May 2015 – Knitting Up North

More of a Stash Stroll than a Dash

I’m not fast enough to qualify for a dash. I’ll give you the two minute update of what I’ve been working on:

I am about 6 buttons away from finishing the Hygge Baby sweater. That’s the one I’m making out of Lettuce green Malabrigo Rios. It’s under 400 yds of knitting, so I’m certainly not going to win anything with just this. However, every yard counts so I’m just plugging away at it. Plus, babies have a habit of continuing to grow regardless of the knitter’s schedule. So it must get done and mailed off to the new little one.

I’m also working on the 1st arm (pictured above) of the Hitch Pullover. I forgot how much fun cables can be!

We can’t forget the few rows I’ve put on the 2nd Zick Zack scarf.

Well Begun is Half Done

Mary Poppins: Our first game is called Well Begun is Half-Done.

Michael: I don’t like the sound of that.

Mary Poppins: Otherwise titled Let’s Tidy up the Nursery.

Michael: [to Jane] I told you she was tricky.

Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have liked that game as a child either. However I do buy into the well begun theory when it comes to work and conquoring challenges. I did tell you we were going to win Stash Dash, right? Don’t tell me there is no winning something that is a personal challenge against myself. I’m determined to win. I will win. I will conquor the stash. (Ask me some time about the guy who last said something could not be done. Mwah ha ha!)

So back to the well begun theory. The idea of Stash Dash as I understand it is to complete all those half done projects and knit some of the pretty yarn that you’ve been saving for…. well whatever it is that you’re saving it for. You can start new projects out of stash yarn if you’d like. But that’s where the well begun comes in. Because if you want to win (I do) and you want to knit a crazy amount of yarn (I do) then it makes sense that you would start with a half done project, right? I think Mary Poppins would think this makes excellent sense.

So here’s the plan as I see it. You can follow along with pictures waaaay down on the right hand side as ~~all~~ most of these are in my Ravelry Project Pages.

Lettuce Pullover – 1880 yds

Haruni Shawl – 440 yds

Solaris Cardigan – 1560 yds

Hitch Pullover – 1120 yds

Wabi-sabi – 924 yds

Zephyr Cardigan – 1200 yds

Remnant Love – 850 yds

Marin – 385 yds

2nd Zick Zack – 831 yds

The grand total yardage = 9190 yds.

Now I don’t think I can stretch to make a 10K, which would be 10,936 yds, so I’m going for a 5K. That’s 5,468 yds of knitting. Which means I would need to do the top 4 projects plus 1 more. Once a project is finished, then all of the yardage in it counts. If you spin the yarn, it counts. If you spin the yarn, then knit a project with it, it counts twice. Unfortunately this won’t work for me as I haven’t been spinning. But for some of you it might work.

Stash Dash begins on May 22. On your mark…… get set…….

What I’ve Been Knitting:

I’ve made some serious headway on the Hitch pullover. I have finished the front and back and have started one sleeve. The cables on the sleeve are slow going because I’m working off a pattern on my iPad. The iPad gets used for more than just knitting (go figure) so it limits my time.

In other knitting news, I finished my Zick Zack!

That little tiny ball of yarn is all that I had left when I finished. It was a bit of a game of yarn chicken to see if I could cast off with the remaining yarn.

I’m pretty thrilled with the way it turned out. Thrilled enough that I started a second one out of JoJoland Melody and Noro Taiyo Sock Yarn. This one has slower color repeats and is more harmonious in color – It will look like a completely different scarf!

Stash Enhancement

2015-04-25 16.36.38 — Mini Skeins for a Shawlette

Shhhh…. don’t tell my husband.

I might have done a little stash enhancement this weekend. You see, I was surrounded by beautiful yarn at Yarnover. It practically sat up and begged me to take it all home. I found some beautiful skeins from Knitting My Way Home. I also watched a gorgeous skein and some mini skeins go home with the woman who got there right before me. Ah well…. you snooze, you lose in the world of buying handspun yarn. I made up for it in other ways though. I also picked up two kits with mini skeins. One for a shawlette and one for a chevron cowl. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the mini skeins!

I went to Yarnover to take a Franklin Habit class. The class was about learning to use the Schact Zoom Loom and sewing up the woven squares into a stole and knitting a lace edging. John Mullarkey taught the morning portion which was all about the loom. He was a very entertaining teacher and I would definitely take a class from him again. He was patient with us as we learned to warp our tiny little looms. Taking the itty bity little woven squares off the loom was very satisfying!

The afternoon was the class with Franklin Habit. Now this was the 2nd class I haven taken with Franklin, so I wasn’t surprised that he was much more quiet spoken than his blog might lead you to believe. Delores even left us a little note! Franklin’s teaching style is very structured – he leads you all the way through something before having you try it yourself. What I appreciated most was his willingness to give me the next steps to move forward as he helped those who maybe weren’t moving as quickly. I don’t think anyone felt rushed or held back by the group.

And he was very gracious about posing for a picture with me. I promise I didn’t go all fan girly on him.

Loose Ends:

The Knit Girllls released more information about Stash Dash here. It runs from May 22-Aug 14. You can choose from knitting a 3K, a 5K or a 10K’s worth of yarn from stash. UFO’s count, so go ahead and use this as a reason to finish a lot of those half done projects you’ve got hanging around. (please don’t tell me I’m the only one) I’ve also heard that as long as it’s in your stash, the yarn counts. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been marinating in there.

I have enough started projects that I could almost do a 10K (10,936 yds of yarn). However, I’m not really sure that’s realistic for me. At least not without telling The Boss I am going on a 3 month vacation and hiring Merry Maids to vacuum under my feet as I knit and eat bon bons on the couch. So I’m going to shoot for a 5K. I’ll share my plan for how I’m going to cross the finish line next week.

Our training starts today! Leave me a comment if you’re joining me on this trip to Crazy Town.