What Happens To Your Stash When You Die

A few weeks ago a knitting buddy passed away. She hadn't been well, but I hadn't realized she had taken a turn for the worse. Then, just this past weekend, a bunch of us were alerted that her stash was going to be dismantled.

Cathy had been quite thorough with her documentation of her stash on ravelry. I decided that the best way to remember her would be to knit a pair of socks that she had planned to make, but didn't get to. Only a few queued sock patterns had yarn ideas assigned to them. Cathy and I had bonded over color work socks, so when I saw that the Swedish Fish pattern was one with an assigned yarn, I made it my mission to find the skein of Baltic and Warm Maize in Tosh sock in her enormous stash. (She had over 1700 entries, not just skeins, on ravelry) Luckily I had some help and eventually was able to find each skein. I got a little teary when I saw that the skein of Baltic had already been wound.

I pulled out some other skeins while I was there. Most notably a skein of Baah La Jolla in Burmese Ruby. Cathy had the best taste in reds.

I also left with a sweater quantity of Brooklyn Tweed's Loft in Meteorite and Artifact to make another Pente. Cathy was one of the group of us who made a Pente together. She was the one who coined the term "stockinette hell."

Farewell Cathy. I hope that you have already found the yarn shop on the other side. I'm sure you will find the best red over there too.

Yarn Chicken

I wish I could show off a finished sweater. Alas, with three stripes left to go, I've made the classic rookie mistake and run out of yarn. (Note: It doesn't matter how long you've been knitting, sometime when you play yarn chicken, you crash and burn.) 

When I bought the yarn I hadn't planned to make any modifications. But when knitting, I thought I'd extend the sleeves to full length rather than three quarter.

Thanks to ravelry, I was able to get another skein out of someone's destash. It isn't the same dye lot, but I've noticed that Brooklyn Tweed does a pretty good job blending their yarns. Like Cascade, it seems to be pretty consistent between skeins.

Hopefully I'll be done with this sweater (Pente) soon!

Stockinette Hell

Last post I showed all my recent yarn acquisitions and Alicia asked what in the world all that Shelter and Loft would become. Well... when Tyler, Christine, Cathy, and I went to A Verb For Keeping Warm last month to look at the Wool People 7 trunk show, I tried on Coda and Pente. (I look good in both.) But the Pente looked particularly good on me. Of course when you are in a crowd of enablers, you aren't going to leave without yarn. So I bought enough to make the sweater, despite Cathy saying, "You know that you are going to be in stockinette hell, right?" Well, the power of wool is strong. Cathy tried on Pente, also looked great in it, and was at the register with her sweater's amount of Loft when I said, "What about stockinette hell?" To which Cathy replied, "Damn."
Long story short, everyone but Tyler is going to make this sweater. We are having an unofficial KAL, starting tomorrow. Cathy has already cheated and started. (I don't care what your justification is, Cathy. You totally started a week early.)

As for the Shelter, these four greys are to test out a blanket design idea I have. All going well, I'll need more yarn. But I thought I'd just get a skein of each to start. It is Snowbound, Sweatshirt, Soot, and Cast Iron.

And this lovely skein of Shelter, in Long Johns, I got to see if I really liked the color enough to make a sweater out of it. They were out at Verb, and my color card can only tell me so much, so I ordered online. I do like it. I probably will make a sweater out of it. But I'll finish some other projects before buying more.