Mostly Knitting

Bust That Stash!

Posted by on Sunday 3 February, 2008 06:37 PM

Now that I have access to my computer again I'm on a stash busting binge :)

I already mentioned that I gave away 2/3 of my stash for charity knitting and I have promised myself that no new personal yarn purchases will be made until the remaining stash is down to one bin full. I don't want a knitting stash bigger than one tub of yarn so three tubs full still need to go. I'm going to stash leftovers for weaving experiments and the occasional toy and that's it. If I have a small project that needs yarn and I don't have it, I'm going to spin it from stash. If I want to make a large project and don't have the yarn I'll spin that too.

Business yarn doesn't count because I have to buy yarn that people can easily purchase for my next couple of patterns, but most of my website knitting will also be done with stash so even business knitting is going to empty some of my four remaining tubs of knitting yarn.

Anyway, enough of that. I have also made great strides in stash reduction by making stuff!

First I dyed some Bendigo Mills 4 ply baby wool that I bought to make a hairpin lace shawl. It was too lightly spun for hairpin lace so I dyed it like this:

This skein was dyed using Landscapes galah for the pink and a 50/50 mix of rust and tanbark for the brown. I like the tanbark brown as it's quite versatile. Mix it 50/50 with rust and you get a nice warm brown, mix it 50/50 with wattle and you get a lovely cool brown. It's also great used by itself for camouflage yarns. I gave this skein to a friend for charity knitting. (out of the stash)

This is a pink camouflage yarn dyed with galah and tanbark. It's Heirloom 8 ply wool. This is for a swap (out of the stash)

But before I get too far off track, here are the other two skeins of Bendigo Baby Wool that I dyed.

This one is dyed with Lansdcapes in opal, sky blue, fern green and an "eyeballed" mix of wattle and fern green. I've used all of this one up in two knitted baby hats for charity and a blanket I'm crocheting for a recent baby in the family. So it's out of the stash too :)

This next yarn is my favourite (although I really love the pink camo and might dye some for myself if I can find any more white yarn in the stash).

The blue is Landscapes sky blue and the brown is 50/50 tanbark and wattle. Tanbark is already quite a cool brown but the wattle just makes it more interesting. This one is still in the stash.

I haven't just been dyeing yarn though, I've also been knitting things aside from the baby hats mentioned above.

I made a pink elephant using some vintage Cleckheaton 12 ply. It's vintage enough that it doesn't even have a name, it's just called "12 ply".

I used the "Elefante" pattern by Susan B Anderson that you can find online for free here. Scroll down the page about halfway and you'll see a list of all of Susan's free patterns in the menu on the left hand side of the page. Clicking on that will open the pdf file of the pattern. It's a bit fiddly to knit, but well written. I think it turned out kinda goofy and cute.

Here are my notes from my ravelry entry for this project:

"Knit at a slightly larger gauge than the pattern states at 5.5 sts per inch.

Straight section in the body was worked quarter of an inch longer to compensate, trunk 1/8 inch longer and head worked a total of 3/8 inch longer before decreasing for the top.

Tail 1.5 inches long

5mm crochet hook used for ears and omitted the last round before folding in half"

So that's another 2 skeins of yarn out of the stash :)

I dyed the rest of the yarn red for use in another project or two. It's a bit scratchy and dry though, I'll have to give it a good soak in some hair conditioner at some stage.

I've also been knitting some bags.

Firstly there are string bags, made using Judy Gibson's Turkish String Bag pattern and some supersaver 4 ply cotton. (That's fingering weight for the non Aussie/NZ/UK knitters). A bit under one skein makes the whole bag if you don't make adaptations to the pattern. I finished a green one and am currently knitting another. That's one ball of cotton out of the stash and another on it's way :)

The last project I have a photograph of is a knit & felt change purse that I knit using op shop tapestry yarn. It doesn't count as using up the knitting stash but I think it turned out really pretty.

I used the Awning Stripe Change Purse pattern by lionbrand and used about 10 skeins of tapestry yarn and some stash buttons. These are some of my favourite buttons and I'm really glad to have found the perfect project for them.

Now that I have access to the files on my computer again I'll be uploading more patterns to the website and fixing up some problems with the Homework patterns that happened during the meltdown. Keep an eye out here for news when new things are added.

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Smarty

Posted by on Tuesday 23 October, 2001 11:56 AM

I've been inspired by the Smarty DK yarns by King Cole :)
Now, how am I going paint my handspun with these tiny little dots without a dye studio?...

I'm thinking for a super quick baby fine yarn I could use fabric pens?

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