The Stash!

I have not given up writing!

Okay, got that out of the way.

I work at an LYS (local yarn shop) and occasionally I write something for the blog there. I thought I would share it here. Just for those of you who get high on yarn.

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Let's talk stash. Specifically yarn stash.

Maybe you are one of those ultra disciplined people who only buy enough for one project at a time. You finish that project and then head down to the store to buy just enough for your next project.

I admire you. I used to be like you.

But then for some of us, the collection bug hit. We go into a store and see a yarn we love, we go to a sale, we buy a magazine and find several projects we want to do, and before we know it, we have...

STASH.

We're not talking about a couple of lonely balls of stash, we're talking...

STASH.

I'll bet that no one has as much as this lady.

The World's Biggest Stash?

That's her private stash. Not store stash. She did an interview later.

The World's Biggest Stash Update and Interview

I'm sure you're all feeling better about your stash, unless you want the Guinness World Record.

Although we call it all stash there's different types of yarn stash.

Leftovers: This is the stash that is unavoidable. It's the leftovers from those projects you made. It may be half a skein. Too much to throw out, but not enough to do something with. If you have a skein or more left over you can make a matching hat, or mitts, or a cowl. But it's the bits and pieces that make up this pile. One day, you will make a crazy scarf out of it all, or an afghan. Or something!

Staples: You know that it's designated for socks but you haven't picked out the pattern. You love lace shawls so you collect beautiful lace and fingering yarns, you just need to pick the pattern. You have a ton of dish cloth cotton and you know you'll make those dishcloths one day. Those skeins of yarn are for scarves. These ones over here are your basic worsted weight that you go back to again and again, and that pile over there is your baby yarn because there's always a new baby on the way. You know where it's going, you just haven't decided on the project. But you are ready for the pattern when you find it.

Ingredients: You know specifically what you're doing with this yarn. You have the pattern, you have the needles, you may have even put it in a special spot. You just haven't got around to making it yet. But you will. You will.

Gourmet: You were in a yarn shop and fell in love with an exquisite skein of cashmere and silk that was way too much money but you bought one ball anyway. You went to a sale that was so fantastic that you walked away with an entire bag of gorgeous alpaca. You have five skeins of that really lovely Debbie Bliss but you don't know what to do with it. One day you will find a use for this yarn but right now, it just sits quietly in your yarn pantry waiting for you. It calls out to you sometimes, and you gaze at it, and you may even go looking for a pattern for it, but the perfect pattern hasn't appeared yet.

Expired: And then there's the stash that you just don't know what to do with. Someone handed you their bag of leftovers. Or you thought at one point that the color was nice but now you don't. You bought up the big box store yarn in your early days of knitting but now you don't want to touch it. There's that skein of yarn that was all the rage but now it's dated. And then there's the project of shame. The yarn that you tried out on a pattern but found out you hated it. Either the yarn or the pattern or both. There's really nothing wrong with any of the yarn. It hasn't gone bad. It's just taking up space. But you spent money on it so it's hard to give away. (Hint: You know that worsted weight acrylic that is looking resentfully at you for not using it and you really don't want to - we'll happily take it and donate it to wonderful volunteer knitters who will make blankets for Canada).

And if you give away stash you are perfectly justified to buy new stash!

It's okay. We all do this - well except for those one project at a time people.

One piece of advice. Never show anyone your stash. They will either think you're crazy and want to send you to therapy, or they'll want it. They will bug you about it. They will ask for it. They will pout if you don't share.

I even heard of a woman who would sneak into her mother-in-law's basement where her stash was kept and take what she wanted without asking, because it was in the basement. We do not approve. We think people should have their own stash collections.

Whatever your stash situation, we understand. At the beginning of the year I thought I would go on a yarn diet. No more new yarn until I made a dent in the yarn I already have.

I work in a yarn shop. Do you know how crazy that resolution is? My boss brings in a beautiful line of tonal alpaca and common sense goes the way of the dodo. She has a 50% off sale and the yarn I've been eyeing for months is now in my studio. Kaffe Fassett does a knit along, and I want to knit along. I found a wonderful pattern and none of my yarn works for it.

So it would help if everyone came down to the store and bought yarn so it would quit yelling at me to take it home.

Jane Austen, Knitting, Herstory and Vintage Clothing

Well, obviously, I didn't meet my goal. I fell down for a couple of days and liked it down there so I didn't get back up.

Now that we've got that cleared up.

Are you a Jane Austen fan? What about knitting, do you like to knit? Or perhaps you love early nineteenth century history. I know, it's the vintage clothing that you love.

Well, I made a discovery that I want to share.

That's right, it's a knitting magazine.

But before you even get to the beautiful projects you can read "Tea With Jane", "Women's Work in Jane Austen's Persuasion", "Coverture: When the Covered Woman Wasn't", and the history of "Dorset Buttons".

But it is the projects that are the star. Completely wearable although some do take a certain style to pull off.

My favorites:

These gorgeous Damask Mittens. I don't wear mittens, but I want a pair of these. They look challenging too, and you have to get your gauge right because apparently you can't add or subtract stitches from the project. The design demands that it be exact. The only way you can change sizes is to change needles.

Georgiana Darcy's Fancy Shawl

This picture doesn't do it justice. There are other pictures in the magazine that show it off better. It's a beautiful lace shawl. Lots of lacy pattern with pointed tips.

Again, this picture does not do this Northanger Pelisse justice. The other pictures are much better. I love dusters. I have a couple, but it would be nice to knit one sometime.

These Brighton Mitts are beautiful. They are actually fingerless gloves which are all the rage right now. Although you can't see it in this picture these mitts have a lovely pattern.





And now for the pieces that I love but I don't believe I could get away with wearing...

This is the Oval Pelisse. Lots of lace, lots of circles and you either love it or hate it. It looks like it would be interesting to knit with lots of shaping and fancy stitches. Probably not for the beginner.

A Most Sensible Bonnet

You can get away with this in England. They wear crazy hats there and this one is positively chaste. In Canada you get the choice of a toque, a baseball cap, or a cowboy hat but the latter only during the Calgary Stampede and you have to be in Calgary. Anything else is daring. Make sure when you wear this that you're in an outfit to match, like the above pelisse. Somehow I don't see this working with jeans and a t-shirt.

Regency Riding Hat

Okay, drop the cowboy hat and wear this instead! It's much more elegant and I can see it being worn with just about anything - if you've got the style to pull it off.




Now these are not the only beautiful patterns in the magazine and there were several others that I liked as well. Plus at the end there's an article called "Cents and Sensibility" about putting Jane Austen's face on English 10 pound bank notes in 2017.

I picked this up on the news stand a few months ago, but you can still get copies. Not only that, but there's back issues as well. I thought this one was a stand alone, but nope, they put these out a couple of times a year.

Jane Austen Knitting

So happy knitting and happy reading.

National Hobby Month

Did you know that January is National Hobby Month?

Nope? Neither did I.

I've been a longtime crafter. I learned to knit at five and didn't make anything but a mess, but when I

Mirabilia - The Kiss
One of the many cross stitch projects
I'm working on.

was eighteen I picked up those needles and remembered everything. I was soon knitting and designing my own sweaters. Well, not exactly designing. Taking patterns and changing them so that the end result was unrecognizable and completely mine.

I taught myself to crochet soon after and then I discovered cross stitch.

That was the death knell for knitting and crochet It didn't help that I had a little one who decided to cut holes in a heavily cabled sweater I was making. She survived.

I became very good at cross stitch and was even paid to do it. DON'T DO THIS. There was one piece I did on 40 count over one thread. It was awful and I hated it and in the end all those hours and hours and hours and never ending hours and mind numbing hours of work gave me two hundred bucks.

You can't make money doing cross stitch. You make it by designing patterns or selling supplies. The hours required are too great. And for me it wasn't enough to do simple cross stitch. I had to learn the beading and the specialty stitches and hardanger which is cutting holes in fabric which can lead to hard anger.

Current knitting project.
Mine is in variegated
blues and greens.

This past year I took up knitting and crocheting again. I no longer had little ones to cut holes in sweaters (she cut holes in one of my cross stitch projects too and it wasn't hardanger. Yes, she survived.)

My yarn supply was fed by a part time job at a local craft store. Now just like my cross stitch (about twenty projects on the go) I have several yarn projects. happening.

Yarn takes up way more space than embroidery floss.

Knitting has changed a lot since my early days. Now I have interchangable wooden needles and there's techniques like entralac and new ways to cast on and bind off and knitting entire garments in one piece and top down sweaters and two socks at a time and...

It's a little overwhelming.

I've also just aquired a small table loom. It's so easy I'm told. Just setting it up has taken me days and days and I haven't even started making anything yet.

Included in my to do list - learning to quilt, learning to bead, scrapbooking (okay maybe not) and a desire but no talent to paint like Donna Dewberry.

The nice thing about crafting is that it doesn't require anyone else. It's not like another favorite hobby of mine, acting, that does need other people. In fact other people have to let you into their group and give you something to do. It requires initiations and the willingness to look like a fool in front of strangers and the distinct possibility that you will fall on your face. I love it.

I also have more books than I can read. I have started collecting Christmas movies. I collect favorite TV shows. My children tell me to turn down my music.

Hey, if it wasn't for the loud music I would be the stereotypical grandma. Except I rarely bake cookies and I don't have a rocking chair.

Cross Stitch, Quilting, Knitting, Sewing, Craft, UFO Rotation = Procrastination

I am supposed to be studying for my Art History exam. Instead I'm blogging about something I did last week when I was supposed to be writing essays and my take home exams. Because that's what I do, anything except what I'm supposed to.

See my title. Designed to appeal to the masses. Some of you may ask "what the heck is that?" So for the uninformed let me explain.

Cross Stitch - a needleart that entails putting little x's on fabric to make a picture. You wouldn't think something so basic, so simple, would be so fascinating, but it's like painting with thread.

UFO - this has nothing to do with little green men, ET, being beamed up by Scottie, or a call for medication. It means Unfinished Object.

Rotation - a system for finishing UFO's.

So now we have that clear I have a confession to make. I have 15 of those cross stitch UFO's. What's more, some of them are older than some of my children, and my youngest is 11.

So after doing a google search I've designed a UFO that I think might work. And for those of you with your own stash of UFO's you can give this a try. No, this is not going to solve the world's problems, this is so I don't have to study.

1. Find all your UFO's and works in progress. This might mean looking under the bed, in closets, in your wheat barrels, in abandoned purses and under the kitchen sink.

2. Look them all over. Do you want to finish that cross stitch picture of an all black puppy for great aunt Mabel even though Great Aunt Mabel is gone now and your eyes go buggy with all those shades of black and you never were a dog person? Is that jacket with peacocks all over it and humongous shoulder pads still something you're going to want to wear when you do finish it? How many crocheted washcloths do you still need? Weed out the stuff you don't like anymore. Give it away, throw it away or take it apart and reuse the materials. It's okay. It's no longer worth your time. You are not a failure. Let it go. We all have projects we were initially excited about but grew to dread.

3. Make sure all your projects are in bags with the materials.

4. Make a list of all your projects. Try to organize your list according to what you want (or need) to finish first. If you have an extra big project you might want to put it near the bottom of your list. You'll see why in a minute. Try to vary your list so you don't have the same type of thing all in a row.

5. Here's where the rotation part comes in. The number one item on your list is your focus piece. Work 10 hours on your number one and then work 10 hours on your number 2 piece. Then go back and work another 10 hours on your number one piece, then work 10 hours on your number three piece. Do you see where I'm going on this? Work down your list in 10 hour increments alternating with your focus piece.

6. Eventually you will get the number 1 piece finished (because you are working on it more than on anything else). You might even get another piece on your list finished. That's great. When number one piece is finished then your number two piece is your focus piece and you continue through your rotation alternating with your new focus piece. If you happen to finish one of your other pieces you can then go back to your focus piece for 10 hours and then continue with your rotation.

7. Now here comes the fun part. Once you go through your rotation - you can start something new. What! I know, you're trying to get things finished, not start new things, but lets face it, the reason we have UFO's is because we're starters not finishers and if we can't look forward to starting something new we just might suddenly go crazy and start a whole whack of new things as a form of rebellion. Besides this is supposed to be enjoyable. I bet you have a huge stack of things you've been wanting to start. So, you get to start a new one - but only at the end of your rotation.

8. When you've rotated through everything and added a new project (if you wish), then start over again from the top.

You can see why I suggested that big projects be put at the end of your list. You need to have some finishes and you won't if you get bogged down at the beginning with a big piece. Eventually it will be your focus piece but you'll already have put in a lot of hours on it.

So that's what I did with precious time last week. And now I'm blogging about it when I could blog about all the answers for world peace, saving the planet, and answering the great unanswerable question "Why do people like Charlie Sheen get to make millions doing fun stuff and I (who has never yet served time in prison, an addiction facility, spent time with prostitute) don't?"