Wednesday, August 31, 2016

August craftiness

With the massive destash done, my yarny stash has drastically shrunk to a much more manageable size. It felt so good to let all of that yarn go! This is my new, much, much smaller stash:


Yes, the cabinet I once hoped would hold my entire yarn stash now holds all of it plus my drum carder, serger and some sewing supplies too! I love my new smaller stash. 😄 There's still plenty to play around with and be inspired by, but not so much that it feels overwhelming anymore. 

Ravelry organizes the Ravellenics to coincide with the Olympics and until this year, I'd never participated. But for some reason (likely due to the start following my huge destash), this time it relit my crafting bug and I jumped right in. I started with just one small goal, finish one shawl as part of the Shawl Sailing event so I pulled out three skeins of stash from 2009 (it's about time!) and started on a garter stitch shawl formed by knitting a billion (only slightly exaggerating here) short rows:

Eyre of Romance Jane Shawl by Kay Meadors


This was a great choice for knitting while distracted by the various Olympic events. Simple to keep track of where I was but not so simple that I got completely bored of it. Details here.

As I was finishing up the shawl, I took advantage of the Frogging Trampoline event and pulled out the Shalom cardigan I finished last year but never did even weave in the ends because I just didn't love it. The cardigan is now once again a pile of skeins with lots of potential:


Once the shawl was done, I still had a week of Ravellenics fun left, so I jumped into the pool with a braid of faux cashmere for some for Synchronized Spinning:


I split the braid roughly in half lengthwise and then plied the two singles together so the colors would mostly line up. Still inspired, I chose another shawl pattern and quickly knit up this:

Spring Garden Kerchief by Clare Lakewood


This was my first experience with faux cashmere. Not bad, but I won't be buying any more. Faux cashmere is nylon and I'm trying to stick with just natural, plant-based yarns and fiber from here on. This braid had been in my stash awhile though so I'm glad it has finally reached its potential. It sat in my stash since 2013 but its journey from fluff to shawl? Five days. (Info on the pattern and fiber can be found here.) Be warned, there is an error in the written directions for this shawlette. I've noted the correction on my project page and let the designer know, but it doesn't appear that the file has been corrected yet.

With only a couple days remaining, I decided I wanted one more project so I grabbed the remainder of the yarn from the Eyre of Romance shawl and knit up a quick hat for the Hat Dash event:

Kitkat Hat by Andre Sue

Super simple and quick! (Info here.) And with that, my 2016 Ravellenics Games were complete.

I thought after all that, I'd be all knitted out, but I quickly got the urge to cast on again and used Ravelry's awesome pattern search function to find my next project. I decided I wanted to use some stash from 2013 and used that yardage/weight to search. The first result? This shawl I'd seen ages ago, wanted to knit and... then forgot about:

Pfeilraupe by Alpi Alpenrose
I'm past the halfway point now and the rows are finally getting shorter! This will likely be the first of my donation shawls for 2017. (Pattern/yarn info here.) Another warning here, the shawl is quite simple to knit. The most difficult part about this shawl is deciphering the pattern instructions. The written instructions aren't incredibly clear and the charts aren't completely accurate. Between the two though, you can get the gist of it and as long as it's close, no one would know anyway. Garter stitch is forgiving! I may eventually make another from this pattern to keep.

So, that's it for August! See you next month for another crafty update. Until then...

Craft what makes you happy!

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