Twenty Percent Less Yarn

      Just checking in to say that my cold sheep resolution this year has resulted in a reduction in my stash of yarn by twenty percent.  If you don't count the two sweaters in progess that have been stalled for years. Which I don't. 

     I am fairly happy with that amount of progress.  

     I am considering rolling the resolution forward into 2022 and trying not to buy any yarn again, with the exception of a couple of sweater quantities. 

Yarn, Organized

      A hat I'd knitted a number of months ago disappeared for a while.  It is a gift for a family member and the person's birthday is approaching, so it was becoming more important to find it.  I even started knitting a contingency hat. 

     I finally found the lost hat, at the bottom of a box of yarn.  Huzzah. 

     While I was rummaging in the yarn box, I pulled all the boxes out and organized all the yarn.  I sorted by weight and then sorted the fingering weight by content, since that's what I have the most of.  Before, the yarn was all just sort of in the order I'd bought stuff.  Organizing it was a task I'd had on my to-do list for a while, so I got the satisfaction of checking it off.

     I mentioned to someone (someone with a fabric stash) that I'd done this task and she asked if I found any yarn I'd forgotten about.  I found just one ball of yarn I'd completely forgotten I had.  Such is the power of having filled out a Ravelry stash inventory.  As a bonus, the yarn was in a colour I'd been thinking of buying.  Electric blue, if you were wondering.  

     I matched up three more patterns with yarn I have and put them in my Ravelry queue.  I think most of the yarn is matched with patterns now.  It's just a matter of getting around to actually knitting it up to reduce the amount on hand. 

What to Make Next

     The green cowl worked out fine. 

     After I finished knitting it, I didn't knit for about a month.  Finally I ripped out the two projects I had languishing on the needles.  They were a hat and a pair of gloves in patterns I'd never done before.  I restarted them with patterns that are old favourites.  

     I withstood the temptation of a rather good yarn sale.  When I say withstood, I mean I didn't buy anything.  But I wasted a bunch of time putting yarn in the online cart, thinking about it, and taking it out.  The waste of time counts as a minor cold sheep resolution failure for me.  One of the points of the resolution was to take the time I would normally spend window shopping, and spend it on making things. 

     I ran across a good piece of advice on Ravelry.  Someone said she wanted to knit a garment but didn't know what to pick.  Someone else advised her to think about how long it had taken her to knit the last garment, then count the same amount forward in time, figure out what the weather will be then, and choose a pattern suitable for that weather. 

     Well!  This advice would have me casting on for a wool sweater tomorrow.

the green scarf didn't work out but the cowl seems okay so far

      I was telling you about how I was adapting a hat pattern and using the chart to knit a scarf.  It didn't work out.  There was an imbalance between the number of knit stitches and purl stitches, and that caused the scarf to curl.  I got a little more than a foot done and then ripped out the stitches.

     I started again with a cowl, knit in the round, using the same chart.  There's no curl this time because the fabric is a tube.  And of course I put ribbing at the edge to prevent curling there.

     I chose a larger needle than the hat pattern calls for, to create a soft and loose fabric that will drape.  I've seen the recommendation for a larger needle for cowls in a couple places.  

    I based the number of stitches on a lace cowl I'd completed recently in the same weight of yarn.  That number turned out to be inadequate.  This cowl was turning out to be much narrower than the other one.  I ripped out my work and cast on again, adding enough stitches for two additional repeats of the motif.  Now everything seems to be in order and it's just a matter of plugging away at the knitting.  

     I was thinking yesterday about the role fear plays in my fiber arts and that of my friends who are kind enough to talk to me about their own progress.  A small problem like this one with the scarf slash cowl doesn't bother me so much.  But I do get hung up on some things.  I tend to get gripped by fear during bigger projects where I really care about the outcome and I'm unsure about my chances of success. 

     Right now fear is making me reluctant to start a fingering-weight sweater for myself for Fall.  Also, I'm not ripping out and redoing a hibernating WIP, one of the two sweaters that have been stalled for years.  

     I read once that when you have projects looming over you that you're procrastinating on and not about to start, you can use the energy from that nervous pressure to get a lot of little stuff done that you mean to do anyway.  Guess that's what I'm doing with the cowl.  

     Hopefully, whatever projects I do, I will use up some stash.  My cold sheep resolution is going alright on the yarn-buying front, I've bought the bare minimum.  I want to use up more yarn by the end of the year, though.   

email subscriptions are ending

      If you have subscribed by email to this blog, The Sojourning Spinner, please know that your subscription is ending.  This is because Google is putting Feedburner on maintenance mode in July. 

     Apologies, but I can't see any way on my end to add this function back.

     You have the option of subscribing through an app that serves up RSS feeds. 

     In other news, I am in the process of adapting a hat pattern that I like.  Not for a modified and improved hat but for a scarf.  A scarf to go with a hat I've already knitted.  

     The adaptation process is a little tricky.  While the hat is knitted in the round, the scarf is knitted flat.  Any knit stitch that is knitted through the back stitch to twist it on the right side (and there are many such stitches) must be turned clockwise and purled on the wrong side.  

     Further adding to the difficulty is the fact that the chart is charted for every row.  In a lot of charts, the even-numbered rows are the same stitch and not even shown on the chart, and are thus rather simple to convert to flat knitting.  Not so with this pattern's chart.  The stitches are worked as they present themselves just as they are in the row below.  Apart from turning the purls.  So, you see a knit stitch below, you knit a stitch.  At first I found it hard to see which was which.  So, I turned to the chart.  You have to read the chart the other way, left to right, on the even rows and do the opposite of the symbol as given.  That was worse and I went back to examining the stitches. 

     Anyway, it is a challenge.  And I consider the effort to be worth it for the end result.  I think that once it is done, the scarf is going to be well received by its recipient. 

A Resolution, In Conflict with A Greater Goal

      In January I resolved to go cold sheep.  That is, I resolved to not buy any yarn or fiber for the year.  The only out would be if I knitted up two-thirds of my stash.  

     This resolution sprang from the realization that I had enough yarn to knit for a year without buying any more.  I felt that if I stopped spending time on yarn selection and pattern selection, then I could apply that time to using the plans and yarn I had already sunk effort into.  Finishing projects, rather than starting.  Doing justice to them. 

     I lasted two weeks.  Then I discovered that the two sweater quantities of yarn I'd bought in December were too itchy.  I exchanged them.  I felt irritated because I hate to go back on a resolution, especially a resolution with cachet like cold sheep.  However, the main goal is to make myself clothing, and new yarn was the path to doing that. 

     I could have frogged two old and stale projects, the partially-knit sweaters, and used that yarn.  I just wasn't ready to do so.  Now I might be ready to tackle one, after I get some gift knitting done.

     It is an odd thing that having unfulfilled plans and unused materials around is unsatisfying yet the process of getting plans and materials is satisfying.  

     The other week I found myself browsing online looking through yarns on sale.  Must have been in need of some retail therapy.  I selected a yarn and a pattern to go with it, both of which would suit a knit-worthy family member.  It made me feel clever, to spot them and make a pairing.  It's the old hunter gatherer instinct, presumably.  Then I asked myself if it would really make me happy to place an order, given that I had enough yarn on hand to make gifts for family this year.  The answer was no.  I emptied my cart and made a note about the pairing in my records to review next year. 

It's Very, Very Pink

     I knitted myself a cardigan.  It's a very intense pink, which makes my inner child very happy.  
     The fit is excellent, due to some modifications I made to the pattern.  The idea for one of the mods came from a video on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Patreon account.  

     The pattern is one that I'd meant to do for a long time ever since I heard podcaster Louise Scollay rave about it.  Am late to the party and all, which is okay.  

     The buttons on the cardigan came from a couple of old linen jackets that I had loved and worn to shreds. 

     It's quite something how for a project you take information from here, inspiration from there, and materials from the past and present.