I’ve just visited a friend of mine who describes herself as a “Yarn Collector”.  She is honest that she doesn’t always intend to use the yarn - she just wants to have it. Pet it.  Stroke it. Love it.

Of course, part of my visit was being proudly shown her new acquisitions.  It was a happy couple of hours pawing “pretty things”. 

I dared to observe (and only ever say this if its a really good friend if you don’t want to find out how sharp a pair of Addi’s are), “Haven’t you gone a bit overboard? There lot of yarn here?”

She replied, “Yep, I know but you’ve got far more than me! You’re much worse…”

I was taken aback and quickly decided my friend was in denial. The poor dear, how could she delude herself like that? The conversation moved on.

(Stay with me - there is a point to this ramble)

When I got home from my visit,  I decided to start a new project to see me though some dental hell. I need both sides of my jaw numbed at once for two crowns. Nasty     Emily is in the annoying finishing stages and if do my scarf I’ll just finish it!

“I fancy some Kidsilk Haze” I thought “I wonder if I have enough for a garment?”

Do you remember when I made the Earth Stripe Wrap? I confessed to having 57.5 balls of KSH in stash…

I found a cute pattern in Rowan Studio 12 and went stash diving…

…I found some KSH…mostly odd balls and leftovers …and 2 packs of 10 balls …then I found more…and more…I moved a cat…behind the cat there was more…

Lots of it wasn’t recorded in my Ravelry Stash. I took photographic evidence and loaded it in.

For those of you on Ravelry, you can visit my stash here

Susan’s Rav-Stash

The trouble with Ravelry is you can download your stash into Excel and do the arithmetic accurately - no “generous rounding” options in Excel!

How many balls of Rowan Kidsilk “something” (I’m including Haze, Night and Spray here) do you think I found?

130

I honestly don’t know how it happened - a bargain here, an ebay there, an “I need to buy something to cheer myself up”…

I don’t often genuinely shock myself but that number did it. Especially when, given that the average long sleeve garment takes 5 balls, that’s enough for 26 garments!

Want to see what 130 balls of KSH looks like??

There’s some other stuff in the bottom left corner of this box but it’s nearly stuffed with KSH.
Even Thug hangs his head when sneaking past!

Here’s my stash details so far. You can see my shame for yourself…

susancrowes-stash-nov-08

I think I must really have a problem. How can I buy so mush KSH and not realise? I am sounding like an addict even to myself - Lord knows how this post is reading to all of you out there!

And I thought my friend was in denial?! I owe her an apology…

Any thoughts on how to cure myself?

I did concider going “cold turkey and burning my KSH and never buying more…Yeah! Like that’s gonna happen!!

My first step is this post - admit to having a problem…

Step two - use up my stash…4 balls on the lacey top ?? It’s a start…

I’ve done this much!

Just 126 balls to go now…

You may or may not know about “My So Called Scarf”.

It’s a free internet pattern by Allison Issacs available from Imagiknit.

It seems like everyone who has seen it has had to have a go and has loved it. Add my name to that long list!

My lovely sister Carol made me a gift of some Manos del Uruguay , in a super purple, blue and white  colour combo  to go with a rather fine purple leather coat of mine.

I need a little project for my regular train journeys and this seemed small enough. What else could I knit??

The pattern is a basic, 2 row, slipped stitch pattern but what a super effect!

It’s also designed for  Manos del Uruguay - a favourite yarn of mine.

Here’s the work so far…

The only problem is I’m enjoying it so much I’m whizzing though it.

After 5 days and I’m half way though it!!

My Pink Hedera.

I can’t believe these have taken 4 months to complete.

I suppose they have never been my mainstream knitting, relegated to being a handy small thing for trains and planes. As they have been done entirely when I’m on the move I consider them “bonus knitting” from otherwise wasted time.

But finally, the Completer/Finisher in me has won out and they are done!!

Taaa  Daaa!!

And are they Perfect?? Hmmm… Not quite.

There were several breaks in the yarn in one sock - courtesy of “Mothy” and friends.

They are a bit big, but I refuse to hand wash socks so they will probably shrink a bit anyway

And I did a weird thing on the heel but I think it worked.

On the wrong side of the heel flap the row says, “P1,S1,Rep to end”. I have always slipped my stitches knitwise unless told otherwise by the pattern. So I purled one, put the yarn the other side of the work and slipped one stitch knitwise then moved the yarn again and purled …so on and on…

The result was that I had managed to lash each slipped stitch and make a much denser heel than normal.

I’m not sure if you can see here?? There’s a bar between the colums of knit stitches in the rib..

At least I did the same on both socks and I think I kinda like it.

In all, they have been a great pattern to knit - I’m not a serious sock knitter but these were a well thought out pattern and fun to make.

My big problem now is what to take on the train to knit next week?

When I started my second Hedera Sock. I was irritated to find 4 or 5 points in the yarn where it appeared that one strand of the two had broken - lots of joins at the start of the sock

I dismissed it as a manufacturing problem.

Then when working on Emily, I had one ball with the same problem every 2 meters or so. The other balls were OK and it had been  a factory sealed pack of yarn.

Another manufacturing problem?? I started to feel uneasy.

I asked the ladies on the Angelyarns forum what they thought….

We kinda concluded it wasn’t the most evil and heinous of creatures - it was a fault in the yarn. A scary coincidence.

Phew.

Then I decided to wash the blanket in Thug’s basket, where he spends most of his time, like this

Cat in a Basket - all he needs are a few chips and some tomato ketchup!

Under the blanket is an old feather cushion inside pure wool cushion cover I made years ago from a Kaffe Fasset, Tumbling blocks Rowan Membership gift - I love my cats enough to let them sleep on my intarsia

I lifted up the blanket and…

EEEK!

Yup - it’s moth damage -unless my readers can tell me otherwise?? There’s no chewed up wool or evidence of moths except the holes.

I am horrified. I might be infested. I have hundreds of pounds worth of yarn, possibly being devoured by merciless moth larvae. I have wool suits and cashmere jumpers !!!!

Much as I liked my Kaffe Fasset cushion - it has gone in the dustbin. Thinking about it - it was a perfect luxury hotel for moths. They like dark (covered by blanket), warm (by radiator), feathers (in cushion), animal fur (readily deposited by Thug) and Wool.
I promise to buy Thug a new synthetic cushion for under his blankie.

I now have inspected everything I can think of and found no further evidence of moths.

Every wardrobe and stash repository (lots of those!) has a few cedar balls.

I have spent a fortune on ziplock bags (I used the food ones from Lakeland) and have hermetically sealed all my pure fibres in plastic.

It slowly dawned on my that the two balls of yarn I’d had problems with had been stashed in the same box on top of my wardrobe…

It’s an Ikea cardboard box with a big hole either end forming a handle - easy access and nice a warm for “Mothy” up there by the ceiling too.

And the factory sealed pack? It has “air holes” at regular intervals - oh Thanks, Rowan

All the yarn in the box is now in plastic too.

Schrödinger (the little ginger cuddly cat) is guarding the box from future invasion (armed with cedar balls)

BTW, He’s called Schrödinger because he lives in a box. It’s a particle physics joke!

I’ll keep you posted if I find any more damage.

What do you knit for a very Geeky man (I say that affectionately) who has everything knitted he wants and a couple of items over that requirement?

“Nothing!” I hear you cry, “Knit  for yourself!”

Hmmmm…that might work but I’m a generous soul….some people even call me “pushy”…

“You need a lovely scarf now the weather is turning cold” says Susan, jealously remembering the lovely Alpaca scarf her friend Anita is making for her husband.

“No I don’t!” says Ben. “I’ll look like an pillock in a scarf and I’d probably loose it anyway - then you’d kill me.”

Hmm…he has a point… I would kill him if he lost a lovingly hand crafted scarf!

At this point Susan sulks - her generosity has been rejected.

Ben redeems himself…

“Honey…would you knit me something? I need a cover for my new Ipaq smartphone, PDA, gadgetty thing? ”

This is the beast requiring dressing..

Ben had exacting requirements - mainly based on the rejection of the commercially available cases for PDAs which are garish, franchised and double the size and weight of the carefully designed phone:-

• It must be stretchy and grip the phone.
• It must fit snugly.
• It must not be bulky.
• It must reach to the top of the phone but not enclose it.
• It must not have big seams.
• It must be plain and totally devoid of embellishment.
• It must be a “blokey” colour - preferably black.

Gulp - could I stand the excitement?

Hmmm. Black you say? I have some black Jaeger Siena…

After a couple of false starts, I ended up with a tube of K1, P1 rib in Jaeger Siena (Mercerised 4 ply cotton) on 2.5mm dpns. I used a longtail cast on (so it would be stretchy) and had decreased halfway down the tube so it was more “grippy at the base. I  carefully shaped the corners to match the phones gentle curves. I’d then grafted the bottom edge with Kitchener stitch.

This was it…

Inspiring huh?

Ben was really pleased! He used the “phone cosy” all the time (the best compliment) and even showed his colleagues. His geeky colleagues were impressed and even uttered the evil phrase that haunts us hand knitters, “You could sell these!” If they understood the cost in materials and time and skill they would never say that.

Then it went a bit wrong.

I  had made a blunder choosing cotton. Cotton doesn’t have much “memory”. When it stretches, it stays stretched. Ben’s phone cosy was getting saggy and baggy. Not the right look for the Geeky executive about town!

Ben looked at me imploringly (using techniques learnt from Thug and Mewsley). How could I refuse to make Mk2 Phone cosy?

This time I consulted my stash for a yarn that would be “sproingy” when knit into a rib. I also needed a blokey colour.

The winner of the stash trawl was a part ball of Rowan 4 ply soft (100% Merino wool) left over from making Eveleen in a very dark, bluey grey.

I decided this was the best excuse to use my new Lantern Moon 2.25mm Sox Stix to make the gauge a bit tighter. I also abandoned the “decrease halfway down” idea - it just looked bad and didn’t really help grip.

Here’s my final pattern:-

Materials

2.25mm dpns

1/4 ball Rowan 4 ply soft

Pattern

Cast on 52 stitches using long tail cast on.

Knit in the round in K1, P1 rib for 11cm.

Shape corners:

Next row: k2togtbl, K1,K2tog, K21,k2togtbl, K1,K2tog,K19 (48 st)

Next row: K1, P1 rib (matching knits and purls to existing rib)

Next row: k2togtbl, K1,K2tog, K19,k2togtbl, K1,K2tog,K17 (44st)

Next row: K1, P1 rib (matching knits and purls to existing rib)

Next row: k2togtbl, K1,K2tog, K17,k2togtbl, K1,K2tog,K15 (40st)

Divide remaining stitches between two needles with decreases at the ends and kitchener stitch together.

Darn in ends.

Want to see the finished beast?

Lovingly Kitchenered base?

“Half dressed” shot

Ben is really pleased !