OMG!

I have just literally finished my 100th ball for 2009!!!! I'll get the excitement over before I add that I didn't knit all 100, but I did knit 70 of them... the year isn't over yet so who knows how many more balls I may yet use :)

Totals, totals everywhere

Its the beginning of the month, and so I bring forth the monthly total for June;

Used 549g
Bought 0g
Gifted to me 50g
Mileage 0.56miles.

Mileage is fairly erratic, especially when I'm just kniting socks and cardigan bits. Maybe I'll get back up to the high miles when I get a few consecutive days off!

Total time!

I thought it might be interesting to put out there just where I am on the knitting front.

I have just moments ago finished the 37th ball - I have knitted 33 of these and donated 4 to other people. I'm happy with myself although you can't actually see the small hole where these 37 balls used to be, lol.

So from January until May we have the following:

January - Bought no yarn, used 391g so for the month I was +391g

February - Bought 700g, used 748g so for the month I was +48g

March - Bought 900g, used 1358g so for the month I was + 458g

April - Bought 1000g, used 688g so for the month I was -322g

May - Bought no yarn, used 250g so for the month I was +250g

Generally it seems that the numbers are going in the right direction, and the used yarn doesn't count the gifted to me or by me stuff. I'm destashing slowly but surely, and this month was basically socks, lol.

I think the important thing is that for two months this year I have bought nothing. There's 7 months left, lets see how many more yarn free months I can do!

Total time!

Well, the month is over and I can safely say that I DID NOT purchase any yarn, whatsoever.

I was gifted a ball of Opal but thats a gift and doesn't count.

So the total so far stands at 1236yards of yarn used in January. I don't know if this is good or not, but I'll take it. (even though it was less than December's total of 1581 yards which was 0.9 miles) Naturally I couldn't bring myself to refinish the rib on the jumper last night, so what would have been more yards will be carried over to today once I finish reseaming the thing. I hate reknits :(

So here we go:

Used 391g
Yards 1236
Bought 0g
Gifted to me 100g
Mileage 0.7 miles.

Good Day today!

Today was a good knitting day - I finished the pink shawl, used another ball of yarn and cast on my dad's sock. These are his first pair so I'm hoping I've guessed the correct number of stitches. I'm going to go now, finish the increasing and make him try it on!

Happy New Year!

I know I'm a day or 5 late, but I took myself off to Donegal for the New Year with some knitting friends, and knitted.

I was slightly deluded as to what I could actually accomplish up there (I brought stuff to knit a jumper, shawl, socks and finish a baby cardigan) Needless to say, those 4 items were not completed. I did cast on the shawl and knit through 100g of Sirdar Blur which helps with the 100 ball knitdown challenge (there's a list on the side so I can keep track of what I've used) Unfortunately, the shawl wasn't necessary, at the top of the list or urgent. It was a distraction, a procrastination tool. I didn't want to seam the cardigan and I didn't want to do 14 inches of 2x2 rib over 230+ stitches.

I'll get the cardigan finished this week, same goes for the shawl (hopefully) The socks will be cast on and so will the jumper.... a few evil rows at a time, but it'll get done.

As for mysock club, I'm not starting that until the Trekking socks are done. So I suppose these socks are unofficially the first of the year (although they kicked my butt last year and should have been done then)

Off to get cracking on this shawl then!

Total time!

There's going to a LOT of totals this time round, mainly to take in the end of the month as well as the end of the year.

December:

Bought 0g, zero, zilch, nada!!!
Used 1,095g
Completed 6

I thought that was quite an achievement for December and totalled 0.9 miles. As I flicked through my diary/knitting book, I discovered that the amount I knitted this month isn't the largest total I had... August was 1500g ( thats what happens when you're on holiday you see, lol)

Anyway, the YEAR's total:

Bought 10,714g
Used 10,692g
Completed 56

There's a difference there of 22g... 22 measley grams. If I had just made the cuffs on my last pair of socks longer I would have used that 22g. But what's done is done.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased that I haven't significantly added to the stash. Effectively, I've used what I bought and my plan for 2009 is to have bought next to nothing and knitted the same weight or more.

Scary amounts!

I just did a rough totalling of my yarn skeins... and there's over 300 of them floating about. This surpises me for two reasons:

1. I thought I had more yarn when I looked at it all, and

2. How did I manage to buy over 300 skeins of yarn!?

My tallying on a monthly basis seems to be heading in the right direction, and I hopefully can keep this up in 2009. I would also like a decrease in the yarn purchases without going totally cold turkey so I would need to keep an eye on the spending.

I would like to use up about 100 skeins. This is only a third of the stash and a good lot would go if I knitted:

1. my cadigan

2. another cardigan

3. my CPH

4. my jumper

Those 4 garments would bring the usage to approximately 50, so if I just knitted cardigans in 2009 I would be done in no time, lol.

However, the sock stash is really quite large so if I managed to learn short row heels, I'm sure I could do AT LEAST 6 pairs and bring the usage to about 15 balls and altogether 65 skeins.

Its all good in theory though, lets see how it REALLY pans out, lol

Oops!

remember how on Saturday I bought a ball of yarn I already had so I could "make something bigger" out of it? Well today I did the same thing again. Only this time it was a ball of James C Brett's Magi Knit. Just don't know what to knit with it though.

With the Saturday and today' purchases, my total in/out tally for this month is as follows:

Used: 750g
Bought: 650g
Completed: 5

Just think, if I hadn't bought those 4oog of yarn, the tally would be much better looking!

Here we go again!

It was my foolish intention that I would not buy yarn in 2008. Please note the word "foolish". I did not succeed in my 2008 quest but did however manage to note all yarn's incoming and going from the stash. Some months I got more than I used, others I used more than I bought. Some months the totals were the same.

My intention for 2009 is to USE MORE than I actually BUY. I'm not vetoing the purchaing, just trying to restrict it. I would LOVE to not buy yarn but asking that of me is like asking people not to breathe - ain't going to happen. I just want to be able to say on 31st December 2009 that I used a lot more than I bought.

My pitfalls ( and occasionally successes I imagine) shall be noted here, and I'm going to start the whole experiment off now too.

So far, for October I have:

Bought 250g
Used 321g
Completed 2

the bought yarn was straight in and out which is the overall aim of the whole thing.

I'm halfway through another project so hopefully it'll be done by the end of the week and I can do some serious knitting on my dad's jumper!