What I made, by Sharon

  While I was knitting Luna's jumper, I decided I wanted one for myself too. But in in black- in a pink fade. I had four skeins of pink yarn with no purpose in mind, and some fluffy angora that I  bought not enough of for another project. The jumper came out really wearable: in fact, I'm wearing it as I write this. It's comfortable, warm but not too warm and it came out exactly the length I wanted. It was a fun knit, pink fluff is always a good time, and having just knit it, I knew the style and fit. I don't think I've ever knit the same thing twice in a row, but I was such a fun and soothing knit that I really enjoyed both times. And as a bonus, here's a picture of Luna wearing hers: A really  satisfying and successful pair of projects.

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!

I like to keep a tidy stash. All the yarn I have is on my Ravelry stash page . I carefully (obsessively?) track my yardage. This started when I first counted in 2013. Generally it's easy - I buy yarn, put it on Raveley, sooner or later knit it, put the project on Ravelry. Done. But what happens when there is a small amount of yarn left? Too much to say the ball is finished? Say, 20 grams from a 50 gram ball? I had a few small balls hanging about. there was some knit Picks Pallete that I dyed for Sleeve Island and didn't need, a half ball of Holst Garn Super-Soft left over from Still Light and I just knew that the leftovers from Noah's baby jumper would end up sitting around forever. A couple of months ago I found this hat pattern - Fits The Whole Fam. Hold 3 strands of fingering yarn together, knit on 5mm needles and off you go: I used my favourite cast on for 1 x 1 rib ( Alternating Cable ,  ) and really enjoyed knitting this. I'm going to donate it to KOGO ...

The other Monday Catherine came to knit night and offered me this ball of yarn. 29 grams of "mind the gap" colourway  self striping yarn. Part of me was thinking "what would I do with 29 grams of self striping yarn?" Most of me was shouting "Mind the Gap, all my friends have knit with that. gimme, gimme".  While I was pondering what to do with it, twistedstitching on Ravelry posted this sock: copyright twistedstitching And I knew what i had to do. I found some left over SocksYeah in grey - I would have preferred white but I'm stubbornly using stash.  I've  put them in a ziplock bag. Because I'm still working on  Strathendrick, and I can't bear to put it down. I guess being a monogamous knitting doesn't stop a girl from dreaming.  Or, as my father once very lyrically described marriage "just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't look in the cake shop window". It sounded less creepy whe...

Last Monday, at Richmond Knitters, Katie mentioned she was expanding her BeeKeepers Quilt, because "it wasn't big enough": Katie's photo. Look how pretty that is! I wondered if she wanted some Left Over Sock Yarn. She said "sure, but only if you keep some and work on your sock blanket ". Katie said she wanted "garden colours". I still don't know what that means, but I grabbed 400 grams of pretty colours, and put them in a zip lock bag, and now they are freed to be part of something beautiful. Now I only have about 400 grams of LOSY! I don't guarantee I will actually work on my blanket, although I did knit a square the other night.

Every Monday, Leon and his boss commit a crime against fashion called "Bad Tie Mondays". (Facebook group here) They are not obliged by their organisation to wear ties to work, but on Mondays they choose to. And they choose to wear the worst, most colourful, ugliest ties you have ever seen. Some previous efforts can be seen at their Facebook Group, but this week I assisted them in a triumph of badness. I was looking through Veronique Avery's Knitting Classic Style , when I found a pattern for a tie. Now, in my opinion, a knitted tie is, by definition, bad. Then I compounded the bad by knitting it in orange Noro, which I had cut out of a ball because it was... ugly. So here it is, Leon's fugly bad tie. I'm so happy.