Bash the Stash!

I was playing around on Ravelry, and clicked on the button to download my stash details into Excel. Eep!

I have 15.8 miles of yarn waiting to be transformed into something useful. That’s 25.4 km for you modern types. Of this, 8.5 miles (13.7 km) is sock yarn.

Bear in mind that I got tired of entering my yarns, so these totals don’t include the stash in my desk, under my desk, or in the filing cabinet. I’d kind of forgotten about the latter….

So, without further ado, I’m putting myself on a yarn diet, and I’m counting the days since my last purchase (2 skeins of Cascade 220), which I believe I forgot to mention here. My last efforts ended in failure — as did the parallel food diet — but this time it’s different. Ahem… spoken like a true junkie!

I will say up front that I intend to make one or two purchases when I go to Calgary next month, and I will not be counting this as breaking the diet. It will definitely be my last trip there for some considerable time, and there are a couple of sock yarns I’d really like to try that just aren’t available in my city; not to mention I need more ShibuiKnits Sock! Lovely stuff! But, I will set myself a strict budget, and take only cash along with me. All credit cards will be left behind.

If you’re on Ravelry, and haven’t already used this spreadsheet feature, I dare you to! I’ve been spying on a few you already, and can report that my wee stash is nothing compared with *******’s [name witheld ] who is currently flashing 72.9 miles (117.3 km) on her yarn page!

Here’s the state of play with the WIPs are right now:

• I have the foot to complete on the second of hubby’s Whitby socks;
• I’m about halfway through the Lopi bag;
• Creatures of the Reef hasn’t been touched for quite some time;
• FIL’s first gigantosock is three-quarters of the way down the leg; and
• We don’t talk about the crocheted sampler blanket….

WIPs

I’m so not enjoying FIL’s socks. There I was thinking they’d be a breeze, what with the knitting being plain stocking stitch and all, but the yarn, Country Classic Yarn for Sox, is really tough on my fingers. I specifically chose it because these socks are going to get some heavy wear, and I struggled to find a thicker weight wool with a good nylon content. Well, you know how estate agents use terms like “cosy and compact” to describe homes the size of a shoe box? I’m starting to think that yarn companies do something similar. The word “country” actually means “includes half the farmyard”. I’m constantly picking out bits of straw.

Added to that, magic loop is really not the technique to use for this project. I’m having to be really careful at the needle junctions to stop myself from tightening the stitches too much. Using thicker yarn makes it all too easy to to get the opposite effect of laddering by snugging up the yarn too close to the cable. I’m debating changing to 5 DPNs to see if it makes it any better, but the only ones I have in the right size are wooden, and might be a bit too clingy for the yarn. Even with the slick metal I’m currently using, the stitches don’t exactly slide along very easily.

On the plus side though, I think the leg-shaping is working out. I’ll know better when I get further along.