My stash has exploded LOL

For someone who only started knitting again towards the end of February I seem to have collected quite a stash of yarn. I know I'm bad but there's all those bargains out there and all these wonderful things to knit and I suppose I am getting ahead of myself when I think "ooooh that would be nice to make such and such". Especially since I have so much yarn for so many projects as it is, some secret, some not.

I know I am throwing myself into only one hobby because at the moment I have so much soap that I can't justify making any more. That and I need a hobby that can take me away from the soap opera that is my personal life but I have decided that enough is enough and I can't buy any more yarn until I have used up at least a quarter of my stash.

This could be difficult because I adore buying new yarn, the looking at all different types, the ideas that I come up with for patterns to use the yarn with and even the excitement of going to the LYS or having packages arrive in the post but

1. I really can't afford it
2. I have to downsize from a three to a two bedroom house soon and I won't have anywhere to store it.

With this in mind I am designing a king size quilt/bedspread, all made from squares I like the look of and mostly made with my collection of Sirdar Click. I think 50 balls should go a long way towards making it don't you?

For those Ravelry members here is a link to my stash. For those who aren't Ravelry members or on the waiting list - what are you waiting for - get your backside to Ravlery and sign up, its a great place to be!

Curbing bag rescued!!!

I know I said I was going to frog it but I left it on the needles for a while and yesterday I decided to see if I could rescue it. To my surprise I actually managed it - Yay me!!

The picture on the left shows it ripped back with a new row started. I'm excited about starting this again because its such an enjoyable project to knit. I just won't use any more 2 ply on it because I really hated the hole where the row started.

FO's of 2009 - 2. Waffle Stitch Fingerless Gloves

My second FO this year was my Waffle Stitch Fingerless Gloves, an extremely quick knit. If I remember correctly I needed them for the next day and knit them up in 2 - 3 hours, the sewing, as usual, took a little longer LOL. My Ravelry notes say that I should have checked the gauge first as they were a little baggy. It was my fault really, I have the good fortune to knit to a standard gauge and for these gloves I upped the needle size from 4.5 to 5mm as my 4.5 needles were in use already with some test knitting.

I do like these gloves and will knit them again, hopefully with some gorgeous and relatively expensive yarn as they take so little ;-)

FO's of 2009 - 1. Felted WIP basket

I learned to knit when I was little, my Nan and my Mum taught me although I don't think I ever finished anything LOL. I picked it up again when I was pregnant with my second son back in 1988. I made 2 baby jumpers (one of them was very complicated) and a large intarsia jumper for myself. Then I hung my needles up until February this year when I got the urge to knit again. I got some needles and yarn and started knitting my (so far unfinished) chunky sweater jacket. Then I got the bug...

This was my first FO, my felted WIP basket/bag. My notes on Ravelry say:

"Basic knitted bag, co 40, garter stitch for 15 rows (first ball of wool). Pick up stitches from the other sides and knit in the round until its about 1/3 taller than you want it to be after felting or in this case until I literally ran out of wool :-).

Not great but still not too shabby for my first fo in 20 years LOL"

I used Freedom 100% Wool from Twilleys of Stamford in 408 Moorland and really enjoyed it. Of course the wool was super bulky so it didn't take long at all - just what I needed to get me into knitting properly. I quite literally used 5 balls to make this (you may see on the photo that I had to use a small amount of acrylic to finish the binding off. At some point I managed to lose the stitch marker for the beginning of the row so I had to guess where the handles went, and of course I got it wrong and then I bodged it when I made them larger but it was bound to happen.

I am still happy with it even if it was a bodge at the end and it gets daily use :-)

The dreaded baby blanket strikes again!

Today was supposed to be about my few FO's but yesterday, just as I started on the second pattern for the baby blanket I realised I had 126 stitches instead of 128! With four stitches each side as the border I now just have to design the rest of the blanket myself because there's no way I'm starting the damn thing again. Cables are out because this project has pissed me off enough already but I'm sure I will find something that works well.

Wraps per inch (WPI)

As I've got quite a few odd balls of yarn I needed some way to find out what weight/thickness they were so I've made a reference table to help me:

UK	Wraps per inch
2ply	18+
3ply	16
4ply	14
Light DK	12
DK	11
(US worsted)	9
Aran	8
Chunky	6
Super Chunky	5 or less

To measure the wraps per inch, wrap your yarn around a large knitting needle/ruler/pencil and measure the wraps in an inch. The yarn should just be touching comfortably, not squashed together or spaced so that you can see the object underneath. As you can see from the picture on the left, the yarn used wrapped 10 times which makes this yarn a D.K./worsted weight.

Curbing Bag - frogged

I was really enjoying this knit and then I realised two things:

1. I really hadn't thought out the colours I was using very well
2. Using two strands of two ply cotton on 6.5mm needles was fine on the main part but looked awful where the round was finished (can you say BIG hole LOL)

So I decided to take it back to the row before the cotton but as this week is turning out to be one of stupid mistakes I messed it up. So the first curbed bag becomes my first knitting failure of the year and I will choose my colours very carefully for the next attempt.

That leaves me just one wip - my chunky sweater jacket. I think I will work on that for a while before I start another one. I could really do with a nice shrug at the moment. I have a blanket I use when it gets cold but it can't cover my shoulders and arms and still allow me to knit and type. Then there's the teddy I need to make for my nephew and the dreaded baby blanket! Watch this space.

Finally!

Finally got my Drops felted slippers finished. I would definitely do things differently next time but I am happy with them.

I have also finally put the baby wool up on ebay and if they go OK I've just about convinced myself to put all of the click up too.

With the baby blanket frogged for the moment because I read the pattern wrong, I only have the sweater jacket and curbing bag in progress at the moment. I'm in the middle of the hood for the sweater jacket and I'm on the sixth lot of curbing for the bag so I suppose I'm not doing too badly.

Whats the betting I will start another project in the next seven days LOL.

The dangers of buying wholesale yarn

I will admit it I am a pack rat. I collect sci/fi fantasy books, soaping stuff (equipment, ingredients, essential oils etc), recipes, knitting patterns, needles and yarn...

So when a pack rat like me has the brilliant idea of buying 190 balls of yarn wholesale to resell on ebay I suppose I am just asking for trouble. I now have two huge boxes downstairs full of Sirdar yarn. To give you an idea here's the list:

• Snuggly Tiny Tots (10 balls of each)
• 0932 snug (baby blue)
• 0930 bliss (baby pink)
• 0929 hush (white)
• 0931 coy (mint)
• 0933 cosy (cream)
• 0928 tender (pale lilac)

• Click DK

• 0118 blossom (peachy pink) - 20 balls
• 0117pistachio (pale green) - 30 balls

• Juicy DK
• 427 watermelon (pink) - 10 balls
• 426 nectarine (peach) - 20 balls
• 429 lychee (cream) - 30 balls
• 428 coconut milk (white) - 20 balls

Of course now I don't want to sell them, well I suppose I'm ok with selling the snuggly tiny tots and at a push the click can go but letting that wonderful Juicy bamboo/cotton yarn go is just out of the question...

I know I have to sell it, I can't afford to keep it, and in my defense I have packaged it away but I haven't taken the pictures or put it up for sale yet. I'm going to try very hard to do it tomorrow (I need daylight to take the photos). Or maybe I can just sell the tiny tots and keep the rest LOL

Yarn equivalents

I got so fed up with trawling through my bookmarks every time I wanted to look something up that I decided to start a reference blog with all the details in one handy place.

I'm starting with a yarn equivalents table because I seem to be looking for that more than most LOL

UK	USA	Australia	Needle size	Approximate gauge*
2ply	Laceweight	2ply	1.5–2.25mm	32–34 sts
3ply	Light Fingering	3ply	2.25— 3 mm	32sts
4ply	Fingering	4ply	2.25— 3.25 mm	28 sts
Light DK	Sport	5ply	3.25— 3.75 mm	24–26sts
DK	DK/Light Worsted	8ply	3.75— 4.5 mm	22 sts
Aran	Worsted/Aran	10ply	4.5— 5.5 mm	18-20sts
Chunky	Bulky	12ply	5.5— 8 mm	14-15 sts
Super Chunky	Super Bulky		8mm and up	8-12 sts

* The approximate number of stitches over 4 inches/10cm