Oops

You may have noticed the lack of post on Tuesday and that's because we took ourselves off to the cinema to see spectre.

Wednesday was a little yarn delivery from Germany. Just one or two balls of sock yarn being added to the stash

Trapped!

Crafters are hoarders. Show me a crafter who doesn't have a stash of one kind or another and I'll root out their hiding spots.

They sneak yarn into the house, slightly concerned about the eye rolls from their significant other, hide it in the boot of the car, stuff it in nooks and crannies or have another crafter mind it for them.

And it's not just yarn.  While my yarn stash threatens to take over the house from downstairs, the magazine stash is trying to burst from its designated spot upstairs!

I used to be a 2 magazine subscriber. The anticipation of waiting on the postman to deliver the magazine was great. What patterns would I get this month? What stash would I be able to use with it? And, most importantly, what will the free gift be!?

Needless to say that once I ripped the plastic off the magazine, had a look at the free gift (and 9 times out of 10 said I wouldn't use it) and gave the patterns a  cursery look, the magazine was abandoned in a corner until someone texted to say they were visiting. At that point the magazines were scooped up and thrown in another corner out of sight.

In order to corral the mess, I didn't resubscribe to one magazine when my year ran out.  In my eternal stupidity, I continued to buy the magazine and not knit any patterns from them.  So the decision has been made not to resubscribe to magazine 2.

And then there's tools- needles, crochet hooks, stitch markers and buttons. We knitters tend to hoard these items too and yet, we never have what we need when we need it.

So the moral of this tale is simple. Despite your belief that your crafter has every thing they could ever possibly need,  you're wrong. We'll always need something else, something new and shiny.

My advice is to just go with the flow. One day you'll come home to find them buried under the stash and then, and only then, will the notion of "enough" cross their mind. And as quickly as the notion came it'll go again.

Evil temptress

What is it that makes crafters immune to saying no when new yarn is involved?

This is a question I've been pondering over for a while and it all began in September.

A fellow crafter in work was bemoaning the state of her craft room (I know, a whole room for crafting in). There was card and stamps and inks and glues everywhere and getting glitter out of carpet isn't easy.  In return I was venting about the stash getting out of hand....again.

I wanted to get the stash knitted up before the annual knitting pilgrimage to Dublin. Why? To make room for all the new yarn I would acquire.  Unfortunately the stash contains the excitedly purchased yarn from the four previous pilgrimages.

But why when, for as long as I can remember,  I've been cold sheeping?

Because I get the thrill of hitting the purchase button online. It's not just the yarn I'm buying but the illusion of time to knit it up.

Sometimes this thrill comes back to bit you. For example, last week a knitting website was advertising their grab bags. Oh ho says I,  an excellent opportunity to try new yarn out for a discounted price. So I ordered 3 bags- cascade, berocco and crystal palace.

Imagine my excitement when the parcel arrived.  I opened the first....

Started well with berocco weekend. Nice colours and the yarn feels nice.

Then came the second bag,  the cascade...

Another victory! Bulky merino in blues which I love.

Then, the final bag...the crystal  palace. Would I be lucky and get 3 fab bags of yarn??

No. Bag 3  was 5 balls of fun fur that I have no idea what to do with.

And, despite the new mystery yarn (and one or five other balls that arrived yesterday), the knitters are in talks about ordering a lot of sock yarn from Germany! 

This only means one thing....I knit to climb back on the sheep until mid November and knit socks like they're going out of fashion!

This blog is brought to you by the letter F

Finishing. There are many levels of finishing when it comes to knitting.

Some class a project as finished as soon as the knitting part is done. Some believe finishing occurs once the ends have been woven it while others go as far as washing and blocking their piece before they declare their work finished.

Me? I'm in the weaving in the ends camp.  However, I'm getting rather lax about even going that far.

This little pile contains all the "finishing" I need to do, and most of it is quite simple and straightforward.- ends, seaming and a pompom or two. Instead of just getting on with it, I threw the lot in a bag and pretended it didn't exist...except that I keep tripping over it!.

This week's goal is to bring a handful to knitting tomorrow and weave in those ends!  Hopefully next week I'll be regaling you with a series of FOs instead of nearly-but-not-quite finished objects.

Technical issues

I had a wonderful post planned for Tuesday but alas, technology let me down. My laptop is on its way out and is now refusing to connect to the Internet. So now I'm stuck with an app on my phone!

I'm just going to have to adjust even though I don't want to lol.

See you Tuesday!

Baby steps

Last week at knitting my friend Sharon was doing her practical work in order to become a colour reader. Always up for a go at new things, Sharon read my cards and all the colours pointed to one thing: my stash is holding me back.

As the last post shows, the stash in the living room is huge! And thats only the tip of the iceberg. Sharon suggested that I move yarn that doesn't make my hear sing. After hearing this shocking suggestion, shedding a little tear or two, I agreed to try to cull the stash.

Its actually quite easy to let go. Even after sitting and thinking about it for a few minutes, I was able to come up with a list of yarns that I was happy enough to move out of the house.... and here it is.

start small

It took a whole 10 minutes to pull the yarn out of its various nooks and crannies and be piled up on the floor. A quick whatsapp chat later and half the yarn already has a new home, the rest will be brought to knitting tomorrow and, if there's still some left over, it'll go straight to the charity shop.

Its leaving tomorrow, never to return!!!

Once upon a time

There was a knitter who loved yarn. She loved yarn so much that the house was coming down with it! She decided, with a heavy heart, to start Cold Sheeping.
Many years passed. She stopped blogging so she could concentrate on knitting down her stash. Alas, she was just kidding the world and herself. The stash increased….decreased…..increased and decreased again.
By this time, she has three separate stash locations – at the top of the stairs, underneath the stairs and in the living room.  Being a knitter, she doesn’t blame herself, she blames The Summer.  It was during The Summer that the living room stash started to grow….and by September it was definitely out of control!
The knitter decided that “enough was enough!” and it was HAVE to be dealt with. Friends encouraged her to have a serious purge, but no, she couldn’t do that. She’d just have to knit it all up.
So here it is, the living room stash in all its glory:

Looks harmless, doesn’t it.  Well this monster can be divided into 3 categories.

Caegory 1: I know what I’m doing with you!

This cheeky selection will become socks, washcloths, hats, a shawl and a little jumper or two.  The knitter reckons that this category (apart from the shawl  that is) can and should be knitted up quickly enough. Plans are in place and she just needs time.


Category 2: ALL the kits

One of these kits pictured (and another that escaped) were purchased in August while on holiday. The knitter thought the little boy kit was so nice that she’d go back and get the pink one – there is a flurry of babies and one never knows when one will need pink! It was while the purchasing of the pink kit was taking place that the evil sales lady brought out all the Not one to resist a bargain, the knitter took them all -  well, hats and scarves are just so quick aren’t they!
Once category 1 is completed, this selection will be next on the hit list.

Finally, we have category 3: What on earth was I thinking!

Yup, a miscellaneous category. There are inklings of ideas with some of these yarns, and other will be paired up with yarn from the top of the stairs stash.


But baby steps -  one skein at a time and I’m sure our intrepid knitter will clear the living room of the invading yarns!