Knitting stocktake

I think I'm due a win on the knitting front, and am very happy with my work this week, if for no other reason than they are for me - and that is almost never the case when I knit!

After a number of modifications and corrections to the rubbish pattern provided in the kit, I have a pair of fingerless mittens, perfect for sketching in cold museums. The yarn is Rowan Silky Tweed - a combination of lambswool and silk, and it's exceptionally soft - but unfortunately also discontinued now.

I wasn't sure about the colour, but a couple of Cath Kidston buttons cheered them up.

I also finished my mohair scarf, and it's so lovely and light but warm to wear, I just used the entire ball of wool and then picked up the cast on stitches with the cast off  to form a loop. It's long enough to wear doubled, or even tripled, and deep enough to wear over my head and secured around the neck - like a hood, perfect for under my biggest winter coat when it's icy and snowing.

Whilst looking for other mitten patterns I was browsing Ravelry, which I've briefly looked at before - but now I'm converted. I don't think I've ever come across such a user friendly, suited to purpose system (and as that used to be part of my previous career, I'm doubly surprised) - and it's free! If you knit, or crochet, or have an interest in starting it's a fabulous resource of patterns to download, free or to buy. You can see other knitters comments on the pattern - if they found it difficult, errors they found, how it fitted etc, and see their photos. Always a bonus if you're not the stick figure the knitting companies use in the pictures - nothing worse than spending months knitting a jumper to find it just does not work on curves!

As a member (free to join), there are tools for recording all your needles, hooks, patterns and yarn stash. List's to create from both Ravelry and your own patterns, of what you're making and future plans. You can shuffle the order, add 'due dates' and notes, and it automatically matches up your recorded stash yarns with your wish list patterns to recommend what you've already got to make the item! Wizard!

 

So, there went my entire weekend. Starting Friday by pulling out all the various yarns I have managed to stash in the three years I've lived here (aka stop hiding it all behind the couch and face the truth). I did self impose a ban on any further yarn purchases at the beginning of this year, and with good reason.

 

 

Firstly I entered all the yarns in the stash function. Then all my patterns and books in the library function (loved this, I can see at a glance online all the patterns I own in hardcopy). Then all my needles, along the way finding that I'd lost two?

 

Saturday and Sunday - between weekendy things and lots of coffees, I matched up all my stash with desired patterns, owned or downloaded free from Ravelry, and ordered them in my Ravelry queue. Bagged and tagged and ready to start. To be fair, at this point I was starting to think I could have knitted a whole garment by now.  

 

 

Now the previously exploding pile of bags behind the couch are condensed down to one neat tub, no need to rummage as I even put them in the tub in order of the Ravelry queue. Ironically the very first project I chose to start required one of the missing needles. So after tidying away all the yarn there was a lot of crawling on carpet looking under couches and shelves. Raiding bags that have carried knitting projects in the past, and then looking in more and more random places. Both needles were eventually located - one down the side of the couch, and the other in the boot of the car (that one took some thought). So project number one in my queue is underway!