Bon voyage!

Going to Berlin in the morning. Don't know how much knitting will get done but I'm prepared with 2 pairs of socks to chose from. I can't promise that yarn won't be purchase, I'm on holiday after all :)

What a weekend!

Have managed to finish two projects over the weekend AND start/finish a third, which is just fantastic! Can't mention too much about them since Christmas is coming and everything, lol.

I can say that I've knitted/gifted 92 balls of yarn this year (I've colour coded the balls so I can count exactly how many I gifted and knitted) and I could actually get to 100 by New Years Eve. I have probably cheated a bit since I've noted down partial balls and things, for example if I knitted a dishcloth last year using half a ball of P&C and finished the ball this year, then I'm counting the ball in the challenge. But hey, the yarn is leaving the stash and if it motivates me then I'll stick to my system.

Onto the next project!!

Berlin Thorpe

Berlin Thorpe
Originally uploaded by ropeadope_ie

Ta da!!!!! I have myself an ear flap hat for Berlin in a fortnight... less than a fortnight actually. And in only one ball of Patons Symphony so that it matches my cowl :)

I didn't do the braid things on it, and as much as I like the hat, I think its a bit crazy... but as long as it does the job I'm happy :)

I buyed yarn.

robinson
Originally uploaded by ropeadope_ie

Yes, I caved and bought yarn but its to knit this:

Isn't it cute!? Its called Robinson and is from Patons Nursery Story pattern book.

Here's my plan, and I believe it to be a rather cunning plan at that.

I had a look at the pattern and noted that the age 2-3 required 5 balls of the main colour (brown in the photo) and 1 of the contrasting colour (cream), and I handily enough had 5 balls of one colour...

These balls to be more precise:


The colourway is called Misty and randomlythe photo is quite a good match for what the colour is like in person. My plan is to knit the above cardigan and therefore have purchased 2 balls in order to knit up 5 (yes, there are 5 there) which I think is quite a good method of using the stash and getting a lovely cardigan at the end of the day.



So these are the 2 balls I bought, as the contrasting colour, nice and green. I was thinking of doing the ribbing in the green to brighten it up a tad, and also in case there's not enough of the blue, but I have a while to think about it.

So... do you think my yarn purchase was justified?

a little ramble

Just did a quick count of the number of skeins of yarn I have, based on the info on ravelry. I have 411. Now I knew I had a lot, but with the stash knitdown that I was (am) doing, I had hoped to have decreased that number (I’ve used/gifted 89balls this year which isn’t too bad really, hope to get to 100 by New Years Eve)

However, I have added 58 balls to the stash in many varying weights and honestly its mostly sock yarn. Given that I’ve managed to knit 11 pairs of socks this year and my sock stash is rapidly increasing, I really should knit nothing but socks for a while, lol.

Why am I waffling like this? Simple. I was in a bad, but the only LYS we have here, and they had nice aran yarn for 99p per ball. Conveniently I have a pattern book for kids knits in this yarn and I thought to myself “here’s a chance to get something nice and knit it up!” hence the yarn count. I was going to buy at least 6 balls but have just realised that this is rather silly due to the huge number of balls in my stash that aren’t leaving. Instead, I’ve decided to purchase one ball, and one ball only to knit the pattern using the yarn I already have that’s required. One ball to use up 5 that I already have isn’t too bad… is it?

Also, I don’t even think I’ll get round to knitting the kids cardigan hoodie thing this year so really I’m buying yarn to carry over to 2010. I need to finish my Christmas knitting and start planning my 2010 knits… which will be for me and me alone!!!

christmas socks

christmas socks and tintin
Originally uploaded by ropeadope_ie

I've just finished my first pair of socks to be gifted for Christmas... for my two cousins who have been asking for socks for ages. Just have another pair to do, with about 10,000 other things too, lol.