Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Surmount the Stash 2013

Last year at this time I did an inventory of yarns in my stash with a focus on dishcloth cotton, assorted DK cotton, Baby Yarn and Sock Yarn. My goal is to eventually work through all the yarn in my stash and just have a couple of shoeboxes of Sock yarn. I'm not there yet.

Still, I started 2013 with 456 grams of dishcloth cotton and finish with less than 200 grams - that's just a few dishcloths to knit in 2014. I'm sure I can manage that. As for the other assorted DK cottons I've cut that quantity to less than half, ringing in the New Year with about 230 grams. I was very successful with the baby yarn - it's all gone. Same goes for lace yarn - it's gone too. Thanks to a cup cozies, gnomes, stockings and hats knit for craft shows, I've worked through most of my worsted weight and acrylic DK stash. There are two shoeboxes of assorted scraps left; I need to think about how to use up the rest of this. I should also mention that there's a skein of MadelineTosh Pashmina that was a gift - but I'm looking for a very special pattern for selfish knitting for that one!

Now for sock yarn. I started the year with 7 new 100 grams skeins and 7 new 50 gram skeins. This morning, I've counted 10 new 100 gram skeins and 1 new 50 gram skein. Same number of grams! That's okay though, because there are nine sock patterns left in my Year of Projects so those skeins are mostly allocated to patterns. I made a small amount of progress on my sock yarn scraps ... the scraps weigh just over 850 grams now. All in all, the sock yarn fits in two shoeboxes which satisfies a mini-goal for me.

But that's the stash I'd really like to address this year - sock yarn scraps! And in that vein I've decided to knit baby socks over the next several days. Ann Budd created a set of five different pairs of Better than Booties Baby Socks for the Summer 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. Three of those are available for free from Knitting Daily. This is a pattern I've done before, and the parents of the newborn were really pleased with how well they fit and stayed on - so that's a pretty good endorsement. Friend's are expecting in March, so a few pairs will be gifted to them and then the balance will be donated to charity. Each pair takes about 18 grams of sock yarn, so we'll see how far I get. A lot of my sock yarn leftovers are less than 18 grams.

11 comments:

Alicia said...

Good luck with your goals! It seems like you've made quite a bit of progress already.

Wanderingcatstudio said...

I highly suggest a sock-yarn blanket for scraps - there are a couple different patterns, but the mitred square is still my favourite - next to a crocheted granny square one.
The booties are cute though!
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you made great progress in knitting down your stash.

I'd like to say I did too, BUT......

Stefanie said...

I love that baby bootie. It's so cute.

MagicalJane said...

You did well!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the baby sock recommendation, I have many sock scraps and also a baby on the way (not mine!) to knit some for!

Caffeine Girl said...

You are so productive. And I have to say that your stash is quite modest. I knit far slower than you, yet I seem to buy more quickly. Gotta stop that!

Love the booties. Great idea!

Unknown said...

You did great! And I love those booties. Happy New Year.

geeky Heather said...

I think, all in all, you were very successful!! Good luck with the rest of the pile.

cleancup said...

adorable baby bootie! good luck this year-- sounds like you've done well with your goals during this past one.

Marie/Underground Crafter said...

Sounds like you've done a lot to reduce your stash in 2013. It's interesting how once we get started with stash busting, certain areas drop and others stay the same. I think it shows where are true yarn passions lay!