Not-So-Tiny Slippers

 I know, I know, Summer isn't generally the time for wearing toasty things on your feet or thinking about knitting toasty things for your feet but Seattle is an exception. This morning I awoke to thunderous skies and general downpoury dreariness (not to mention 3o minutes late even with my alarm). The weather made me want to curl up on my sofa with a giant hot cup of coffee and spend my morning knitting away, no such luck. But these slippers? They're my absolute favorite for padding around the house and keeping my feet warm plus they have the added bonus of being really quick to knit.

Pattern: Not-so-tiny slippers by Ysolda Teague from Whimsical Little Knits 3
Yarn: Malabrigo Chunky in Lechuga
Needle: US #10 Addi Turbo
Mods: None!

Bigger Bites - Continuing the Organization Struggle

I've spent an unholy amount of time in my bathroom this week going through my medicine cabinet and drawers trying to sort through expired and unused items (plus thorough scouring/cleaning..ick). Yesterday afternoon saw the completion of that project and I'm on to bigger things. My yarn stash. I'm a pretty fast knitter and I like to use my stash so I generally have high turnover in there...generally. This last year I got a full-time job and started back at school to finish my degrees so my knitting time almost disappeared. I also was working six or seven days a week until January of this year so my stress level went way up, my knitting time went way down, and I started to accumulate a lot of stash that I just didn't have time to knit. Which led to this:

 The whole shebang. Unsorted. I pulled everything out and I mean everything. My scrap bags, my cedar chest bins, my space bags and random other small bags that I stashed around our apartment.

 The two bins usually live inside my cedar chest so things stay relatively sorted but they are filled to bursting with fingering weight yarn. There are definitely some things that don't belong in there like that skein of Malabrigo Worsted in Whale's Road that I can see peeking over the edge. Eek.

 The sweater stash, sorted this time. To be honest the oldest thing in this photo is that red O-Wool that I frogged from my Minimalist Cardigan (upper right corner). But I do have three dark-brown sweaters' worth of yarn and two are even the same weight yarn. That probably could have been planned better.

Sock yarn staring down DK weight yarn. While the sweater portion of my stash takes up the largest amount of real estate the fingering weight yarn definitely outnumbers it in the skein category. I get really excited about sock yarn even though I don't knit socks very often and I think it's because of the color and the price. You know, a knitting a project all bundled up in one little skein, in pretty colors, with great yardage. I just can't help myself and it shows. 

Before you get started make sure you have adequate time for the volume of stash you own. My stash took about three hours to sort through and put away and I went through it fairly quickly. So this is how I organize my stash:

1. Pull everything out. Everything!!! If you keep telling yourself that the mobile stash in your car doesn't count - it does. I had a huge bag of yarn in my car for over six months and I finally pulled it out, entered it in Ravelry, and integrated it into my stash. Any little hidey-hole of yarn counts, if you pull it out now you won't feel shock when you open that bottom desk drawer and find those impulse skeins of yarn you purchased "as a treat".

2. Decide how you want to sort your yarn. Fiber type. Yarn weight. Color. Autobiographically. It doesn't really matter as long as it makes sense to you since you're the one that will have to dig through your stash to find that skein that you know you have. I prefer sorting by yarn weight/project type. Sweater quantities of yarn live in space bags under my bed and single skeins and fingering weight yarns are sorted by weight and stored in my cedar chest.

3. Cull the herd. While you work through your stash make a pile of the yarn you don't love anymore. It may hurt a little bit since you truly loved that skein of novelty yarn when you bought it years ago but believe me, someone else will love it now. And knit it. And you won't have to store it anymore for that future day when you "might" knit it even though you've grown up as a knitter and don't really dig bright blue fringe yarn anymore. Bag those bad balls up and take them to your knitting group, send them off to charity, or donate them to Goodwill - someone else, somewhere else will want them. If you've loaded your yarn into Ravelry you can even offer it for trade or sale thereby getting new cool yarn (or money!) for something you'll never use.

4. Bag or bin it up. Once you've got your stuff sorted you'll know the size and amount of containers you'll need to store your stash. If you already have bins or bags you can reuse them or if you're just starting out on this venture you may need to purchase storage. I'm lucky enough to have a cedar chest my mom gave me when I was sixteen that I use to store yarn and space bags fit great under my bed once the air has been squished out. I prefer my yarn to be put away from threats of small children, damp weather, and insects. If you're purchasing new stash receptacles make sure that the bins or bags fit in the space they are going to live. Measure your closet, your piece of furniture, under your bed, or wherever you're stashing your stash to make sure that doors close and lids fit. If you're a person that likes everything out where you can see it clear bins are probably ideal since you'll want to see those yarny innards to remind you what you have. Households that don't contain moths, carpet beetles, small children, and/or yarn-eating pets may enjoy having yarn on display. I've dreamed about lovely glass-fronted cabinetry with drawers and bins galore but it's just not going to happen in my house.

5. Extra stash happiness. I try to keep my Ravelry stash updated to show my current at-home stash so I can easily match patterns and yarn. I've also used the stash tool do deter me from spur of the moment purchases since I can check my Rav stash out and see that I already have about 10 skeins of sock yarn in varying shades of blue. An added bonus is that you can put a note on each yarn page listing where in your home (or yarn storage facility) each skein is located. 

Going through my stash regularly allows me to plan projects accordingly. My three dark-brown sweaters of yarn? Yep. Not buying more dark-brown sweater quantities any time soon. If I feel the urge to purchase more sweater yarn I'll try to fill in the color gaps a little better.

Using what I have comes from knowing what I have and when I knit from my stash it makes room for more stash enhancement, what could be better than that? I managed to empty a large space bag and a small space bag in one organizing and condensing go-through. Sure, my bag of partial-skeins got larger but now I don't have those guys wreaking havoc and leaving their yarn trail all over the place. My scrap stashdown project is higher in yardage but the nice and tidy balls of yarn that I put away look much more alluring than the tangled mess that lived in my cedar chest this morning.

How do you organize your stash? Do you have one and if so how much real estate does it take up in your home? If you've recently re-organized, or are in the process of doing so, how do you feel about your stash now?

Dancette

 Shortly after I returned from vacation I finished up the last six or so rows of Dancette. Originally I planned to take it as my vacation knitting but my urge to cast on got the better of me and by the time vacation rolled around I didn't want to pack it just to finish it in California and then drag it around with me.

Pattern: Dancette by Irish Girlie Knits
Yarn: Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Electrolyte (green/yellow) and Limited Edition (blue - very close to Aurora Borealis)
Needle: US #6 Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeable
Mods: None! This thing pretty much flowed from the needles and was really great for watching tv and attending my knitting group. I did carry the yarn up one side as the pattern indicates so as not to leave lots of yarn ends dangling. Rather than carry the yarn on the first stitch of the row I knit the first two stitches, trapped the yarn, and then continued as normal which prevented unsightly lengths of opposite colored yarn from popping out along the edge after blocking.

Whatitsf**k Cowl

I seem to be going through a blue and green phase right now. Yellowy-greens and deep or bright blues are really grabbing my attention and saying, "Knit me! Knit me!" As a result of this color phase I grabbed two skeins out of my stash and went to work. I purchased said skeins at The Plucky Knitter during Sock Summit last year, can you believe that they were in her one-off basket?

Pattern: Improvised from my noggin
Yarn: The Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted in Faded Grandeur (yellow-green) and One Hit Wonder (blue)
Needle: US #8 Hiya Hiya Sharp
Notes: No mods this time since it all came out of my head. I provisionally cast on 80 stitches in Faded Grandeur and knit 4 row stripes alternating with the One Hit wonder until I ran out of the blue. I knit one more set of stripes in the yellowy-green color and then grafted the whole shebang together. This cowl is drapey and soft and has a wonderful heft to it since it's basically a knitted tube. No wrong side either! I really loved working with the Primo Worsted - it's a very round yarn with many plies and feels quite bouncy when knitting. I was surprised in a good way when very very little dye came out in the wash since blues have a way of bleeding like crazy when washed.

Bit by Bit

Organizing. There, I said it. I'm kind of obsessed with it. It kind of drives me crazy. I'm anti-clutter and anti-stuff but I live with a kidlet who continually brings home seashells, flowers, sticks, art projects, library books, and any manner of little thing that has to find a home. I also happen to live with a guy who likes to have everything out where he can see it/sometimes find it and whose closet does not contain clothes but boxes and boxes of.... I dunno, your guess is as good as mine. We live in an 800 sq. foot apartment and sometimes I feel like we're hemmed in by stuff.


After my last post about those Hiya Hiya needles I got to thinking about all of my stuff. The stuff in my life. The stuff I like to have and the stuff I like to use and how those things aren't necessarily exclusive but how they all need to have a place to live in our small apartment. So. I'm trying to streamline. Sort. Toss. Donate. Recycle. Tonight I cleaned off my very small desk space and tomorrow I'll tackle the single drawer that holds all of my desk "stuff". I've set a 15-30 minute limit for evenings so I can tackle small projects and feel like I'm making progress.* How about you? How do you go about organizing your stuff? Are you a stacker? A hider? A hoarder?


I'm sure this will spill over into organizing my yarn and knitting supplies so stay tuned for that post!

Review: Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeables

At the end of Winter Quarter I decided to purchase myself a gift. Usually these end-of-quarter gifts are skeins of yarn or other little things that are on my knitting lust-after list. This time I went spendy and purchased the Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeable Needles. The Fiber Gallery started carrying them around the holidays and I like the pretty packaging but hadn't heard much about the needles themselves. The packaging is slick; a small brocade case (different colors are available) with the Hiya Hiya logo and a loop with ties to keep the flap closed. Flip up the flap and you get a black lining with slots for the needle tips. This set comes with US sizes 2 through 8 which is great for me because I rarely knit with anything larger than Worsted weight yarn these days. There is also a larger set that has US sizes 9 through 15. Just above the needle slots is a zippered pocket that contains the rubber grippers used to tighten the needles to the cables. There is also a little flap with velcro (you can see it on the left side of the second picture) that covers the exposed part of the needle tips and keeps them from sliding out. The back of the case has another zippered pocket with small plastic bags containing the cables. The bags are labeled and have the common 16, 24, 32, and 40 inch length cables. The really great thing about the needle tips and the joins for the cables is that they're labeled with the size/length so if you have either one floating around your house you won't have to dig out a measuring tape or needle sizer to figure out what it is and where it goes in the case. I loooove this feature as I often remove needle tips and set them aside when a pattern calls for changing needle sizes. As for knitting with them....I'm in love with that, too. I've knit with Addi Turbo, Addi Turbo Lace, Knit Picks Nickel Plated, Knit Picks Harmony, and Clover Bamboo needles. Hiya Hiya Sharps are far and above my favorite needles. They're very lightweight with a pointy tip comparable to Addi Turbo Lace and Knit Picks Nickel Plated needles and they also have a coating on them that creates a very very tiny bit of drag. Many knitters like the coating on Addi Turbo Lace needles but I've found that it feels a bit too sticky even when knitting lace and I've heard that the Turbo Lace needles can react badly to some peoples' hands. The Hiya Hiya joins are really smooth and I've not had any problems with the tips and cables coming apart or unscrewing while I'm knitting and these bad boys have been in constant use since I purchased them. My Harmony Interchangeable needles from Knit Picks have unscrewed from their joins even after using the "key" to tighten them and the cables have pulled out of their joins so they're unusable - so unusable that they've been out of rotation and considered my "back up needles" for over a year now. I think that about covers it - I've used these needles for everything from knitting laceweight and lace patterns to plain stockinette in the round and I look forward to using them every time I cast on a new project. One caveat, I purchased my set for $85 which is a bit spendy but far less than the Addi Click Sets and just slightly more than the Knit Picks Nickel Plated Interchangeables. I'd spend the extra money on the Hiya Hiya set simply because I think the quality is much higher than the Knit Picks needles. So yeah, two big thumbs up for Hiya Hiya Sharp Interchangeable Needles. I'm waiting rather impatiently to see if they'll come out with some fixed circular sharps in smaller sock needle sizes since I'll snap them up tout suite.

Questions? Comments? I'm hoping to do more reviews in the future since I've definitely tried a lot of yarns, notions, and techniques. Anything you'd like to see?

Little Things

Today was my first day back at work after our lovely and relaxing vacation in California visiting family. I have a tendency to overpack my knitting but was able to hold back and pack two projects to cast on. I managed to finish a pair of socks (pictures to come) and started the other project last night after I had unpacked, hit the grocery store, and made dinner. I'm loving the color combination and the slip-stitch pattern and sometimes it's just those little things that make knitting exciting again. I was suffering from knitting ennui due to my crazy school and work schedule and these little mitts are going a long way to remedying that feeling. Some days it really is the little things that make you feel better.

This also happens to be a kit I purchase ages ago from the first Hazel Knits trunk show that the Fiber Gallery hosted and has been sitting around in my stash since I brought it home, pattern and all.