Stash Down 2011

This year I have been doing a bit of a stash down attempt. Basically I looked at my Coal bunker and thought that i should reduce the amount of items I have in it.  I have fabrics that are 20 years old sitting there waiting to do something about it.  I want to get the shelves down considerably so I am not overflowing.  Some of the stash has been shared with a local charity shop as I was honest with self that I was never going to use it at all.  Part of my stash includes fabrics stashed by my grandmother.  Nothing like inheriting stash.

So far this year everything has been knitted, sewed or crocheted from the stash. I have mainly only done minor purchases such as lining for daughter Carnaby skirt and buttons. These purchases have not ended up as stash but rather helped the stash to enter into the wonderful world of being finished projects. The one yarn purchase I have done this year was some crochet thread so I could do a surprise project for the daughter.  This project is currently on the back burner since daughter is on holidays so I can not seem to get anything done without her putting her sticky beak in.

After the tour de fleece I have a lot handspun which I will be using for projects but when I sorted out the coal bunker I noticed I still had a lot of hand spun which I had not found a use for.  So as part of the stash down I want use up my hand spun as much as possible.  The Moorlit fleece which is a now a nice yarn will need to get a decent photo before I knit it up into a cardi for hubby. This will be his Christmas pressie this year.  I still have the 500gms of BFL in a Mocha which I will have to work out what I am going to use it for.  There Shetland braid from Wonkyknitter which I had in the stash which was spun and then knitted into a Haurni shawl.  I have blocked it but I will need to re block it as I wont ask the children what happened.  We have reached August and I have not done a major yarn purchase it is amazing.  

Sock yarn wise I am almost getting to the bare cupboard situation. Currently I am knitting some socks in some King Cole Zig Zag that I had in the stash which I had regretted purchasing. The stash down attitude has helped me to use this yarn cause I had in the past gone meh, not that keen to use.  The yarn has too short of yarn colour change and I am not enamoured with it.  Additionally I don't think the yarn is particularly sympathetic to the pattern and it would have probably better knit in a plain coloured yarn. As I am knitting my H pattern in the yarn which is top down design I a suddenly hit upon a solution. Don't make the socks for me.  Make them for someone who will like the colours.  Simples! My sock foot is suddenly shorted from a size 8.5 to a tiddly 3.5.  Sanity back in check and the feeling of absolute relief when I get the first sock done.   But I still have a second sock to finish.  Must knit this second sock now to brake the chance of a large hiatus or the dreaded second sock syndrome.