Knit Half The Stash

I did it! I knit half of my stash. I noticed I was close in June so July was my big push and I did it. That's why the blog was so silent.

I'm baking a chocolate flowerless tort for to take to work. I'm part of a 3 week training class and tomorrow is a food day to celibate before class winds up and we all move to working nights. I wish I was sleeping instead of cooking so I'm going to roll out the July knits slowly, starting with this

Emerald knit in my favorite yarn Beaverslide, the old discontinued 2 ply. Seriously, yarn makers should call me up and ask my permission before closing out a line of yarn. The world would just work better if I had more say in it.

I bought the very last batch of the 2 ply fisherman weight and there was only 4 skeins and I bought them all. Because I was nervous about running out of yarn I knit the sweater small to the point I had at least half a ball left over. It's a perfect fit as a sweater but this pattern makes a lovely jacket. I like the pattern so much I'm thinking about taking the pink Beaverslide I have from the furry cat/moth fiasco and knitting it all over again so I can have a jacket too.

Good. The torts done. Off to bed now. Good night.

A while back Redshirt Knitting said that talking about gifts received from blogging "seems like either bragging, shilling, or fishing"

She is totally right. I'm bragging here. If I can't brag on my very own knit blog where can I?

I have some washcloths knit by the very hands that knit the Tree Sweater!


They are the first hand knit washcloths I've used and they are a joy. I know there is a cult following out there for knitting and using knit washcloths but I didn't really get it. I have now drunk the Kool-Aid and I dream about a run to Joanne's with the coupon to pick up a load of Sugar N Cream yarn. They soak up so much water and are just right for washing dishes, wiping up spills, wiping down the counters, using as coasters, and just all around enjoying the fact that I'm cleaning with knitting.

So I've started knitting my own washcloths as gifts. Right now I'm not buying yarn so I had to knit from the stash.


“I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.”

Leaf On The Wind Wash Cloth knit out of Euroflax 14/2 Linen held triple since 14/2 is a lace weight. I love the cute little cones the yarn comes on. I found the pattern to be too short. Everything I did came out very squat so I had to add rows to all parts of the pattern. I've never been able to achieve row gauge so I'm sure that is some of my problem. I love how the leaf looks and I may knit up a stack of them without WASH along the bottom. Can you read it? I can't read it. I hope after washing and drying it pops better.

Some mystery stash yarn, 100% cotton almost a rick rack almost a chenille yarn bought at a yarn shop 'n' swap before I even knew how to knit. I held this yarn double to make it thick enough. The velvety feel of these washcloths are amazing. Christmas knitting is well on it's way.

After digging out the flower bed (I won't mention the poison Ivy rash I got from that) I was able to do my ritual of buying herbs late in the season at reduced prices. I put in the herb garden as a surprise.

Because it's a surprise I had to get it all done at one go before I was found out. Not my brightest idea every. But 6 hours later I had this.Tia Basil has the prettiest purple flowers. Isn't the little stone birdbath the sweetest thing?The purple basil is a surprise to me. I picked it up because of the pretty purple leaves. It's now my favorite basil to grill with steak. It has a sharp sweet anise flavor that really brings out the flavor of the meat. Add some sprigs of rosemary and it's perfection.I also like to wrap a leaf around a tomato before popping it into my mouth. It's so much better than plain tomato. Yum.

I've tried doing the same thing with the other basil's. Sweet Basil doesn't work well that way. Tia Basil is almost as good. Spicy Globe Basil has a black pepper note that works great with tomato. Tomorrow I'll try the Lemon Basil. Because I tasted Purple Basil, Tia Basil, Purple Basil, Spicy Globe Basil, Purple Basil, I stripped my tomato plant clean before I ran out of basil flavors to try.

I love the basil so much I might stop buying the sickly reduced price plants in July to watch them bounce back with a little TLC and put them in correctly in the spring. It's agonizing to wait for them to grow enough leaves to make a single batch of pesto much less the endless batches I'm yearning for. Does Purple Basil make good pesto? I'll find out. But I think the traditional Sweet Basil is traditional for a reason. Good thing I planted both.

Up, Up and Away

What a day. The morning I spent deep cleaning and the afternoon I spent doing heavy labor in the flower bed out front. Both places look great. I'm beat.

I'm still digging myself out of my last download of photos.

I come home from work one Friday to this!

Hot Air Balloons! Gardner had a festival so balloon chasing ensued.Finally close enough for some good photos.

Too close! They actually bumped.Look at the flame.



Driving around looking for more balloons.Found more!
And now there is only one.
Now none.

Much driving with no balloons in sight. At this point we gave up and were headed to Laurence for dinner. Then we saw a balloon. It was so exciting that I forgot to take photos. In following that balloon we found them all...


Landing in a field.Going for a closer look.
The baskets are both bigger and smaller than I would have imagined.


The heater coils are nothing like I could have imagined. Rolling up a balloon. They are actually forcing all the fabric through a small ring.
Watching the last one land and it's the first balloon we saw.
It collapses surprisingly fast.
Then very slowly.

Digging Up Golden Treasure

I took these photos back in March and had planned on posting then. It didn't happen. They desperately needed thinning and I spent much of the day helping to dig them up. Now seems a good time to pull out the parade.

small ones

long trumpeted ones
pale ones
white ones
flat ones
shallow ones
big ones
ruffled one

I missed getting photos of the early ones and the orange tipped ones. So that means we dug up no less than 10 kinds of daffodils today and now have a hand full of bulbs to replant.

Ok, ok, a hand full of hundreds. Well... maybe not 500 but more than 100. Each clump was well over 10 bulbs. And that's just out of one flower bed. There is the second bed that needs to be thinned too. Maybe tomorrow. I'm all done in tonight.

I also cast on for my 3rd pair of Thuja's yesterday and even with no knitting time I already turned the heel. Worsted weight socks are just so fast!

Birthday Yarn

In late April I had a birthday. It was a very nice weekend including a gift through the mail with the required yarn, coffee, and candy, then a wonderful dinner of lamb and gluten free cake. That was followed by a day of running around to fun places like garage sales, sweet potato fries eaten at the park in the rain, and a trip to the local nursery to look at plants. I bought tomatoes to grow in containers on my stoop. The weekend was finished off by going to a wine tasting.
I rounded the whole thing out with a yarn order.

Noro Yuzen is on sale at LK. I wanted a Noro sweater. However, I could not choose the color. I spent almost 3 weeks choosing the color. I looked at them on every website I could find. I looked at them knit up on Ravley. I even made a list and graft of the projects I liked best and least so I could compare which colors came up the most in my favorites and which ones not to buy. I was paralyzed with the choosing.

That is, until I came up with a brilliant solution. I would order one in each of my favorite colors. I then could knit 5 striped scarves, pick my very favorite color and then order a sweater worth of the color I wanted. Brilliant! I couldn't make the order fast enough.

When the yarn got here I realized there was no wrong choice, that I loved all 10 colorways. I also realized there was no way I was going to order 10 more balls for the sweater. So I set out to knit my first scarf and to mull over the fate of the other 8 balls. By bedtime I realized that my scarf wasn't turning out, that the 2 colors chosen were too close to each other. That possibly this yarn wouldn't make the nice scarves that Silk Garden does.

The next morning I woke up early. Really early and with a burning desire to knit a sweater right that minute and exactly how I was going to do it. I was burning so hot I knitted a whole ball that day while running running around with my little friend that hid the glove yarn.

I had him for the whole weekend and we had a blast. I was amazed how much knitting I could get done while playing with a 3 year old. I wasn't able to clean and I could barely cook but I could knit just fine.

He did insist that I put it down while blowing bubbles and throwing balls but I could knit while coloring, painting, computer playing, playing pretend, playing school, having deep conversations about Pillow Bear's life while sitting together under the kitchen table. All the time knitting. I knit on the playground while he slid 16,035 rocks down the slide. I knit on the walk out of the park as my ball fell out of my bag and trailed behind me before we got to the street and noticed.

I'm running off the map here. No pattern and 10 completely different colors. It's a wild ride and I'm getting to the end. The body is done and the sleeves are started. I only have 2 balls of yarn left. Will I make it? Probably not. I expect to need another ball for the sleeves and at least 2 for the applied I-cord. At least I hope 2 is enough for the applied I-cord.

I feel another yarn order coming.

Ok, Already

I've had emails asking me if I was alright.

I was linked on one of my favorite blogs. (awww shucks, digging toe into ground and blushing)

So I took the time to dig myself out of a mountain of photos that were waiting to become blog posts.

And thanks guy's, it feels real good to be noticed and missed.


Right now I have two counters on my blog. Having even one feels hokey enough so 2 feels down right tacky. But I love the new miles knit counter and I really want to accomplish my goal of knitting half of my stash.

It just feels right to expect myself to knit half of the yarn I buy. Even that is crazy lenient but since I'm a yarn collector as well as a knitter I'm ok with it. I do stash trophy yarn that is for admiring not knitting. But I haven't hit half yet and that I'm not so ok with.

Turn a Square hat knit with Lush and Noro.
Isn't the square so cute? The pattern says nothing needs to be done about the jog once the decreases start. I don't think I agree. If I knit this hat pattern again I'm going to fiddle with it so it can have a smoother line. Oh, and a cast on number of in the 90s seems huge to me. I used fatter yarn too so I only cast on 80. It's perfect for my petite head with flat hair. 88 would be about right for everyone else.
Tank Top knit in Hempathy. It's very loosely based off the pattern since I knitted it in the round and added a crochet edging. I still have to sew in the ends. I love this top. It's so cute. It has edges rolling all over the place and looks very much hand made but I am still charmed by this top and how it fits. I expect the hemp to be cool in summer too. I wish I could get a shot of me in it but I don't have a mirror big enough.
I loved my last pair of Tuja so much I knit a second pair. I held 2 strands of Elann Sock It To Me 4 Ply together. I've already gone into great lengths about my love of holding 2 strands of sock yarn together. I need to do that for a pair of socks for me already but these are for Christmas.

I like my Christmas knitting to be done by July and I failed miserably last year in that I wasn't even done by Christmas. I don't want a repeat of that. Actually, now that I think about it, I sort of remember a baby sweater I might have wadded up and hidden under the couch that still isn't finished. I really don't want a repeat of that.

Now for the projects I'm working on right now. I think they are all on their way to an extended time out.
A pair of socks to be my first free pattern. The one sock is done but writing out the pattern is hard. I keep putting off even starting. That's starting the second sock and the pattern writing since they go hand in hand.
Nordic Lights is a true stash buster. I went at it like gang busters for a few days and then other things got picked up. I really need to go back to it. I still want to knit this.
My Lime n Violet yarn. What a great pattern! all lace socks should be just the cuffs, but the yarn is a bit splitty so I keep putting off knitting the second.
Finally, these are the best gloves ever. I'm so close to done. I could finish with just another hour of knitting. But I had a little visitor for Mother's Day Weekend and once he went home I can't find the yarn anywhere. So they are in already in time out but for no fault of their own.

I love NPR

Yesterday on NPR there was a segment on the strawberry crop and how there's a glut on the market. I haven't gone grocery shopping since the last time I mentioned it and was planning on going another week or two. I swung by the grocery store on the way home and picked up 5 pounds of strawberries. I never would have know if it wasn't for NPR.

1.5 pounds are already eaten. Yumm.

Wonderful Wallaby

I finished a Wonderful Wallaby sweater. I like how this photo makes it look like it's soaking up the sun. The other photos looked like it was waiting for the police to draw a chalk outline around it.

The yarn is my all time favorite Beaversilde. The old beaverslide. The color is wood violet.

Let's go looking for a violet to compare the color. Not a violet but I like the purple leaves.

From the very beginning I knew I wanted a nice cozy oversided sweater. I normally need 4 maybe 5 balls of this yarn. For this sweater I bought 7.

This Hyacinth is reminiscent of the sweater color but it's more blue and more purple. It's actually the perfect color a another sweater.

As I knit it was coming out huge. Really really huge. Crazy huge.

The Henbit is much more pink than purple. That's good since I don't really dig henbit.

Even though it's crazy huge I keep knitting. I had hope that it will turn out ok even with signs of crazy showing.
Grape Hyacinth isn't a match either.

Sweaters never turn out ok when the little whispering voice in the back says it's not working out.
I finally found the violets. What? Your violets aren't white with purple spots?

Maybe they should be. Viola sororia 'Freckles'. Violets are hard to buy in the US but sometimes Freckles can be found in nurseries. If not seeds can be gotten from UK or Canada where a more enlightened attitude to violets exist. Or find a neighbor, Freckles aren't exactly rare even if they are hard to buy.

This time was different. This time the sweater turned out just fine. It's big enough to fit 2 even 3 of me but flowing enough that it doesn't look big at all. The most important is that it's big enough to wear over a sweater. Something I wanted this winter so, of course, I finish just in time for hot weather.

Oh and even though it is crazy huge I only used 6 balls. I didn't even use all of ball 6. I love big balls of yarn.

I had to walk 3 house over to find a purple violet but the sweater was to shy to pose.