Stash Contaminants: Part One
I'm having a bit of Stash Guilt. I don't exactly hoard yarn. It's not taking over the house, and I have a long way to go before I have to hide it in the freezer or the piano. But there's a fair bit of strange stuff I've picked up because it was On Sale. I shouldn't do this because as often as not I end up with yarn I wasn't so gung-ho about in the first place, and then if I don't use it I feel guilty, and when I do use it, it's purely out of obligation.
Enter exhibit A, the ugly pink baby cardigan:
(%^&#ing Blogger is having real issues uploading pictures this morning...maybe Blogger likes this one about as much as I do. I'll just post without it and try to fix it later.)
What is the yarn? A crunchy mauve-ish pinkish wool/acrylic/nylon DK by Sirdar that I picked up in the sale bin at The Knitting Tree. I think the five skeins were $10, and I just couldn't help myself. I got it thinking it would be a nice baby gift for someone who didn't want to bother with hand-washing baby garments. Now I'm thinking I should add "color blind" and "hands so calloused they don't care that the sweater feels like it's made from spun cardboard" to the criteria because, to put it mildly, I'm not fond of this yarn. Why bother knitting it up, then? Because I don't want it to contaminate my stash any longer and I'm feeling guilty for buying yarn and not using it. I wouldn't want any potential recipients to think I chose this yarn because I like it, so it may end up going to charity. (Do you ever feel sorry for the receiving end of charity knitting? I bet they get stuck with a lot of duds...but I digress...)
Exhibit B, the fun fur scarf:
I know the blog description says I don't "do" fun fur. Using big-ass needles (in this case, size 11) isn't my favorite, either. Besides that, the colors are all wrong for me - I can't wear any shade of orange without looking like I'm afflicted with some terrible disease of the liver. Why am I even in possession of this stuff? I fell prey to the sale bin. *Sigh* In my defense, it was in a bag of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that was 1/2 off (closing sale at Coyote Yarns this past spring), so I had to get the whole bag to get the Cotton Fleece. (I've got more to say about that Cotton Fleece, but this post is already getting long, so I'll save it. Bet you can't wait.) I put the two skeins of fun fur (I think it's by Skacel) on the bookcase, where they and I had a staring contest that lasted a few months. I pondered the best way to get rid of it. Goodwill? Nah, that wouldn've been a cop-out. A felted fuzzy bag? I have very little fashion sense, but even I know better than that. Felted mittens with fur-trimmed cuffs? I could just see that turning out badly. So there it sat, challenging me to come up with a way to use it that wouldn't, well, suck.
Last night I was experiencing some knitting frustration: burn-out on the gift projects, utter lack of motivation to plow through more of that ugly pink baby cardigan (someone remind me why I chose a garter stitch pattern anyway!), and the need for some instant gratification. I found some deep rust-colored wool from an abandoned project of my mom's (yet another post for someday), some big-ass needles, an easy drop-stitch garter scarf pattern in Melissa Mathay's Little Box of Scarves, and got going.
Here's the thing: despite the fact that it's fun fur on big needles in colors I can't wear (but given my questionable fashion sense, I might anyway) and the slight resemblance to cat barf, I'm really enjoying this project. It's going lickety-split, the yarn combo is super-soft, and the pattern is really fun. (You yo after every stitch, then drop all the yos on the next row.) It feels indulgent, like eating a gigantic piece of chocolate cake instead of a serving of brussel sprouts.
As long as I'm in this knitting funk, I think I'll make this Stash Contaminants thing a series. If nothing else, it might help get rid of some yarn I probably never should have bought in the first place!
Enter exhibit A, the ugly pink baby cardigan:
(%^&#ing Blogger is having real issues uploading pictures this morning...maybe Blogger likes this one about as much as I do. I'll just post without it and try to fix it later.)
What is the yarn? A crunchy mauve-ish pinkish wool/acrylic/nylon DK by Sirdar that I picked up in the sale bin at The Knitting Tree. I think the five skeins were $10, and I just couldn't help myself. I got it thinking it would be a nice baby gift for someone who didn't want to bother with hand-washing baby garments. Now I'm thinking I should add "color blind" and "hands so calloused they don't care that the sweater feels like it's made from spun cardboard" to the criteria because, to put it mildly, I'm not fond of this yarn. Why bother knitting it up, then? Because I don't want it to contaminate my stash any longer and I'm feeling guilty for buying yarn and not using it. I wouldn't want any potential recipients to think I chose this yarn because I like it, so it may end up going to charity. (Do you ever feel sorry for the receiving end of charity knitting? I bet they get stuck with a lot of duds...but I digress...)
Exhibit B, the fun fur scarf:
I know the blog description says I don't "do" fun fur. Using big-ass needles (in this case, size 11) isn't my favorite, either. Besides that, the colors are all wrong for me - I can't wear any shade of orange without looking like I'm afflicted with some terrible disease of the liver. Why am I even in possession of this stuff? I fell prey to the sale bin. *Sigh* In my defense, it was in a bag of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that was 1/2 off (closing sale at Coyote Yarns this past spring), so I had to get the whole bag to get the Cotton Fleece. (I've got more to say about that Cotton Fleece, but this post is already getting long, so I'll save it. Bet you can't wait.) I put the two skeins of fun fur (I think it's by Skacel) on the bookcase, where they and I had a staring contest that lasted a few months. I pondered the best way to get rid of it. Goodwill? Nah, that wouldn've been a cop-out. A felted fuzzy bag? I have very little fashion sense, but even I know better than that. Felted mittens with fur-trimmed cuffs? I could just see that turning out badly. So there it sat, challenging me to come up with a way to use it that wouldn't, well, suck.
Last night I was experiencing some knitting frustration: burn-out on the gift projects, utter lack of motivation to plow through more of that ugly pink baby cardigan (someone remind me why I chose a garter stitch pattern anyway!), and the need for some instant gratification. I found some deep rust-colored wool from an abandoned project of my mom's (yet another post for someday), some big-ass needles, an easy drop-stitch garter scarf pattern in Melissa Mathay's Little Box of Scarves, and got going.
Here's the thing: despite the fact that it's fun fur on big needles in colors I can't wear (but given my questionable fashion sense, I might anyway) and the slight resemblance to cat barf, I'm really enjoying this project. It's going lickety-split, the yarn combo is super-soft, and the pattern is really fun. (You yo after every stitch, then drop all the yos on the next row.) It feels indulgent, like eating a gigantic piece of chocolate cake instead of a serving of brussel sprouts.
As long as I'm in this knitting funk, I think I'll make this Stash Contaminants thing a series. If nothing else, it might help get rid of some yarn I probably never should have bought in the first place!
Comments
Love ya girlie!