Color

Again I would like to see all knitted at 50% or higher

(sad table because my pretty one won't play with blogger and I couldn't stand the though of throwing away the time I spent collecting the data, again)

Color........total....... knitted.................% project.........% yardage
Black..........14............. 7..........................50%........................46%
Blue ...........44...........21..........................48%........................41%
Brown........26...........11...........................34%........................27%
Gray.............8............5............................45%.......................35%
Green.........15............8............................35%.......................30%
Natural........4............1.............................25%........................8%
Orange........4............4...........................100%....................100%
Pink...........32..........18.............................56%......................56%
Purple........27............9............................30%......................33%
Red............29...........11............................38%......................24%
Taupe..........6.............4............................67%......................86%
Teal............11.............4............................36%......................23%
White.........19.............7............................37%......................46%
Yellow.........6.............2............................33%......................27%


Notice the colors I don’t like such as Orange and Taupe have a high knitted percentage. That’s because I only buy and knit them as gifts and as such they get finished. Still 4 orange projects might be 4 too many.

Take a look at purple. I like buying purple but it seems I don’t like knitting purple. Maybe I should hold off buying more until I come to terms with that. Same with brown. I need to note that the only brown in my stash is chocolate brown.

However, blue and pink I can hardly buy fast enough. Those two have the highest number both bought and knitted.

The projects I have in my stash right now.

I have yarn to knit:

46 Socks
3 Baby Sweaters
23 Sweaters
3 Hats
15 Mittens
14 Short Sleeve Tops
6 Lace
0 Other
45 single skeins
total 155

I have enough projects to keep me busy a while. But looking at the numbers there is more to it than that. I will probably never knit more than 8 adult sweaters in a year so with 3 years worth on hand I don’t need to buy any more anytime soon. Same for mittens.

I am woefully short on baby sweater yarn. I either need to start knitting short sleeved tops instead or to use that yarn for baby sweaters.

Socks are holding up well. There is no desperate need for them but I don’t have too many either.

Hat yarn looks pretty thin on the ground but I can use single skeins for them in a pinch.

Finally lace, No more lace yarn. At one lace project every eight years I have enough to last me for the next 48 years. Unless it’s Handmaiden Sea Silk, because that yarn’s purpose is to just exist in the stash. It’s so wonderful it never needs to be knitted.

So what do I knit?

2006
socks 5
baby sweaters 4
sweaters 3
hats 1
mittens 1
other 4
total 18

2007
socks 11
baby sweaters 7
sweaters 7
hats 5
mittens 7
other 8
total 45

2008
socks 19
baby sweaters 8
sweaters 6
hats 10
mittens 1
short sleeve top 1
other 14
total 59

These numbers are right but they don’t match the spread sheet exactly because of the single skeins of yarn. Sometimes 1 skein will make 2 or 3 items and other times I will take several singles skeins and combine them into one project.

65 entries, really?

Yes, really.

I was working within walking distance of not one, but two, knitting stores. It’s amazing I didn’t buy more. Notice the 18 knitted items and then the jump the next year. That is the difference of working 50 hours a week, having internet at home, and living in Chicago verses now with so much less going on. I used to only knit at my lunch break and while watching hours of Adult Swim on Saturday nights and that is all. Oh, and on the train when I made trips to the Art Institute.

Here is how I got it all.

I had pretty little tables breaking down each category into projects but blogger won't read them. Still, here is the overview. I am sad about the pretty tables.

2006
4 gifts, 0 trade, 57 bought, 4 handspun
____________________________________________________
total 65



2007
6 gift, 4 trade, 51 bought, 3 handspun
____________________________________________________
total 64



2008
6 gift, 10 trade, 35 bought, 4 handspun
___________________________________________________________
total 55



2009
4 gift, 18 trade, 0 bought, 2 handspun
_______________________________________________________________
total 24

I have been able to keep building my stash even when money is tight. Through trading on line and buying big at big sales I have been able to keep acquiring yarn for knitting at pretty much the same rate as when I had yarn money.

However I am limited on the brands I can get or I sometimes I have to settle on colors. I really appreciate the stash I built in 2006 when I bought exactly what I wanted. It is the quality rather than the quantity of that year that I appreciate.

Now how did I get such a large stash?

And do I really buy it faster than I knit?

2006
65 Entries into the stash
18 Knitted
28%

2007
64 Entries into the stash
40 Knitted
63%

2008
55 Entries into the stash
54 Knitted
98%

That’s a sum total of 61% knitted. That’s more than 50%...

Stash

I have been thinking about my stash a lot lately. I will admit it out loud that I keep it all in a spread sheet and that the spread sheet gives me much joy. My only regret is that I didn’t start my spread sheet until my 5th year of knitting. When I finally started I had a stash of 53 entries; I had enough yarn to knit 12 sweaters, 11 baby sweaters, 3 pairs of mittens, 4 pairs of socks, the other 23 entries were single skeins, some left over from finished projects but most bought because they were pretty.

However, for the first 5 years I kept lazy notes about what I had knit. I know that 5 years I had knit almost 30 pairs of socks, 5 sweaters, 1 lace shawl, a shrug, a felted bag, untold number of felted mittens, and 5 baby sweaters. But I knit a little more than that. There was the Christmas that everyone I knew got a hat and so much more that got lost along the way.

The point being is now when I use my spread sheet the numbers are only for the last 3 years and yet I am counting the stash I built in the 5 years before. That strikes me as unfair.

So when I do the math and I say I have knitted 42% of my purchases that number just isn’t right. Not really. Not absolutely, and that is an irritant for me. Still, I am glad to have the detailed spreadsheet since then.

So with that disclaimer given and the realization that some is lost to time let me start in on my statistics.

Total Stash since I started keeping records in late 2005
128203 yards
52354 grams
267 projects

I have knitted in the last 3 years
48292 yards
20647 grams
112 projects

On hand right now
79911 yards
31707 grams
155 projects

So that means I have knitted
37.67% of the yards
39.44% of the weight
42% of the projects

My goal is to hit 50% in any one of those categories before buying more yarn. I love my stash but it seems reasonable to expect myself to knit at least half of the yarn I buy.

Yarn in Trade

It's not Lite Lopi but it is yarn. I traded 2 nice drop spindles, alpaca, and silk spinning fibers.



It's so much yarn it wouldn't fit into the camera frame. I'm going to knit socks and color stranded mittens. The lace mohair will become legwarmers. The worsted weight wool/silk will be gloves if it's not too thick. Lots of nice knitting. I had to cast on a few projects to make room for it in the stash dresser but it all fits.

I'm in trouble, and I need your help

I started knitting gloves with a nice big ball of mystery stash yarn. My best guess is Lopi Light. It turns out that I need more yarn. I want to finish these but I don't want to reset my days without buying yarn counter for one ball of Lopi Light. So do you have some that you want to destash? I'm not picky about the color. I can trade handmade soap.

Yogurt

With my going through everything in the kitchen I realized that if I'm going to rationalize keeping my yogurt maker I need to use it. At least once. Here are photos of my second batch. The third will be made this weekend. Whole milk, half & half, plain organic yogurt, and a thermometer. This is not Lite yogurt.24 hours later

Delish.

Down Sizing

Like I do every 4 day weekend I picked up the clutter in my home and then I look around for things to get rid of so maybe next time I won't have clutter. Moving to a smaller place had me down sizing every day, then every month, and finally every season. The goal is 28 things have to go. Saturday I look around and I found 3. Hmmm, I need to do something new since I still am lacking in space and not everything has a place. Not yet.
So I look at what I can change. My spinning stash takes up so much room as nice fluffy fibers rather than compact yarn. Also, I haven't bought spinning fibers in a very long time and it's getting sort of stale. It's lost that sparkly feeling that I get from new projects. It's time to spin it up into sparkly new yarn.
So I pick out a nice wool I had dyed myself and give myself the job of spinning it up over the weekend to make more room and get me new nice yarn. I sit down to watch my Saturday night TV and 4 hours later have this much spun from the basket.
Sunday I start early and spin while listening to my morning radio. I also have the goal of getting rid of 28 things from each room. I need to dig deep and just do it. I set the timer for 30 minutes of going through a room touching everything I own and seeing if it was something that could go. Then 30 minutes of spinning before moving on to the next room.

Some rooms went well. I like finding 23 things in the bathroom. The kitchen I only found 3 things I can let go and one of them by eating the last handful of dried fruit so I can throw the bag away.

Once the last room is finished I sit and spin to Sunday night TV. 8 full spinning hours and I go to bed with this much done.
And this much left to go. I'm supposed to be finished by now. Ok, I still have Monday.
Monday I wake up crazy early and spin while watching the sun rise.
9am It's looking good. Time to stop for coffee.
Joey is fed up with my spinning. So boring. She won't play.
Early afternoon I break into the last bag and Sumi-e has to help. He pushes it down so the fluff is compact and contained. Nice kitty.
But it didn't help. 3 hours later and it looks like more not less.
Finally, as the sun starts to set the basket empties.
Did she even walk me today? I don't think so.
Look at that. All spun in the last light of day. I puff up with accomplishment.
And look at how small this is. My idea is so totaly working. Now to start plying it.
I celebrate by cooking Indian food and opening a bottle of wine. I eat it at the spinning wheel.
Sumi-e has joined Joey with thinking this is truly a boring day.
I push until midnight and I have this much done. At this point I'm not feeling so great and my muscles hurt. So does my back.
In the morning light. No fairies visited me in the night. So I turn on the TV to mute and listen to the inauguration on the radio. I think the speech is very good.
By the time the parade starts, and thankfully it's running late, I finish. Domestic Wool spun aran weight on the left. Merino spun light worsted on the right. Enough of it for a sweater maybe even a small sweater each.

Now is the basket looking sort of full to you? It's looking sort of full to me. Well, it should still work. It will at least get a new home, moved from the spinning stash book case to the yarn stash dresser. I am brilliant with making everything fit into my home. I am in control of my stash.

My yarn stash dresser may not have the room I thought.
Umm, yea, this isn't working out so well.
And the basket doesn't look any emptier.
But I did my part until spring or the next 4 day weekend.

Resolutions

Last year I said I was going to the gym and I did. I said I wanted strong arms. I never got them. Instead I picked up some abs as cute as kittens and I can now run 3 miles in 35 minutes.
I also knitted. I decided I would knit 12 pairs of socks just for me. In the past I knit about 6 pairs a year and gifted 4 of them. In 7 years of knitting I only had 14 pairs of socks. In 2008 I knit 19 pairs of socks, 14 of them for me.
This year I am too tired to make any new resolutions. I signed up again with the school gym but I worry about finding the time to go. It's going to be a hard semester.
The people that graduated last spring talk of it in hushed tones. The teachers, as they hand out the syllabuses, laugh maniacally and tell us to quit our jobs and to wave sleep good bye.
These four classes are the ones I wanted to take 2 years ago when I signed up. The last 2 years were all just to get to where I am now. It has the possibility of being fun. All my classes sound like fun when I talk about them but in reality they move so fast and with so much pressure fun is not even close to the right word. Still I have finally made it to were I want to be so I will try to take full advantage of it. Or at least to not fall down.
As for knitting in 2009? It will be socks. Last semester with 3 classes I was too beat to handle sweaters. This spring with 4 I am not even going to try.

Swag

It's been years since I have received so many Christmas and new years gifts. I have been truly blessed.



Yarn. Yummy yummy sock yarn.



I cast on the Imagination sock yarn right away. It's the Pixie Dust colorway so I chose a pattern that looks like Pixie Wings. The yarn isn't the most tightly spun so I am knitting it at a dense gauge of 8spi because I want them to last for years. I believe a dense gauge helps with that. I enjoy that even at 25% this yarn has that feel of alpaca. In my mind alpaca feels soapy. That's the way I think of it at least. That's ok. I make soap, soapy is a good thing.

Opal is my favorite sock yarn ever and in I received two in stunning solid colors so I can knit lace and cables socks. I am going to enjoy knitting them. But first I will have to hoard them for a good long time so I can enjoy the yarn just being in my stash. I love that part.

I have always wanted to try Essential and now I can. I have a pattern all picked out.Christopher Elbow Chocolates. Look at how photogenic they are! Even when only 2 are left.

Wine came with the chocolates.

Just as special, homemade caramels. My favorite candy ever.

I love books and this one is so sweet.
Homemade dried apples from their tree. I didn't know dried fruit could taste so good.

Jam, also homemade and homegrown. 2008 was a good harvest. I looking forward to opening them. Sweet bottled summer in a jar.Suri Alpaca for spinning from her own animals. Very nice. I haven't met a Suri Alpaca yet. Maybe I should set up a visit.

From some of the Kiddos in my life:

Chocolate covered sunflower seeds from one picked out with the help of his parents.

And from another, a bear picked out from his toys with no help at all.

Joey takes over all stuffed toys. I can't stop him. He loves them so much I don't try very hard.

A sweater drying rack that fits in the bathtub and in front of the window. Sumi-e has told me I am never to take it down. It deeply upsets him when I cover it with wet wool too.

Some gifts that don't photo well. I was taken out to eat for a nice curry and given money to pay the gas to make the trip to visit. Both where deeply appreciated.

And finally,

To myself. Two of the best knitting books out there right now.

I would show what I gave, but sadly many of them are still on the needles.