KnitVentures: Zombie Knitpocalypse 2016

Hi again all. Of course, as soon as I tell you all that I'll try to be around more I disappear for a few weeks. Rest assured that it was mostly because nothing interesting was happening in the crafting world because it turns out that adding eight stitches every row to a lace shawl eventually means it takes you half an hour to knit a row IF you don't screw it up and have to tink back. Good news is that the knitting is done and the bind off is done and I just have to muster the CAN to do the applied I-cord edging and then I will have another FO. I wouldn't count on that being this Friday, but it might be.

However! I have renewed crafting vigour (mainly for sewing, but also some new yarn colourways are floating through my head so perhaps we'll be seeing some of those soon as well) thanks to a delightful weekend in beautiful Rochester, MN with some lovely and amazing knitters.

This past weekend, Jonas and I found our way to Zombie Knitpocalypse, hosted by the lovely ladies of Stockinette Zombies. It's held only about an hour and a half south of Minneapolis, so it's hugely convenient for us. Last year was my first year attending and I met a lot of great people and learned a lot and knit a lot, so we decided to do it again, this time as a team!

Highlights include:

• Getting an in-person shawl lesson from PrairieGirlDanie (one half of the Prairie Girls Knit and Spin podcast) -- see PrairieGirlSusie's instagram for a cute photo. Jonas agreed that my shawl never looked better on me until I got professional help!
• Dinner and other shenanigans with PrairieGirlSusie and MrsShoo.
• My first ever podcast appearance (more on that once the episode drops)!
• Not spending too much money at the market.
• One Twisted Tree yarn!
• A super helpful class on blocking (if I'm going to keep knitting lace I'm going to need it)
• Great GF/DF/SF local, sustainable food here and here.
• The Dale of Norway store.

Here are my yarn purchases/acquisitions (not pictured is a sweater quantity from One Twisted Tree that I knew I had to have after I saw the mini-skeins of Hinkypunk and Knight Bus Escape next to one another.

​​SM

 

A sweater quantity of Yarn Geek Fibers in the "Sarah Guppy" colourway (part of her Super Geek yarns, which are named for women who made ground-breaking discoveries in the sciences). It's mainly grey with some turquoise and dark blue, and when I saw it swatches up I knew it needed to be a sweater. I chose the Corriedale/nylon fingering base.

​​SM

Two skeins of One Twisted Tree in the Outlander-inspired "Rare Woman Claire" colourway on the Lavish (sport/dk) base to make the Hellebore shawl by PrairieGirlSusie. Because of my purchase limit I had to choose between this or the "Miss Fisher's Pearl Handled Pistol" colourway to make the "Choice Bit of Calico" shawl by Sarah Shoo. As I said to Jonas, doubt not that if I have a purchase left in December, that will be mine. If not then... January 1.

​​

 

In addition, in our retreat bags (which I just realised I didn't take a photo of, but were sewn with fabric created from a photo of the mini-skeins below all knit up), we got a mini-skein set with colours from many of the dyers at the marketplace.

​​SM

 

I also won a mini-skein set by Fishknits.

 I guess it's time to figure out what one does with mini-skeins.

Al in all, a fun weekend. I walked a 5k, I made new friends, I did some crafting, and I was inspired to do a whole lot more! (and I'm using my Instagram more... at least for now. I'm still not sure I have anything relevant to contribute there on a regular basis, but we'll see.)

WIP Wednesday: Big Damn Heroes

As part of both Stash Dash AND trying to use up super old stash, I am apparently continuing to knit scarves/shawls even though I still don't understand how to wear them without looking like something is trying to eat my head. In this case, I did a bit of a stash sort to find which things in my stash had the greatest yardage and then went with what was oldest(ish....I fudged it a little). After trying several patterns that were supposed to use up all 1300yds of this yarn that I have (including crochet lace???), I was forced to abandon in favour of a project that is supposed to use up two of the three skeins and then hopefully I will not be tired of the yarn (or I will and I'll save it for later so I can knit it again, I guess) and knit another thing with the other skein. The kicker is that since this is specifically geek-themed yarn, I wanted to keep the pattern in the same fandom.

 

First, photos.

So, I get that it's nearly impossible to see unblocked lace knitting on a circular needle even with the zoom in on the pattern, but hopefully you can get some idea. Essentially this will end up being a poncho/coverup thing (which, again, I don't usually wear, but I am determined to make the styling on this one work without me looking clownish... I'll keep you posted on that.)

Yarn is one of the Nerd Alert yarns that my lys carries. This one is Wild Hare Fibre Studio Pinnacle Sock in the "Browncoat" colourway (SW merino/nylon). Sort of a story about how this yarn and I came to be together... A long time ago (3 years, maybe 4) I was working on my still in progress epic novel series that will perhaps be finished someday if I can figure out how to balance my hobbies now that I have reclaimed my free time. As motivation, I set myself reward levels for hitting word counts. At 50,000 (I.e. "winning" NaNoWriMo) Jonas promised to buy me this yarn. And somehow I ended up with three skeins because at the time I didn't know how to knit socks. Fast forward to now and I have learned that I don't really like highly variegated yarn in straight up sweaters because I don't like pooling or striping, so I had to find an appropriately named/themed pattern to keep it in the fandom (Firefly, for those who don't know the reference).

Enter the pattern:

Big Damn Heroes by Kimberly Golynskiy

 

For those not in the know, "Big Damn Heroes" is a line from the show (which one of the browncoat characters says to another), so it's basically a perfect fandom match. We'll see if it's a perfect garment or not. The rows are getting REALLY long and even though I have the pattern memorised, I can't seem to get through a lace row without having to tink and fix, so it may be done soon or it may take another lifetime. We shall see.

(Another) Triumphant Return

Hi again! It's been a while, I know, and I'm sad to say that although I took a pretty awesome trip just a few short days after the last time I posted that I want to tell you about, I think I'm going to push it to next week in the interest of getting the photos a bit more in order and once again trying to regroup my thoughts. So I guess for now I'll just check in quickly and re-establish a bit now that I'm officially done with classes. I know I always make promises about posting and then life gets in the way, and I'm not going to promise it won't this time, but I will say that I'm going to give it my best effort to maintain a regular MWF(ish) posting schedule. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into my crafting in earnest and the content will be there and I'll have something more interesting to show you than just the same thing week after week.

For now I'll pretty much leave it at that. I'm (pseudo???) participating in Stash Dash, so hopefully some big projects are in the works (and hopefully I can complete them.) I'll be heading to a knitting retreat in June, so look forward to hearing how hard I fall off the no purchases train at that point (we're almost at the end of May and I've made 4 purchases so far this year! Only one of them was yarn!). Jonas is building me yarn shelves (and he's basically unskilled labour, so that should be an adventure). Plus, you know, all the usual shenanigans. So here's hoping we'll be seeing more of one another (and there will be new shop content!) in the next few months.

Thanks to any of you who are still bothering to read this after a 3 month hiatus. I promise to do better this time!

Sari

WIP Wednesday: Knitting Polygamy

You read that right, everyone...I have more than one thing in progress! It doesn't happen that often (and honestly I wish it weren't happening right now), so you might want to take a moment to commemorate this day with me. I want to tell you that I hope I won't still have two things in progress next week, but unless something changes with my schedule and I get an unexpected run on knitting time, I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing these both again next week. That's the problem with knitting two things at once...it takes so much longer to finish anything.

Okay. So. First up is the Queen of the Waves shawl I had started two weeks ago out of some Kauni I had. I took photos last week with the intention of updating you on where things stood, but school/work won out and the post never got written. As of now I'm probably slightly less than a quarter of the way into ball 2 (finished ball 1 last Thursday) and am in the part of the shawl that is mostly garter stitch with only a few pattern rows, so hopefully that plus the rapid decreasing will help it go faster than it looks like it's going to go on paper when you think to yourself that you have more than 100 rows to go and you've only completed 70 rows in two weeks WITHOUT working on a second project. (Trying to get these both done by the end of February. I might be killing my chances of even finishing one by undertaking both. The tragic irony of me trying to become a polygamous knitter when faced with deadlines. It's the real reason I only knit one thing at a time.)

Here's where the shawl was last week (for reference and since I have the photos):

​​SML

 

And here's where it is this week:

​​SML

 

So, yeah. Some progress, but not a lot considering how far I managed to get between week 1 and week 2. The Kauni is really growing on me (I thought it might be slightly too scratchy, but it's not at all). It does have a lot of random veg matter in it though, so if that's a thing that bothers you, steer clear. I'm a bit surprised at the way the colours are striping in it since I honestly thought this was going to be a true gradient from dark to light. It's a bit of a pleasant surprise.

Before I leave this WIP, here's a closeup of the pattern stitches so you can perhaps get a better idea of what's going on with it. It's slightly bothersome to actually create because you have uneven stitch counts and lots of yarnovers that you need to drop which get hung up on the needles, but really it's only a few rows and it's not that bad. The pattern is easy to memorize/follow. I keep ending up with the wrong stitch counts, but it's a shawl so I'm rolling with it.

​​SML

 

Okay. Wow. Posts get long when you haven't updated for two weeks AND you have a second WIP. Yikes. I'll try to make this quick.

Also for the Knerd Girl Knits 2016 Bad-ass Women Craft Along round 1, one of the challenges is to knit from an historic knitting pattern. I desperately tried to find something that would be roughly the era of Outlander so I could double-dip into the Subway Knits Outlander KAL, but the earliest patterns I could find were Victorian era. One of the sites we were directed to was the Knitting Reference Library at University of Southampton, and I have a soft spot for Southampton, so I basically didn't consider looking anywhere else once I couldn't find pre-Victorian patterns. So, after going through a lot of books of doilies and all manner of impractical things I had no desire to knit, I came across "Weldon's Practical Needlework" which has patterns for all sort of things, but most specifically for my needs, a pattern for fold-over "Club Stockings" with a Union Jack, which basically means a regular sock with a fold-over section that has a Union Jack intarsia on it. And if you've been around the blog for a while you know how I can't resist putting a good logo on something.

Problem was, I didn't have the yarn I needed. I could have produced all the colours I needed (save white) in Knit Picks Palette, which does very well with colourwork, but because it's for socks, it needs to have nylon in it, which Palette does not. I had the grey and the red in Imagination, but not white or blue. And since I'm on a limited purchases plan, I was a bit stuck as to what I should do. And then it came to me. I pulled three balls of the heavier weight superwash wool sock yarn from my undyed yarn stash (yeah, I'm using business yarn for personal purposes. People do that all the time and it's not like anyone was buying it in a hurry lately) and dyed some up. 2 balls grey (which has now become the Lonely Mountain colourway thanks to fortuitous circumstances) and one ball half blue, a quarter red, and a quarter undyed. I was trying to estimate based on weights needed in the pattern, but the pattern is truly for knee-highs for men, so the stitch counts are very different than mine. I'll probaby have yarn left over, but there was no real sense in not just using the full skein.

So here's where it is now:

​​SLXL

(and here is the intarsia disaster mess I need to weave in at some point but have been putting off):

​​SLX

 

The knitting is going fast, but I'm still skeptical that I'll be able to finish this sock and knit another sock by the end of February, even if it were the only thing I was working on. Also I pulled the floats too tight so it's puckering weird in the straight red column. It looks a bit too "homemade" for me. Odds are good I'll end up redoing this or doing it in a different way. But I do love the idea of the foldover sock! I think I'll make them for all my footy clubs someday.

So that brings us to the end of this very long post. I can almost guarantee you that I won't have a finished object for FO Friday, so I will hopefully see you back here next Wednesday with progress updates.

FO "Friday": It's Bigger Than I Am

First things first, I'm aware it's not Friday. I meant to do this yesterday, but I have a 20-point 3-page paper due tomorrow and a 30-point 2-page paper due Monday so priorities sort of necessitated a re-sort. I'm actually only posting now because I've turned in the former paper and I thought I owed myself 30 minutes of not doing schoolwork for a change. Plus I'm super happy with my FO and needed to tell everyone about it.

Second. It's true. This thing is bigger than me. Granted, I'm not that big, but still. I knit a thing for myself to wear that is both longer and wider than my actual self. Yikes.

​SLXL

See. Bigger than I am. It's 90" long by 20" wide. I am probably 20-ish" wide at the widest point and 63" long.

For those who haven't been following along, this item is the Cocoon wrap by Anne Kuo Lukito. I knit it out of local Minnesota yarn that I'm very sure is not being made/sold anymore by a company called After the Sheep. It's 100% sport weight alpaca and it's soft and warm and cuddly as a wrap (it was formerly all these things as a sweater, but it's much happier being a wrap). Even though it wasn't cold in my house in the least after I finished weaving in the ends, I wrapped it around myself and then promptly declared I was never going to come out of it. Cocoon indeed.

Here are some photos of it so you can (hopefully) get a better idea of the stitch pattern. Sorry there aren't any photos of me wearing it, but by the time we got this all done it was dark outside and the inside lighting was horrible. I could model it now in the few hours of daylight we get up here during deep winter in the frozen north, but I'm not in the least presentable right now. I'll try to get a few on my project page and/or twitter and instagram in the next few weeks.

It's done and it's warm and it's snuggly and it's pretty and the lace blocked out wonderfully. Now if only I'd finished this while it was -10000 outside and not a perfectly reasonable 30F.

WIP Wednesday: Apparently 2016 is the year of the blue shawl/wrap

A few months ago (okay, so sometime this summer I started thinking about it, but it wasn't until fall that I started seriously thinking about it) I started thinking I should consider knitting a shawl. I'm still not sure what made me change my mind about not being a shawl knitter. I've gone to several classes about how to style shawls now and I'm still pretty convinced I'm going to look ridiculous, but I guess whatever. I didn't actually think the shawl thing would go anywhere (truthfully I still don't) since I don't even really wear the ready-made scarves/cowls that I've got (aside from winter stuff, though in the true cold I'm still finding myself reaching for a scarf), but many of my classmates in my graduate program would wrap themselves in huge (almost blanket-sized) wraps to keep warm in the overly air-conditioned buildings and I guess I got a little envy. And then I had 1200 yards of sport weight alpaca that had tried and failed at being a sweater, so the ginormous lace/drop-stitch wrap was born. 

And now...a true shawl.

I'd like to say that this came about because I was looking for something to do with the two skeins of blue (gradient) Kauni I bought at Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival back in 2014, but really it came about because I was trying to find a pattern I could knit that was even marginally inspired by a "woman in history" for the Knerd Girl Knits 2016 Badass Women Craft Along and I ran into a Faroese shawl pattern called Queen of the Waves which then made me think about the north coast of Denmark which then made me think about Kauni (which, truth be told., I did hope to use up this year). And the rest is history. Or will be, as soon as it's something besides 5 rows of 380 stitches of garter stitch.

​​SMLXL

 

I have until the end of February to finish this. Others have knit it in a month. Those others were probably not simultaneously working 60% time while in 10 credits of graduate school on the internet and trying to also finish socks from a vintage knitting pattern that they still haven't dyed all the yarn for. No one ever said I didn't do things big.

Wish me luck.

FO Friday: It's Still Not the Thing I Wanted to Have Done

Hi all,

The blue wrap is still not done, but I have good faith that you will not see it again here until it's done. I have finished tinking back all the extra pattern repeats I wrote and hope to start the final edging piece tonight. It should be done soon. Then it has to block, which as I mentioned before has its own set of challenges.

So what is done? A project bag. It doesn't seem like much, and it isn't really, especially when you consider that I did all the cutting, sewing, and putting a drawstring in it last Wednesday and all I had to do was put on a snap and take photos, but it's what I've got. It's my first non-fandom-specific project bag, but it's out of some pretty geeky fabric anyway (which a friend made me a skirt out of!). I made this with the intention of it being the bag I offered up for the Prairie Girls Knit and Spin Legendprairie 2016 contest, and perhaps it will be, but I'm thinking I'll let the recipient choose their own bag at this point. Still, contest drawings were released today so I figured I'd better have something to show for it. It's now available in the shop if anyone loves it enough to buy it.

 

Also done (and really it was supposed to just be a thing I did for me because I needed it to knit socks for the KGK CAL), is a new yarn colourway. I needed a basic grey yarn to knit the body of socks (more explanation on that later), so I pulled a few skeins and dropped them in a dyepot with grey dye, not really intending anything to come of it. And then when I was skeining it yesterday I realised it was basically amazing and I immediately listed it in the shop. It's called "Lonely Mountain" after the dwarven home of Erebor in The Hobbit because the kettle-dyed grey reminded me of all the establishing shots of a lone mountain in the distance that you see in all the Hobbit films. It's not flashy or anything, but if you want a good grey yarn I think this colour is pretty fantastic.

 

Knitting Tools: Yarn Bowl

Although I know a lot of people really love yarn bowls and they're a popular thing to buy from artisans at yarn shows and on Etsy, I never particularly thought I had a utilitarian need for one. To be honest, I still don't. I mean, I'm using one right now and it's handy, but it's not like five minutes in I came to the revelation that this is the tool that's been missing from my life or anything. For one thing, my ball winder winds centre-pull balls, so generally speaking my yarn is able to remain relatively stationary. For another thing, as the only time I really ever think I might need something to keep my yarn ball stationary is when I'm out somewhere that's not my house and the yarn ball is rolling all over the floor, I don't particularly enjoy that yarn balls aren't really portable. So I'd have to use it at home on my couch. Where I mostly don't care if my yarn happens to travel about the room as I'm knitting anyway.

That said (and as you likely inferred from above) I now own a yarn bowl. A rather nice one at that. We had our holiday gift exchange with my inlaws last night and my father-in-law is a knitter who takes great pride in his LYS. Back in May, during the Minnesota Yarn Shop Hop, I made a point of meeting him there so he could show me around, and my mother-in-law tagged along as well. While we were there, MiL was looking at the yarn bowls, I recall, and she asked Jonas whether a yarn bowl was a thing I would use. I'm guessing he gave his usual non-committal answer, since I'm very convinced he didn't know the answer to that question as I've literally never mentioned a yarn bowl to him ever. Regardless...in my gifts yesterday was a wooden yarn bowl (it seems large to me, but I honestly don't know what sizes yarn bowls come in as I've never shopped for one). It's made for the shop by a (local?) artisan and it is rather pretty. I enjoy looking at it and I suppose it will look nice on an end table or the coffee table when it's not in use. And who knows, maybe after a few more weeks and a few poorly-wound balls of yarn I'll find out it's a tool that's been missing from my life all along. For now, I'm using it (I happened to have a ball I couldn't find the centre end of and am pulling from the outside, although it stays contained in its project bag, so it wasn't getting particularly adventurous or anything) and it's certainly nice to look at and a very nice thought.

WIP Wednesday: Giant Blue Wrap of Fuzziness

Hi again all! I know I haven't been around to show you what I'm actually crafting for a while (it's like I just nebulously mention the fact that I'm a crafter and then never offer up any proof), and truthfully although my brain desires me to continue updating you on my knitting, my time management often thwarts my best intentions. Moreso these days when things like school are looming over me ready to begin again. Where did my break go? (That's right...holidays with my family, re-re-locating back to Minneapolis, and mass chaos as I overhaul an apartment that now has WAY too much stuff in it, not just a standard amount of too much stuff.)

On to crafting. I intend to do a bit of a project bags FO parade for you at some point (though I do have a knitting FO for you this week), but for the WIP section you get...the first ever shawl/stole/wrap thing I've ever thought it might be a good idea to knit.

I took a breakout session class at Zombie Knitpocalypse 2015 last summer about shawl styling. I've never knit shawls, almost entirely because I don't actually know what I would do with one. I feel like I always look awkward with them and I don't even really wear the cowl/infinity loop neck decoration wraps that all the kids these days seem to be so into (although I now own two of them and on the occasions that I think about wearing them, I do enjoy them). But! In classes this summer (when the AC was on way too high, thank you School of Business) one of my classmates had this enormous rectangular scarf that she'd bought in France. It seemed to double as a blanket and a bit of a miniature cape thing. I mean, it was huge.

Fastforward to December. As I was contemplating my stash goals for 2016 and deciding to use the oldest yarns first, I saw that there was the remnant ball of sport weight blue alpaca that I'd once made into one of my long list of ill-fitting sweaters earlier on in my knitting career. The yarn wouldn't get gauge so I tried to do math (this is guaranteed to make things go wrong), plus it had a stitch pattern that pulled differently, plus the pattern was written for wool and this was all alpaca and the drape was wrong, etc. etc. etc. Add to it that at the time I had NO IDEA that alpaca was so much warmer than wool, so despite it's somewhat open weave and it being sport weight I was basically guaranteed to start sweating the second I put that sweater on indoors. So I did what any self-respecting knitter who had made a poor choice in yarn/project matching years ago when they didn't know better would do and I ripped it out.

I briefly considered just putting the yarn in the destash bin, but it's so soft and blue and was spun and dyed by a local artist who I don't think is selling anymore and it was some of the first nice yarn I got. So instead, I dove into Ravelry determined to find something to do with 1200 yards of sport weight handspun alpaca.

I knew I didn't want another sweater, or, at least, I was only going to make another sweater that was specifically designed for alpaca yarn and was really truly going to complement the unique qualities of this yarn (and also use it all because I dislike having remnant balls more than I dislike many things). I didn't find anything, so I was on to shawls. That's right. Non-shawl knitter (dare I say anti-shawl-knitter) me was thinking that a shawl would be perfect for this yarn. Now. The thing is. It's cold in Minnesota. And being able to wrap a thing around my face/neck/head under my coat is truly a thing of bliss. That object being made from alpaca...had to be even better.

I tested out a few ideas (the one I really wanted was only available if you bought a full book of patterns and I wasn't THAT ready to commit to shawl knitting) and finally settled on a long rectangular lace wrap (it's not a shawl...it's a scarf!!!) that utilises a lace border and drop stitches to make an open design. It's called Cocoon and is a free pattern by Anne Kuo Lukito. The directions are slightly confusing, as you actually cast on provisionally in the middle and knit one way, then pick up and knit the other way and the directions don't really say that. Also, it's all charted, which is okay for me but I know may not be okay for some. Still, it's easy to follow and I really don't think it NEEDS to be knit centre out and then centre out if you don't want to. I've only done a little over half of the main body (less the edging) mostly because I'm using reclaimed yarn so I don't actually know what half my yarn is, so I'm trying to play a yarn balance game. It's giant, so I imagine you'll be seeing it again at least next week if not also the week after, but here it is as of now:

​​SML

 

And here's a sort of a closeup of the pattern detail. It's unblocked lace, so it still looks terrible, but hopefully you can get some idea.

Stash Confessional: Yarn Accountability 2016

Well...for those of you who were following along in 2015, you'll probably know that I failed pretty miserably at the lofty yarn stashing goals I set for myself. And then I just plain stopped keeping track. Much of the purchasing was enabled by Jonas, make no mistake, and I did give away somewhat ridiculous amounts of yarn to various charity groups, so I don't feel entirely bad about myself, but as I'm still a person with limited space and even more limited funding, I've put my foot down about purchasing (not just yarn...everything) in 2016. Between this and setting my goals a bit lower, hopefully 2017 will start with a more happy celebration of my 2016 successes instead of me still feeling like I own way more of everything than I really ought. Don't get me wrong, there's NO WAY AT ALL that I'm getting my stash down to even what I'd consider a reasonable size with just the amount of knitting/gifting I'm able to accomplish in one year, but I want to at least look back at 2016 and see that I didn't take in more than I removed.

I started 2015 with 55,081.4 yards/50308.7 metres of yarn. My goal was to end the year with 25308.7 metres of yarn, which I knew was basically ridiculous, but I also knew I needed to set the bar high if I was going to make it mean anything to myself. I did well the first month and actually donated around 4000 metres of yarn to the charity group at Yarn Harbour in Duluth, but things fell off pretty sharply after that. I did have another round of donating yarn in October when the lovely ladies of the KnerdGirl Knits Podcast were doing a charity drive as part of their year-long Bad Ass Women in STEM Craft Along (they're doing women in arts and humanities this year if you want in on the action. It's really low-key and super fun and features great prizes--some of them by yours truly.) So...how did I do? Well...

Here's where we're starting 2016 in terms of yarn stash. I think I got everything that I bought in 2015 and had not bothered to stash for one reason or another, but I fear I may still be missing some things. If that's the case I will, of course, update accordingly. There are still two Gilmore Girls yarn club skeins outstanding, so those will need to be added, but I don't remember what bases I ordered yet.

Here's where I'm starting the year in terms of yarn stash (yes...it's more than I started with last year despite knitting 11,461 yards into projects (granted a chunk of that was a REALLY LONG Doctor Who scarf), and donating/destashing around 19,000 yards:

Skeins of yarn: 230.67

Yards of yarn:  59,459.6

Metres of yarn: 54,369.6

Grams of yarn: 19, 054

This means my yarn acquisition in 2016 was around 26,000 yards. Which was basically the amount I wanted to get rid of. Yep.

With this year's resolutions being all about not acquiring things, I'm hoping I can make a significant dent. I did well last year with donating yarn, but this year the sale/trade yarn has been pretty pared down (because of all last year's donations), so even if I sold/donated all the things I'm willing to part with, I would only decrease the stash by 69.35 skeins/14,200.8 yards/12985.3 meters/4004 grams (roughly 20% of the total), which is an okay number, but not staggering.

Admittedly, my goal is to knit through all the yarn in my stash that's been there since pre-2014, which isn't really that much yarn if you only count the things that aren't in my trade/sell bin (around 6000 yards/5500 meters). Considering even in my light year of knitting this year due to school I managed 11,000 yds, I feel like this is an obtainable goal. If I also include the trade/sell bin (either by donating--although this is all stuff I like and would be willing to knit, so I'd rather either knit it or sell it--or by knitting it or destashing it) I would have to get rid of a further 8000 yards/7400 meters for a total of 14,000 yards/13,000 meters of destashing in 2016. I fully believe I can make it happen...tge trick will be trying to make sure that preference is given to the older yarns. I'm not going to completely adhere myself to that (if newer yarns need to be knit for a specific reason then why prohibit it?), but I'm going to try to look to those older yarns as I plan out projects and have leeway.

But! Most of all...I need to minimise yarn buying. As I've given myself a total of 12 purchases (of anything deemed non-essential/gift for others by Jonas, who has been appointed acquisitions commissioner) with Jonas setting the total dollar value allotted to each purchase, I think I can curb this stash before it REALLY gets too big for its space. Wish me luck though...Jonas is weak under pressure, now also has a yarn-buying habit, and is a horrible enabler if I use the word cute when talking about how much I like it.

New Website Y'all!

Hi all,

Fall semester has wrapped so I have a few weeks of time to check back in with you again. Lots has happened over the past months, but I won't take the time to recap them here. If you want to check my Ravelry projects to see what I've been up to, that's cool. If not, also cool.

For now, a quick check in to tell you the exciting news that over the last month I've put in some quality work in what little bits of spare time I could grab creating a new website. It combines the hand-dyed yarns and project bags from my two Etsy sites (girlwhocrafted and 223people) with (eventually) the posts you all see here on my blog. In the future it may also do other things, I have no idea. It was super easy to set up (unsolicited plug for Wix.com) and will hopefully allow me to better manage everything in one space and not pay fees to Etsy for listing and selling items.

For now, the blog posts will also remain on blogger and on Tumblr (until I can figure out a good way to re-direct to the new blog, which likely won't happen until I've got more time) and the two Etsy sites will also remain open for a while as I figure out a way to drive traffic to the new websites. For anyone following me on Twitter, links to new listings will all take you to the new website.

If any of you find any issues with any aspect of the site, please send me a message (there's a contact form on the site, or feel free to leave a comment here) and let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix it.

I'm going to try to resume my 3-days-a-week posting schedule for at least the month I have off school (no promises beyond then, although I'd like to keep it up). There's still crafting going on (LOTS  of project bags!) and I have all sorts of ambitions for the new year. Let's hope these ambitions go better than the last (more on that next week!)

Thanks for those of you who stuck with me through my hiatus and sporadic posting schedule. For those of you just finding the blog, I have ambitions to update regularly, but I'm currently working half-time while getting a masters degree while running a crafting business, so blogging is often the first thing to get pushed to the wayside. At any rate, thanks for being here.