Stash Anxiety

Sometimes I get anxious about the stash. I know, it's weird. Most of the time I love it and appreciate it and pet it and all is well. But sometimes I get flashes of "I'm never going to to get all of this yarn knit" and I gasp and hyperventalate a little. Sometimes I get a few hives. And my stash (from what I can tell) is really not all that bad compared to some so it's really a strange thing. Anyway, this week I've felt like that a bit so I'm trying to knit my way through it.



The Peaches and Creme yarn is good for this. It knits up pretty fast and each time I make a couple of these dishcloths I'm down 2 balls. I've also decided to use it to start some of the knitting for babies I should be doing.



This doesn't look like much now but it's a baby bib from the Mason Dixon book. Again, fast fast and the lovely garter stitch is easy easy. My easy easy sock is also going along great and has hopefully beat the bad sock karma of last week.



Compared to a patterned sock these are going really fast too. Not bad for the past few weekends we've had. It's just been really busy around here. Saturday we had a wedding in Vermont and then Sunday we drove home and rested, did some stuff around the house. Then yesterday, we had a Memorial Day BBQ to go too. Every weekend has been like that lately. Thankfully next weekend it looks like we're getting a break. So far the social schedule is wide open. Finally! It's still 4 days away and I'm already looking forward to it. I get to catch up on my knitting (maybe knit enough to make the stash anxiety subside a little?) And maybe (finally) get to take photos of the completed red cardigan.

Sock carnage and taking it on the road

Earlier this week I found myself working on a sock, once again praying to not run out of yarn before finishing the 10 rows left I had to go in the toe.


I took the sock with me to work and on my lunch hour officially ran out of the ball of yarn before finishing the sock. I then completely LOST MY MIND!!! Logic went out the window and I got this crazy thought that "I know, I'll just cut off the cast on edge, frog what I need from the top, and then bind of the top edge again." WHAT????


Argh. Well, it worked when I had to shorten my Main Street Pullover but you see, that was stockinette. This is not, this was knit 5 purl 2 ribbing. Which meant tangling. Which meant that idea I had was just dumb. These were supposed to be socks for my dad for Father's Day. The pattern is the Diagonal Cross-Rib socks from the Favorite Socks book from Interweave and it was going just fine. I wasn't loving the yarn which was Fortissima Socka but I'm not sure it was the yarns fault. I had bought it at a LYS where I (along with other people I know) have had problems in the past. Basically, the place is totally unorganized and if you interrupt the help from their constant non-knitting related chattering amongst themselves, well, they kind of treat you like crap. I'm not going back there anymore and that's ok. I wonder if maybe the yarn has some of that bad-shopping experience karma stuck on it and that's the problem? Well, yeah that and of course, I told you about the part where I completely lost my mind.

This sock massacre was a big bummer for me. I really wanted to have socks for my dad for Father's Day because he specifically asked for them for Father's Day. (Even though I keep thinking Dad, it's in June, you're not going to be able to wear them yet anyway!) Between these and the Jaywalkers, I'm kind of sick of frogging and bad knitting luck. Problem is as the weather's been getting better lately, our social schedule has been filling up and sometimes it feels like we spend most of our weekend driving in the car. Which of course requires car knitting. Which is usually socks. Time to take it down a few notches.



Simple, stockinette sock with beautiful variegated yarn. Can't beat it. This is awesome Patonyle yarn from my Punk Knitting Swap pal Suzi. I haven't seen this yarn anywhere here ever, and it says 'Made in Australia' right on it, so I'm not sure I ever will. But I really, really like it. And going back to a simple stockinette sock is just making me feel like a genius. It is flying! And looking great! Who me lose my mind? Run out of yarn? (Oh yeah, note to self-stop making these socks too damn long, you keep running out of yarn) Never! Throw it in my favorite silk Lantern Moon bag, rig up the ipod and don't forget my favorite LED Ear Light so I can even knit in the dark, and I'm ready for the road.

Almost there...

Buttondrawer.com came through with much success! Although I'm still surprised that what you see below is $30 worth, they are all quality items, and I'm sure what doesn't get used this time will definitely be used eventually.


The "Smoked Agoya" buttons are nice, but larger than I wanted for this sweater. I kind of got them just in case I changed my mind. The metal buttons called "Ripple" are really, really cool, but not for this sweater, this time. I'm going to go with the "Gray Seashell" since they're closest to what I had picked originally and are exactly the thing I had in mind.

Mamarama!

Happy Mom's Day all!!! Guess what? I'm not a mom but I did get some good mom-related news today- I'm going to be an aunt again! Yay! My sister told us this morning she is pregnant with their second and she is due in January! They are thrilled. We are thrilled. Everybody's thrilled! So let the baby knitting begin! We also found out recently some good friends of ours are also pregnant and expecting in November, so I guess I better get cracking. Gosh, even though my niece is only 18 months I feel like it's been forever since I knit baby stuff. I feel kind of out of the loop with the baby patterns. Time to do research! And of course the challenge-I don't expect either set of parents to find out the baby's sex in advance, so I'll try to make the items gender neutral. So any suggestions? Anybody knit a baby pattern recently they love? Let me know, I guess I'm just going to have to my more yarn again. Sigh.... :)

Sunny days are here again!

The woolly cable scarf is done. And wonderful. It was fun and I love it. I love the colors, loved the stitches, it knit fast and I'm happy with the finished project. But I do remember knitting on it on a couple of warm days towards the end and it was starting to feel a little sticky. So... onto something a little drier, a little sunnier.


These are the first 2 of what I'm sure will be many Buttonband Dishcloths from the Mason Dixon knitting book. The yarn is the great stuff I ordered from Elmore Pisgah a few weeks ago, and what can I say? The colors are like candy, they just leap right off the needles. The pattern was fast and easy and enjoyable. And something interesting to note-the pattern is exactly the same as the one on the paper band on the Peaches and Creme yarn. While I love the Mason Dixon book and think there's something in it for everyone, it's good to know too-if you don't want to commit to the whole book, just pick up a ball of this yarn and the pattern is right there.