A Whole Lotta Stash Busting Is Required!

Yarn Mountain was commissioned for the Festival of Love 2015 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London Summer 2015. It was part of LOVE the YARN: Lasmin Salmon in collaboration with Celia Pym.

I am actually thinking that my yarn stash would make a bigger yarn mountain than the actual Yarn Mountain! 

I have been watching Retro Claude on Youtube, in particular her stash busting series. Stash busting has been a regular theme here and although I am knitting through my yarn, I am also adding to it. Simple maths will tell you what is happening here! 
So I decided to import my yarn stash to a spreadsheet so I could actually total up the meterage and grams in my stash. And wow, that was an eye opener! Despite the fact that I can look on Ravelry and see that I have quite a few pages of stash, it is not until you add it up in cold hard figures that you get the full picture. And it is a lot! A lot, a lot! 

 Ok, am I brave enough to expose my embarrassingly large stash? Don't get me wrong, I love my stash; it is just that I know some people will find it excessive and wonder how I could ever actually use it. Believe me, I wonder that as well! 

Well, here goes! 
I just have the total for all yarns - all fibre types, all weights, everything mixed together in one total. It would be another whole exercise to divide them out into categories - maybe a task for another day.

Total metres of yarn I currently own: 365,429.9 mtrs

Total grams of yarn I currently own: 116,465 gms

See why stash busting must become a priority?! 
I am also needing to pull my belt much tighter due to future potential financial changes, so no more buying for me - no more books, no more yarn, no more cross stitch, no more fabric. Stash busting or its equivalent is required across all these categories - so there will be more to come on each of these as well. 

A long post to say, let's get knitting! 

1933 Has Finally Arrived!

 It is finally time to begin 1933! 

As I have still been unsuccessful in finding anything to do with December 1932 Stitchcraft (I still hold out hope of one day finding this unicorn!), I have moved onto January 1933. 

I have begun the Jumper That Is Kind To Extra Inches. 

I always love how these size jumpers are described as being for the 'matronly figure.' So different to our modern size inclusive patterns!

Yarn wise, I am using Bendigo Woollen Mills Athena in a colour called Gunmetal. This was a limited edition yarn that has been in my stash for a long time (more on stash busting in another post!) so is no longer available. It is a wool/bamboo/silk blend. The contrast yarn is also Bendigo yarn, the standard favourite Luxury 4ply in Cream. 

Progress so far is on the right front.

It is impossible to see the pattern without blocking and I am also hoping that blocking will improve the way the button band is sitting. Not sure if it is due to using two different yarns or whether blocking will make it look more cohesive. 

While knitting on my 1933 pattern, I have been watching a 1933 movie, as you do! A search on Youtube found many full length 1933 movies available to watch, so I may have a few more viewed before this pattern is completed. Especially as there are a few Clark Gable movies - he was a busy man at the studios in 1933!

The one I was really hoping to find is Dancing Lady, starring Clark Gable and Joan Crawford and with Fred Astaire making his acting debut. But no luck! 

It is about a burlesque theatre and is pre-code so would make for some interesting viewing, I am sure! 

Anyway, the movie I am watching is called Deluge, an apocalyptic science fiction in which New York is levelled by an earthquake and subsequent tidal wave and we follow the survivors.

Way before the days of CGI! Models of New York had to built for all the disaster scenes. I hope they managed to get all their footage in one take! 
It is good so far, rather over the top, as you can imagine, but interesting to watch and compare to the plethora of disaster movies that are prevalent at the moment. 

Off to spend some more time in 1933! 

Unraveled Wednesday

Joining in today with As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday.

I have had a pretty productive week. Lots of new yarn dyeing as I am adding a new colour range of mini skeins to the shop soon so there are skeins of yarn in many colours everywhere. It certainly looks pretty! 

I just sold out of this colourway called In The Deep Dark Woods. I particularly love it as it fits perfectly with my Fairy Tales yarn club that is running at the moment. And the book is a gorgous 1920s fairy tale book. It belonged to my mum and before that to her aunt.

This was the May Fairy Tales mystery yarn club, based on Beauty and the Beast. I debated long and hard about using the obvious colours of blue, gold and brown. But in the end I figured they were too iconic not to use!

And then for my new yarn purchases - naughty me! 

But how on earth could I resist these mini balls of Opal sock yarn?! They are just so cute - I don't want to use them, I just want to sit them in a basket and run my hands through them and look at their prettiness! 

And look at this mama and baby photo! So cute!

Can you tell I love Opal yarn?! Don't even look at my Ravelry account and see how much I have in stash!

I purchased all these yarns from a lovely lady called Kate. Her shop on Etsy is Yarn Stories. She is in Lithuania and even during these times, my parcel only took two weeks to arrive. And she was very helpful. I really wanted to try her 4ply 100% wool as it looks perfect for colourwork, is very reasonably priced and has HEAPS of colour choices but I had forgotten to add one. Kate quickly answered my query and organised for the extra ball to be added to my order. I am looking forward to trying it out. It feels a bit rough and scratchy but I will reserve judgement entirely as this is often the best wool for colourwork as it 'sticks' and it often softens up on washing and wearing. I'll keep you posted! 

Kate's shop also has lots of cross stitch kits, crochet hooks, knitting needles, paint by number kits and more. Well worth taking a look!

Knitting wise, I have been working on the same projects.

I have started the second Waiting For Winter beanie. This should be a quick knit - depending of course of my level of distraction!

Luckily, I like knitting with DPNs as I could not find a circular needle the correct size.

Also working away on my leg warmers. I love how when I stand them up, it looks like a little flared skirt at the bottom (it's the little things, people, the little things!) This is because I cast on the stitches with a bigger needle which gives the stretch for the top of the leg.

This photo of the With Angora Tie looks almost exactly like one I posted a week or two ago. Except the first photo was the front of the jumper and this is the back. Doesn't make for very exciting viewing though!

I also need to work on my WIPs as I have mentioned before. I will try and work on one a week - either finishing it or deciding if it needs to be given up on and ripped out. My Ravelry project page nearly has as many WIPs as finished projects!

That being said, it seems I cannot help myself as I really want to cast on this little cutie.

I might use the leftover wool from the pink jumper as it reminds me of the pussycat hats designed for the Womens' March of 2017. You can read the story of the Pussyhat Project here.

The baby pattern is from one of my mum's pattern books, Patons Knitting Book No R17. I love my mum's note on the front - 'Buttonholes on right side for girls'. Is that still even a thing anymore? I am not sure if people still worry overly much about it. 

Have you been working on much lately? I would love to hear about it.