Smashing the Stash Or What I've been Knitting the Last Few Months . .

Stash.  It's an ongoing problem. I love it all - it's a collection of wonderful yarns that I have picked up at memorable festivals and on my travels, and I still get inspired by all of its colours, textures and smells.  But equally, I've been trying to think of ways to use it up because I am fast running out of room to store it all.  I wish I could say that the photo below was the extent of it, but . . . ahem. . . there might be just a little bit more where that came from.

My excuse for not having blogged much over the summer is that I've been madly knitting in an attempt to at least try and make a dent. In case you find yourself in a similar situation, here are some of my best tips for stashbusting.

1. You can hold two strands together.  This is a modified Doocot by Kate Davies.  I had two skeins of a purple variegated sock yarn that I wasn't really fond of, part of a mystery yarn club I subscribed to several years ago. However, when I held it double with a cone of beige Shetland that had a slightly pinkish tinge to it (another colour I wasn't too keen on), they seemed to compliment each other perfectly. Try pairing something you have no idea what to do with, with something else in your stash. Who knows what magical combination you might come up with.

2. You can finish up some old WIPs (incompleted projects are still stash in my books, just in a slightly different form). As usual, I just had the sleeves to finish on this Miette and I can't think why it was sitting in a bag for so long, as this cropped cardi has proven to be a really great wardrobe staple and I've been wearing it lots this summer.

3. You can volunteer to test knit a dress. The pattern, designed by Susanne Sommer (aka sosuknits) hasn't yet been released, but this is almost 500g of stash!  Plus, I had a great time learning to knit pleats and the dress has pockets! I absolutely love it.

4. Worsted weight sweaters use up a lot of yarn!  Whether you hold two strands of 4ply together or knit from a worsted/aran weight ball, these are relatively quick knits and perfect for the winter months. I love this Upstream jumper by Kate Davies and it's so comfy to wear.  The yoke was unusual but very easy to knit.

5. Laceweight can be surprisingly versatile.  My next two projects were great stashbusters and knit specifically for a very special trip that I will blog about next week.  The first is Hryggir by Helene Magnusson and all the marling is achieved by holding two strands of laceweight together.  I had no idea I had so much lace in stash until I went rummaging for this project, but it's been interesting to combine them all together.

This Hapisk, also by Helene, is also knit in laceweight and illustrates another great stashbusting tip - find projects that have stripes!  A great way for using up random balls and odds and ends. I made this slightly smaller than the original by going down a needle size and it has turned out just as I'd hoped; the perfect shrug to sit comfortably on your shoulders while allowing plenty of movement i.e. knitting.

I brought both these projects on my recent trip to Iceland - more on that in my next post.  And I still have plenty of new cast-ons with old stash on my needles.  But there is nothing more satisfying than coming across a pattern you want to knit and realizing that you already have the yarn for it and can cast on right away.  Or rising to the challenge of finding a way to combine disparate or odd skeins of yarn to create something really interesting and original.  That's my justification for a large stash and I'm sticking to it.

L(earning) My Stripes. . .

This is shaping up to be the Year of Stripes.

It's not been intentional, but when you are:

a) trying to make a significant dent in your stash and you have many, many rogue, single skeins to use up and
b) you are part of a Knitting Season Club that is actively encouraging the use of stripe creativity and
c) you fall in love with a striped jumper from the above said club. . .

. . . well, it's inevitable that stripes are going to become part of your daily knitting life.

My first finished project of the year was this Japanese inspired Judoka bag from an issue of Pom Pom magazine. It's essentially a whole lot of garter stitch stripes sewn up in an interesting way to form this shape.  I probably should have knitted it at a looser gauge to give it more drape, but it's become a useful project bag.

Next up was a mystery shawl KAL. The pattern is Ice Cloud by Carol Feller, a lovely striped shawl that incorporated some lace along with the garter stripes and also used mohair.  I started with that vivid yellow that you can see in the photo below, but it was too bright for me, so I did a stash dive and came up with some muted mauve to balance it out. 

It's difficult to photograph as it's quite long and narrow, but I really like this shawl/scarf shape - it's extremely easy and cozy to wear.  Unexpectedly, with this project I learned more about colour value than striping, but the latter definitely made it fun to knit and kept my interest piqued.

At the end of last year, I was extremely honoured to be chosen to test knit this next jumper - the Dathan Pullover by Kate Davies, part of her Knitting Season club.  We were set the challenge of using all fifteen colours of her Milarrochy Tweed in a stripe sequence where each stripe could be no wider than three rows, unless it was the hem or neck ribbing.  I started out trying to colour block with a single row of a contrast colour in between and it just looked awful, so I frogged it and started over. What I ended up doing was a three stripe sequence using most of the colours, until I got to the increases for the arms (the jumper is knit bottom up). I then kept the same colour sequence but switched to two rows of each. When I picked up for the long sleeve cuffs which are knit in the round, I switched to single rows separating each darker colour with the two lightest ones. 

I'm not sure it entirely works and for my own personal tastes, if I were to knit it again, I'd add far fewer colours and separate them with more of the lighter shades, to achieve a similar look found on the sleeves. But it was a really interesting exercise and it's been fascinating to see all the different versions, given the same restrictions.  In knitting this, I have found myself admiring certain colour combinations that I never thought would go together well - which is very useful for future projects as I absolutely love this yarn! Kate even suggested you could number all the shades and pick them out of a hat randomly, along with a 1, 2, or 3 to indicate the row width. 

I was far more random with my choice when it came to knitting her accompanying Dathan Hap. 

Mine was more of a half-hap - I added more increases on the sides to create less of a deep triangle.  And my only stipulation was to use up left-over balls from previous projects, including the jumper. In this stripe sequence, I love that the reds are more dominant. 

 I then fell in love with Kate's next pattern from the club - her gorgeous Strodie jumper. Here the stripes are created by welts. I used a cone of Jamieson and Smith's Shetland 2ply jumperweight for the background, and some gorgeous Lichen and Lace Rustic sport yarn which I picked up in Toronto.  Grellow love!  I really enjoyed knitting this.

And it is SO comfortable to wear - the perfect hiking sweater, but also wonderful to throw on with a pair of jeans.

I'm having fun styling my stripy knits too.  Can one wear too many stripes at once?  I don't think so.

I'm not done with stripes just yet.  Still on my needles is a Hapisk by Hélène Magnússon. . . 

And I am test knitting a dress which starts out with stripes.

I never really have a plan for my year's knitting; I cast on whatever appeals at the time.  So whether I will continue my stripe obsession remains to be seen. What I can say about knitting stripes is that spit-splicing is definitely your friend if you don't want to be weaving in hundreds of ends. And thus, the stickier the wool, the better.  Also welts are just wonderful for hiding said ends. Duplicate stitch  can also work wonders if your stripe jogs are a bit untidy when you are knitting them in the round.

I wonder if it's time to be knitting some vertical stripes. . .

Too Hot to Blog, but not to Knit. . . .

July has come and gone and it's still hot and the UK still needs some prolonged rain.  How have you handled your urge to knit amidst the sweaty hands and a pile of wool sitting on your lap? I've been lounging under a leafy tree in my back garden and it's been fine, especially in the mornings. And, when I tote up what I've been working on last month, I've been surprisingly productive.  Probably because with the heat, I haven't had the energy to do more physical things, such as housework.  At least that's my excuse.  It probably helped too that I was glued to the telly for a good chunk of time - World Cup, Wimbledon and the Tour de France are all excellent opportunities for knitting. 

I finished my Anni and this cotton top has gotten a lot of wear.  It was really quick and fun to knit. I love how the colours work with each other, I used some deep stash and I still have several balls of the grey and olive so another top combining the two may be in the works. 

I made a few modifications including knitting an extra pattern repeat and also creating a split hem.  I really hate weaving in ends with cotton, so I left off the ribbing on the sleeves too - they had nice slipped stitch selvedges and I think it looks fine.  I did recently come across an excellent article by Kate Atherley on weaving in ends with a few techniques that I've not tried before, so if this is something you dread or procrastinate on, check it out here.

July was also the month of mystery knit/crochet-a-longs.  The Skimming Stones crocheted shawl is finished and this is my version.  I found each clue a bit similar each week so wasn't as engaged with it as I could have been.  I finished off the last bit - those ripples at the end - in the main colour rather than the mini-skeins as I just couldn't bear to weave in any more ends.

Ysolda Teague's Gloamin-Tide mystery shawl by contrast has been a completely engaging and intriguing knit.  I am just now finishing the last clue which is to fill in this square in the middle. I have certainly never constructed a shawl this way before and have thoroughly enjoyed working on this.

I still need more summer tops, so have cast on a Talavera from Pom Pom, Issue 13.  I am using an interesting yarn for this - the Scheepjes Woolly Whirl 4ply is a blend of cotton and wool and is a gradient with various marls in the colours. It comes in balls of 1000 metres, plenty to make this top but I will have to get a bit canny with matching the colours when I divide for the front and back.  Fortunately the colour changes are quite long but weaving in ends in lace is the worst! We'll see how this goes. . .

Look, two sleeves!!!!  These belong to Bressay, by Marie Wallin and are part of the Nature's Shades KAL from the Knit British group.  There are 22 rows of colourwork on each sleeve before you join it to the body and do the yoke.  Best motivation of all to get the boring bits of the sleeve done.  I'm now a few rows from finishing the body and hope to join them up next week.  Yarn is all from stash - the main colour is a luscious Wensleydale from John Arbon and I'm using bits of Zwartbles, and J & S Shetland Supreme for the other shades. 

And finally,  I am on the bottom hem of my Lotta dress.  I can't see the need for a woolly dress anytime soon, but this feels like an epic knit and I can't wait to get it off the needles.

An AddiCrasyTrio Review or What Might Finally Turn Me into a Sock Knitter. . .

Last month there was a bit of a buzz in the knitting world as Addi released these new bendy sock needles.  I'm not a big sock knitter, mostly because I find knitting socks with dpns quite fiddly - I am always dropping stitches off them -  and I get bored with magic loop for small circumferences.  However, since they come in needle sizes up to 5mm and I was about to start on the sleeves of my Carpino jumper, I thought I would give these a try.  I have always enjoyed knitting with Addi needles, especially the lace ones, so was happy to make the investment. You can never have too many tools, can you?

In each package  you get three needles - you divide your stitches evenly between two of them and then knit with the third.  In the photo below, I am using 3.5mm needles.

I initially found them a bit awkward until I'd knit a few rounds and found a way of holding them that felt comfortable in my hands.  When switching needles, I found it worked best if I held the new left hand needle behind the needle I had just finished knitting, and straightened out the bendy bit of the needle so that I was knitting straight.  I found the transition between one needle and another quite smooth - there were no visible ladders as long as I gave the first two stitches a nice tug. My only reservation about using these for sleeves is that the length is just a wee bit small and I did accidentally drop a few stitches, particularly at the beginning (I was knitting the sleeves top down). Fortunately it was very easy to pick them up in stocking stitch.  As I did my decreases and got used to the needles, it wasn't as much of a problem.  My advice for the larger circumferences is definitely to have a few needle point protectors on hand, especially when putting the knitting aside, or shoving it into a project bag. And I probably wouldn't use them on sleeves with a lace or cable pattern. They are definitely more user friendly (for me at least) than dpns, and much faster than magic loop, which is usually my preferred method of knitting sleeves.

I had purchased needles in two sizes, so I next decided to try them on mini-socks.  I've been participating in The Loveliest Yarn Company's Sockvent 2017 KAL.  Michelle has designed 25 mini-sock patterns and I get one delivered to my inbox every day. They can be used as decorations or strung together as festive bunting. There is no way I will get them all done by Christmas, but will work on them over the next twelve months in smug preparation for next year. It is definitely getting me interested in casting on more sock knitting.

For these tiny socks, I've really enjoyed using the AddiCrasyTrio.  No worries with dropped stitches and I don't even need stitch markers. They also fold up nicely in a project bag and don't pierce the fabric as my sharper dpns used to do.  Here are three of my finished mini-socks. 

And my finished Carpino, designed by Carol Feller and knit in Baa Ram Ewe's Titus 4ply in the delicious Eccup colourway.  I think I need more teal in my wardrobe.  Excuse the wrinkles, but I do think it came out rather nice.

I really love the fit, especially around the shoulders.

So far, given the projects I have used them for, I would definitely recommend the AddiCrasyTrio needles but I suppose the ultimate test would be to actually use them for wearable socks. To be continued. . .

Shetland Part 2: Knitting Then. . .

A big part of our Shetland tour involved visiting museums and getting inspired by the islands'  rich history and heritage of both fair isle and lace knitting.

We were fortunate enough to have Ella Gordon, a talented Shetland designer, join us for dinner one night. She designed the Vatsland Jumper that I recently completed. She brought many pieces of her vintage knitwear collection to show us.  I really love the jumpers done in natural shades.

The Shetland Textile Museum in Lerwick is not to be missed. It's small, but packed to the rafters with lovely exhibits.  They opened the loft area for us and we were allowed to touch and look at all these swatches up close.

We even were allowed to handle these delicate lace samples.

This is my favourite all-over pattern - birdseye. I see a long stole in my future.

I definitely won't be knitting delicate lace socks though, much as I can admire them. I love the little hap on its mini-stretcher too.

Lace fingerless mitts?  Nope, won't be knitting these either.

We also took a ferry over to the island of Whalsay where their Heritage Centre was hosting a Fair Isle Through the Decades exhibit.

I love the fair isle scarves - they are knitted in the round and then tassels are used to close the edges.  Motifs are chosen that work in both directions so you don't have to graft in the middle.  I love the subtle shading of the triangles in the scarf from the 1920s on the left.  And these pops of fair isle from jumpers knitted in the 1970s, just on the hem and the collars, is very effective.

But THIS garment was the show stopper.  The skirt can also be worn as a cape!  We challenged one of our group who was just as fascinated by the skirt as I was, to recreate a pattern for it and knit one. 

The Shetland Museum in Lerwick covers a lot more than just textiles of course, but it does have a super display of historical knitting.  I wouldn't go to Lerwick without visiting this museum - it is so well done.  Lots of museums try to find a balance between different age groups who might be visiting, and while I understand the need to appeal to children and school groups, I get a bit tired of displays always needing to be "interactive".  I like rooms to have a theme, with some appropriate information and proper labeling of the artifacts, and I was very impressed with the clean lines and interesting groupings in this museum. (There is a computer where you can design your own fair isle jumper but it's unobtrusive).  Plus there's a lovely cafe and the gift shop is wonderful and well stocked, not only with books, but fabulous postcards and other souvenirs.  

Here is some of what is on display:

This lace is so tiny and delicate you had to look into the magnifying glass to appreciate the pattern.

Colourful fair isle and a gorgeous feather and fan top:

The museum was also very informative in describing the rise and fall of the industry that has evolved around knitwear in Shetland.  I loved seeing historical shade cards and weaving samples.

And I couldn't resist buying this in the gift shop:

We also visited the Heritage Center on the island of  Unst which has a wonderful display of lace knitting.  Photos aren't allowed as some of the shawls and garments are so delicate but you can see some photos on their website here.   I bought the accompanying book as there are several motifs I'd like to try.  As with all the museums, the staff and volunteers were just lovely - so friendly and open to questions, especially from knitters.  They also were happy to have us try our hand at spinning wheels and knitting belts.

Another great place to visit is the Croft House Museum where there are lots of historical knitting tools on display. The brown box hanging from the rafters is called a kist and was used to store clothing, both as a space saver and to keep it off potentially damp, dirt floors. I think there could be a modern use for these to store our stash!

Finally on our last day, we popped into the Scalloway Museum which featured this rather wonderful knitted dress from the 1920s.  The skirt is pleated with a triangular gansey pattern.

I never got tired of seeing examples of the many beautiful and complex knitwear preserved around the islands - it's such a rich and skilled heritage to admire and also inspire.  But we weren't just wallowing in the past; the knitting and textile industry is still alive and well in Shetland and we got to see that in action too.  More on that in the next post.