March 03, 2006
Scraping the Bottom of the Knitting Barrel
(Please, God, tell me that some other knitter has done something as ridiculous as this or, preferably, worse… Whoever it is, I will love him or her with an undying love until the end of my days.)
About a month ago, I decided to knit one of the sweaters for Guidepost’s Knit For Kids charity knitting program because they had been so generous to Dulaan. (Remember these children wearing KFK sweaters?) True, this is like taking coals to Newcastle, especially since KFK might simply turn around and donate the sweater to Dulaan, but it was a symbolic gesture I felt compelled to make. Since the single sweater pattern that KFK uses is tres basic—garter stitch, followed by garter stitch, followed by, hey!, more garter stitch—I felt multi-colored stripes would greatly up the entertainment value. However, I didn’t have enough different colors in the same yarn in my stash to make enough of a variety of stripes...
Gulp.
I can do this...
I can make this admission...
Which is why I knit the multi-colored sweater. Not to make something for Dulaan. Not to knit a sweater. Not to knit that particular pattern. Not to use the Quatro. Not to have something to knit in the car. But in order to generate more leftover balls of yarn. To generate more half-used stash. On purpose.
I feel so ashamed.
The only thing I’ve done that even closely matches this inanity was the time I put a ball of yarn, which had fallen into some garden mulch and which I had carefully picked clean, back into the mulch just to get a picture for the blog. Yes, it’s that sort of thing.
By the by, for those of you who are interested in knitting the multi-colored sweater and are planning on stash-diving for the yarn to make it, I made the 12-18 month size and I used about 1/2 to 2/3 each of three balls of Cascade 220—so, don’t quote me on this, but I would say you need about 110 to 145 yards each of three colors of worsted weight yarn to knit the largest size of this pattern. The back of the sweater and one of the front panels are the same color so you will use more of one color than the other two, hence the 2/3rds and the 145 yards vs. the 1/2 and 110 yards.
Quiet weekend planned. Tonight, we’re going to play pool and snack on ‘burgers with friends (although I have to say, these occasional visits to the slightly seamier side of town have lost a lot of their attraction ever since Seattle banned all indoor smoking. When you go to a bar, when you go to a “pool hall,” you expect to walk into, you anticipate walking into a room filled with a gray haze, a place that smells at least a little like underbelly, a little sordid, a little disreputable. That’s half of the fun, half of the pull. But, no, you could eat off the floor of this place, partly because it’s brand spanking new, and partly because of the ban. It’s just not quite the slummin’ we're used to. But at least they make up for it with the best day-um burgers in town.)
The rest of the weekend will be spent picking away at the house and the garden because we will be having Very Special Visitors during the first week in April—Rachael and Lala, the soon-to-be-newlyweds! They will be schlepping down for a few days during their stay in Vancouver, B.C. I suspect all four of us are thinking, “How slightly weird is this? We don’t even know each other!,” but I also suspect Janine, who has bounced back and forth between Seattle and California, has vouched to all of us for all of us. Besides—and I keep forgetting this—by the time they come up here we will know them because we will have been down to California for their first ceremony.
Now, I’m sure Rachael’s thinking—because she has, in fact, said this to me—don’t clean the house on our account but, Dear Rach, if you could see how much moss has grown on the driveway this winter... I refer you to the name of this blog. ‘Nuff said.
I suspect that you will love meeting Rachael and La and I also suspect that the house cleaning will be appreciated since I understand about moss and all :) I'm getting excited myself and expect to see you at Ferals soon so you can meet the real Mot!
Maybe this is a personal failing on my part, but I just don't see the problem with stash aquisition for the sake of stash aquisition. Then again, I don't have the good influence of a Cuzzin Tom.
Posted by: Elaine on March 3, 2006 02:36 PMI just died laughing (well, not really) with your story about the sweater. I read it to my husband, and he didn't get it. All he said was, "Don't get any ideas about growing a stash." Oh well, what he doesn't know won't hurt him...
Posted by: Carrie on March 3, 2006 02:38 PMWell, see, Carrie and Elaine--why this is different and weird was because rather than plain old stash acquisition for the sake of stash acquisition, this was knitting purely to create leftover balls of yarn!!!
Posted by: Ryan on March 3, 2006 02:47 PMWait - there's something _wrong_ with knitting four extra pairs of socks that no one really needed just so I could have nine different colors of leftover sockweight yarn for my daughter's Solar System Sox? Because obviously no two planets could be the same color, and I found recipients for the socks...
Posted by: Tee on March 3, 2006 03:22 PMTee, there you are! The kindred spirit I was looking for who made me feel not quite like such a doof!
Posted by: Ryan on March 3, 2006 03:35 PMRyan, check out VIPfibers.com! It's a site about spinning animal hair and they have all kinds of neat "memory" project ideas to remember your pet.
Posted by: debbie on March 3, 2006 07:33 PMoh. my. god. Tee, I want that pattern...
(I feel a rather large sock yarn purchase coming on...)
Posted by: Lee Ann on March 3, 2006 08:35 PMNo, I got it, Ryan. (My husband didn't, but I suspect he wasn't really listening. Surprise!) Now what I want to know is, did you use all the very last bits of the green, yellow and pink in the striped sweater? If not, what are you going to do with THOSE tiny little leftovers? ;-)
Posted by: Carrie on March 4, 2006 09:14 AMI haven't done the add-to-the-stash thing... The closest I've come is finishing a carton of ice cream, replacing it and eating down to where it would have been if I hadn't finished it.
Oh, and one of the first times I read your blog was when you re-mulched your yarn. I totally understand.
Oh, I'm with you! After I used up all the wool scraps in my not-very-big stash, and after I had begged for wool scraps from a friend who was moving her (VERY BIG) stash and used that up, I made a new "rule" that I could buy yarn from the discount bin (60% off) as long as there was only one ball of it -- since that wouldn't be enough to make anything "real," it's obviously immediately available for hats for cold children!
Ah, justification. Great, hunh?
Posted by: MaryB in Richmond on March 5, 2006 06:09 AMI am with you on the stash acquisition. I have quite the collection of wool scraps for felting. I am actually more likely to pick a wool yarn for something, just so I have more yarn to felt with later!
Posted by: BEak on March 5, 2006 06:22 AMI do that, sometimes. It's called "planned-overs" at my house, though. ;)
I'm up to 7 hats finished, now, and am heading into toddler sweaters and pants.
Posted by: Lisa A on March 5, 2006 07:39 AMI like Lisa A's term, planned-overs! Nothing wrong with that. :)
Here's a link to a version of that T-top sweater pattern that has a photo, in case anyone else is as "visually challenged" as I am -
http://www.dailyguideposts.com/giveaways/ClassicT-Top.pdf
Posted by: Denise in Kent, WA on March 5, 2006 10:49 AMWell, gosh Ryan, I really don't see that is a problem. I mean, you were going to knit something with that yarn eventually. And when you did there would probably be leftovers. But this would all happen at some unknown point in the future. I don't see anything wrong at all with getting your leftovers now, when you NEED them. In fact, I think it was pretty damn smart.
Furthermore, you just might be a genius. ...Maybe
Would you mind sharing the name of this pool hall? We've missed playing pool and I'm always game to try a burger to see if it can displace my current favorite...
Posted by: bethieee on March 7, 2006 06:01 PMBehind! So behiiiiind! But you blogged it, yay!
xo