Stash Busting Fail?

Last year I promised to attack my growing mountain of yarn with zeal hoping to reduce it to a few odds and sods. To reduce, reuse and recycle as the creed goes. Alas, I failed and I know why. When you are in a creative pursuit you need to avail yourself of resources which inspire you and poring over yarns I had already used for other purposes was completely uninspiring and unmotivating.

Here's a catalogue however of my knitted achievements for 2014.

1 x Mug Hug. 

I have a lovely friend called Mrs. D who sent me a gorgeous Christmas decoration for our tree in 2013 and as it coincided with the year I was hosting Christmas with my family I wasn't able to knit her a decoration in reply. So I thought she'd like a Mug Hug which I knitted in Navy and Red from existing supplies. Tick for reuse. Alas I forgot to take a photo of it. If you are a member of Ravelry, the pattern is available here.

1 x KOGO beanie.

KOGO is a knitting charity which stands for Knit One Give One. It is also plays on the knitter's parlance of Knit One (K1) Purl One (P1), pattern terminology. The idea is that they will provide free and easy patterns on their website which you can use and then hopefully knit something for yourself and then something for their charity.

I have rarely knitted something for myself. I usually have someone else in mind as it pushes me along with mental deadline to deliver it to the person. New babies, Mothers' Day, friends birthdays. Most of the time it is babies, lots and lots of babies and my own babies alas, reaching the age soon where they will start rejecting my knits as daggy.

Anyway, I knit(ted) this very easy 8 ply beanie for Mum's birthday a couple of years ago

and then finally, with a bit of leftover 10 ply acrylic black I knitted this beanie from the ribbed 8ply beanie pattern on their website to give to the charity. Here is my son Jared modelling it.

Another tick for reuse as the Black Acrylic was originally bought to do the mane for the Connemara Pony I knitted for a friend a couple of years ago. I decided this was the best yarn for the job as KOGO recommend choosing conservative colours (having seen the garish knits in the collection box I know why) and I agree, when you are homeless or doing it tough, you really don't want to draw attention to yourself.  I figured Acrylic would be easier to care for than a natural yarn that would demand hand washing in tepid water. I also decided the rib pattern as opposed to the plain knit for I did for mum would be warmer.

1 x Scarf for Lucinda

This was another yarn from my stash which was used for the Papa Bear in the Three Bears project. I asked Lucinda if she would like a scarf for winter. She was fairly nonplussed about the idea but agreed. Not content to knit her a plain scarf I stumbled across a free pattern from my Daily Knitting e-mail subscription. Oddly it was in the Spinning Daily promotional e-mail they sent me as the Spin Off magazine's free pattern. It was by Adriana Schoenberg and called simply "Undulating Scarf" pattern. You can also find this pattern on Ravelry here as I later discovered.

I decided to do the pattern as a 2 x repeat instead of a 3 x repeat as it was for a 6 year old neck not an adult neck. Adriana's pattern was beautifully written including a stitch count at the end which was very handy. I have continued with her sage stitch count idea for other patterns I am knitting now.

This is definitely a pattern I would consider using again. Happy to say my stash yarn from Papa Bear is no more and I have a very happy scarf recipient. Tick for reuse.

So, as you can see, it wasn't a tremendous busting of the stash but I certainly did whittle away a few balls of yarn.

Mini Knitting - A Bunny for Beatrix and the Three Bears

This all started because of a friendship between my youngest son and a little girl called Beatrix. We wanted to give her a birthday present, but had all been ill, so the project was late.  I decided to find a very small knitting project that I could knit up fast to give to her. I stumbled across Little Cotton Rabbits' blog and her free patterns for itty bitty rabbits and bears. Once I had knitted the rabbit and a dress to go with it, I realised she would get a lot more enjoyment out of it as a plaything if I actually knitted a small change of clothes for the bunny.

Here's the first outfit:

and here's the set of clothes she ended up with. 

Then a lady in my knitting circle was expecting a baby and the whole knitting circle was invited to her baby shower. Again, I didn't have a lot of time on my hands so I opted to knit a mini bear for her from Little Cotton Rabbits' itty bitty pattern again. This then spurred me on to knit a whole family - a symbol of her life to come - as this was the lady's first baby.

 If you're wondering just how small these guys are, here's baby bear and his "bunny rug" with the size 13 Imperial (or 2.25mm Metric/Size 1 US) needles I bought from our local op shop.

It's funny. This project was supposed to be a bit of a stash buster, using up some scrap yarn, but alas I found myself drawn to a turquoise and brown yarn on special in Spotlight (Papa Bear's colouring) and then some lovely brown bear coloured skeins for Mama and Baby Bear. I just can't help myself!

I might add too that I have a real phobia of facial embroidery on toys. As we know, the eyes are the window to a soul, and if you get their position or their size a bit out of proportion on a toy, it won't look cute. I have, however, found some terrific resources on the web. There is Susan B Anderson's Youtube tutorial "Facial Embroidery on Knitted Toys" and the MochiMochiLand website Eye Eye tutorial. Go there, if you're on the wary side, when it comes to facial feature embroidery.

 

Clear Out

I feel like a bloke on his annual vendetta to clean out his shed. I have upended all my knitting bags from storage and I've been busy sorting and winding my stash, which over time, has become very tangled and messy.

I have reached an impassse with this feathery yarn...

I bought it when I was experimenting with a pattern to knit a Magpie for a freshly hatched Collingwood Magpie supporter. It drew all other kinds of yarn into it and it has taken most of the afternoon to pull out the other colours. Now I'm left with something that looks like it should be entered in International Beard Day!

The First Time

My first mature-age knitting project commenced when we were living in a rented house in Ballarat which was about as toasty as a refrigerator. Ballarat, you see, has the reputation in Victoria of being the most consistently coldest city and our house was a 1940s double fronted brick home complete with corner sash windows to let in lots of light and, unfortunately, cold. I don't know how I stumbled on my first pattern but I do know I was wanting something very easy to cut my teeth on and thus I discovered the website of Renee Sparkes "FroggieMeanie.com" (now sadly defunct so I won't add a dead link) and a pattern for Lyra's hood in the Golden Compass. You can still access the original pattern on Ravelry, the largest online knitting community http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/golden-compass-hat and there are a number of modified versions of the pattern available on other people's websites and blogs.

The pattern uses two strands of super chunky yarn and some giant size 12 needles which I think were the biggest ones I could find in Spotlight at the time. The most fun non-knitting part was making the ties. I just loved watching those twisted pieces of yarn coil into each other.

Beginning now

I have been knitting fairly consistently now for almost 6 years. I did learn to knit in year 8 (many moons ago!) at high school during a term of needlecraft and made a fluffy, soft vest in ice blue chunky wool but then never picked a pair of needles again until the birth of my daughter Lucinda. There is now a small body of work, a Ravelry account queued with projects, a folder of bookmarked videos and self-help tutes and an ever growing stash of yarn and knitting paraphernalia to feed my passion. There is also a wonderful group of knitters and crocheters who meet regularly at our local community club. These ladies just blow my mind with their expertise and I feel very amateur and awe-struck in their presence. I also enjoy their light-hearted, easy going view on the world and the moments where we have a good old laugh at life. I've called this blog "Fibre Fancier" because, despite every best effort, to be conservative in my yarn resources a.k.a. "stash" I really do fancy knittable fibre of any description and in this blog I will probably be exploring all types of yarn or fibre with which I can knit. Cotton, wool, bamboo, silk (if the budget will stretch), plain old 8ply acrylic and super luxurious fancy yarn. This blog, I'm hoping, will be a place to share projects, high points and low points and seek out fellow fibre fanciers. Feel free to comment and I will be looking forward to responding.