destash and I walk into knitting and there is a pile of yarn on the table and it's all lovely and there is also this: And at the end of the night no-one has taken it and it's screaming my name and really wants to be a brioche cardigan (true story). Add to all these acquisitions that I ...

 As anyone who has been around here for a while knows, I try to keep my stash relatively small. This holds tension with the fact that I enjoy buying yarn in person, and at fibre festivals, and I usually only go to two or three a year. Also, I (almost) exclusively buy Australian dyed and milled yarn these days, through a combination of wanting to support the Australian yarn industry, and how our dollar + postage makes American and English yarn quite spendy. So, I went to Bendigo and bought yarn for 5 major projects, which took my stash to about 25 kms. What I didn't mention at the time is that I had ordered 1600 meters from Bendigo Woolen Mills: My mother asked for a cardigan for her birthday at the beginning of November, I thought this yarn was perfect and it was on special and they gave me the perfect pattern for free (sort of perfect pattern, I won't be knitting colour changing yarn in pieces.).  Also, the project I am currently working on is for a friend and she ...

  And what a fabulous weekend it was. We drove up on Thursday afternoon without incident, and checked in to our house - it was a more modern 3 bedroom, with a large table perfect for sitting around and knitting and drinking tea and / or gin. We had our traditional Thursday night Thai, this time with me, Katie, Kris, Deb and Lea (a work friend of Deb's). Delicious.  Friday took us to the show, and it was a perfect day, sunny and lovely. Look at that sky! Look at those sheeeeeep.  We went to the Women of Wool luncheon which was (as usual) tasty, entertaining and a nice chance to sit down! Friday night was pizza at Suzanne's and more chats and laughs with friends. Saturday I finished my shopping - I did very well, buying everything that was on my list, and nothing that was not:  From top to bottom, that's yarn for this cabled jumper , this colourwork jumper I'm going to make as a dress, the Drawing Sweater , Andrea Mowry's Rose Cardigan  and Leon's Winter Set...

In January 2021 I bought 300 grams of mini-skeins from Dani (H alf-Baked Handdyed ). Why? I don't know. I have so much left over sock yarn, and I'm making more all the time. It was a very pretty bouquet of yarn. I made a couple of things from it, but mainly it sat in my stash for over two years. Now I've decided to use it all up. I'm going to hold it double with this self striping yarn It's machine dyed and it didn't knit up like I was expecting. I have about 200 grams / 800 meters of each, so my plan is to knit up a set for AKWAK holding pale minis with the main yarn. usually my sets consist of a jumper, cowl and hat, but , Sussana  just accepted me for a sock test knit, so for once my donated set will also include socks!

This year's show was perfect! Kris and I drove up after work in Thursday, staying in the same wonderful cottage as we have the last couple of times. We started with the traditional Thai dinner on Thursday night.  On Friday we went to the show early and did most of our shopping before the Women of Wool luncheon, which was more good friends, as well as a wonderful meal, some interesting speakers and rather a lot of wine. There were dyers that I know I love, like My Creative Garage, and others who were new to me - including new favourites HodgePodge and The Autralian Yarn Co.  We then did some more shopping, before heading to Suzanne's for the traditional Friday night pizza event.  I was not very good at getting everyone (or even most people) in photos this trip! On Saturday we watched the sheepdog trials, which I always find fascinating, ate lamb for lunch and went and looked at (and patted!) some sheep, as well as finishing off the shopping. We had dinner with the Ric...

When I knit Wordle last week I finished my Left Over Sock Yarn (LOSY). Here's the clip from ravelry: I counted my LOSY in February 2022, so by co-incidence this is the one year anniversary of the listing! I knit a lot of things with that 4 kilometres of yarn. 16 really fun projects, many for charity. So does this mean I don't have any LOSY? Haha, no. I've still got 850 grams (3230 meters give or take). LOSY arrives in many ways - donations from friends, left overs from other, full skeins that creep into the LOSY pile, unravelling other projects and possibly even some miscounting. So now I have LOSY IV to play with. What fun!

One night ages ago  I was browsing instagram and saw that Louie and Lola were launching a short (3 month) subscription yarn club, based on crystals and stone. I'm not normally an impulse shopper, but I signed up on the spot. I'm not sure why - I've got one of their skeins - destashed by Suzanne - and it's a nice shade of gray, but I've never bought anything from them. I vaguely remembered signing up, and then nothing happened for what felt like a couple of months. I think the delivery was meant to be late July, but it was very rainy in Tasmania and the yarn wouldn't dry! Then it arrived: Apparently I signed up for the skein and mini option. Isn't it beautiful? I love a variegated speckle.  Also, for your viewing pleasure, my final skein from the Bendigo disaster arrived ( or rather was hand delivered by Dani the one week my knit group was allowed to meet between lockdown:    I'm planning very long socks with these, and I think they go very well toget...

The other day Suzanne texted me and asked if I wanted some LOSY (left over sock yarn) for my blanket. "Sure" I replied, even though, I have quite a lot already. I did not expect quite this much: an additional 500 grams. Some of it is 10 grams balls, perfect for blanket squares. Some of it is in little 25 gram hanks, which will be great for charity baby jumpers, 180 grams of it is in red, yellow and black, the colours of the Aboriginal flag and ready to be knit up for NAIDOC week.  And the other blanket news is that a little while ago I got the two sides even: It looks like I'm about halfway through, and I'm just going to keep knitting. I'm certainly not going to run out of yarn in a hurry!

Intellectually I understand that I am not going to finish knitting my stash. Yarn goes out, and yarn comes in. I also know that since I use about a kilometre of yarn a month, I have to average a kilometre and a half of yarn in or I will run out of yarn ... in about a year. Still, I am always surprised at how much yarn (and now fibre) arrives at my house. These stunners are from the Ixchel fibre club.  I signed up for a three month subscription after I did some spinning last year and early this year, but I'm stuck in the "I don't know what i want to spin for so I'm not spinning" cycle. I did sign up for  Jillian Morena on Patreon, so hopefully I'll learn some new things about spinning. This is from Stranded in Oz . Yep, the club yarns keep on rolling in, delighting and stressing me out in equal measure.  This skein is Miss Babs (not local, for a change!) which I threw in when I put in an order from Signature Needle Arts, after I lost a DPN on a night out.  And ...

Life in Melbourne is slowly moving to "COVID normal". On Monday the Richmond Knitters returned to our in-person home at the Spread Eagle Hotel, generally referred to a "The Spready. I walked in and one of the wait-staff said "you guy are back, life is back" and I nearly cried.  My very talented friend and fellow Richmond Knitter Dani (aka Half-Baked Handdyed) brought the mini-skeins that I bought last week. 300 grams and 30 colours. Look how pretty they are!   Also, look how I got a dark rainbow and a pastel rainbow. (I'm thinking of knitting this shawl) And then Suzanne had a destash (I love my friends who have "buying yarn" and "knitting yarn" as separate hobbies, so occasionally they have to destash or they will drown). I scored a bunch of minis Two balls of sock yarn (suitable for socks for Leon, or maybe abovementioned shawls main colour) And another of these, Skein Yarns "Bendigo or Bust". Now I have two, and along with...