flash your stash, three months on.

My stash in January.
Rather big, I know, even more so if you consider that I've only been knitting intensively for the last three years or so. But one of my new year's resolutions was to reduce it's size. And because I intend to keep that resolution, I'm going to flash it every three months, to keep it under control.

My stash today.
It seems to have shrunk a bit, which is definitely a good thing. The black and grey yarn is still there, and it probably won't budge now until autumn/winter, but as long as it gets used before the and of the year it should be okay. The three remaining skeins of white yarn will be used shortly, as will at least one of blue-white-metallic ones.

The Miró blanket keeps growing. I thought the result would be rather small in the beginning as I'm using the yarn held double, but it's already rather big and I still have 4 skeins left...
I've also started a new pair of socks for my mother. my next break-time WIP, which I will be needing, as the last term starts tomorrow... Oh well, before I realize it, the summer will be upon us ;)
Mnz

holiday knitting

Remember that white yarn that I didn't have a project for? Well, it told me it would like to be a blanket. I listened to it and thought for a while. We'd just received our exam plan for June, and I read that for the Aesthetics exam we'd have to produce a work of art inspired by a twentieth century artist. The art could be of any form: drawing, painting, music, dance, textiles,... Wait a minute: did it say 'textiles'? It did.

So, my choice was made fairly quickly. I was going to knit something. Next problem: what could I knit? While I was analysing my stash, I heard the call of the white yarn again. The choice was made. I'm going to knit a white blanket and use it as a canvas to recreate a work of art.The perfect pattern? One that has been in my queue for some time: the famous 'Ten Stitch Blanket'. I'm using the yarn held double and knitting with 7 mm needles. It's not the perfect mindless knit as you have to look at it to see where you need to pick up the stitch to join, but hey, it's good enough!

I plan to leave the spiral side as it is, and do some embroidery on the 'wrong side' to turn it into a 'work of art'. I'm not 100% sure of my artist, but my favourite -and my original- idea was to do something in the style of Miró. On the one hand because he was Spanish (yes, Catalan still counts as Spanish) and he's not that famous in Belgium, on the other hand simply because I like his paintings. I like the idea that art doesn't necessarily have to represent a certain object. As long as it's aesthetically pleasing, it's fine on me. Another reason for my choice is that it shouldn't be too difficult to crochet/embroider something in the style of one of his 'Constellation' paintings onto the blanket.




I've also finished my first pair of autumn socks. When I took the photo they still had to be grafted and have the ends woven in, but that has been done since and the socks are on my feet at this very moment. Autumnal socks for spring. Sort of sounds like singing Christmas carols in summer, slightly weird, but hey, the socks are comfy, so who cares?

Mnz

March

 March is over and that means the holidays are back again :)
 Due to an amazing amount of schoolwork I've only been able to do half the usual amount of knitting, but I plan to make up for that during the holidays...
I finished the Wingspan shawl and I must say I think the construction is pure genius. It's so simple and yet it looks so spectacular (to non-knitters mostly, people who knit themselves tend to see the construction quite easily) I think I might knit another one next autumn because I'm a bit disappointed about the colour outcome. I wanted a green shawlette and this one turned out rather blue. It's not that I dislike that, but I just want a green shawlette, that's all...

The blanket is also progressing.
I've sewn seven squares to date, I've now posted photo's of six because I dropped one off at my grandmothers without taking a photo of it. I've now decided how the colours are combined within the blocks, but I'm still thinking about how to put the blocks together in the blanket as a whole. There will be 3 squares composed of different blues, 2 with pinks and purples and 2 green and brown and then one grey and turquoise-green (in Dutch they have a fantastic word for that colour: 'appelblauwzeegroen' or 'appleblueseagreen' which always amuses me as, in the normal world, the apples tend to be green and the sea blue) and one red and white. It won't exactly be what you might call stylish, but hey, the recipient wanted it to look home-made. And what looks more home-made that a slightly mismatched monster blanket?

I've also started a new jumper, a little 'printemps' cardigan. The method used to shape the sleeves is a new one on me, we'll see how they turn out.
 I've had the yarn in my stash for some years now and although I like the colours, I never really knew what to do with it given the quantity of yarn in the pack (400 gr.): not enough for a full sweater, but too much for a little shrug, although it seams that I might have got a -more or less- full sweater out of it as, at this stage, I still have 2 & 1/3 skeins of yarn left... Anyway, it's not finished yet, so we'll see.

Termtime also means socktime. Blocking my autumn shawl reminded me that I had some of that yarn left, but I wasn't sure whether it would be enough to knit a pair of stripey socks, so I divided the leftover ball into bits. Apparently I failed to keep them in the right order ;) Anyway, the second sock is on the needles, but I can't find the camera at the moment, so no photo yet.
A quarter of the year has passed now, so I'll be flashing my stash again at the end of the holidays to check my destashing progress.
Mnz