Wow….it has been almost a month since my last post. It’s amazing how a day slips into a week, slips into far too long.
To those of you who have stuck around, thank you! I hope you had a great *insert winter festival of choice here* and new years.
I’ve been up to my eyeballs with work and non-work stuff since I last updated. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will say that our Blitz party on New Years Eve went down very well, and inspired me to get some knitting done!
I did some pre-party rummaging around, and found that the American Red Cross issued patterns during WW2. Knitting to keep the troops warm, effectively. These are based off servicemens gloves. Nice and thick to keep the hands warm, while leaving the fingers free to deal with whatever horrendous task was assigned that day.
I’ve modified these quite a bit from the original pattern, because I hate seaming. The gauges are also given for yarn that doesn’t exist anymore, or for yarns and needle sizes that have no conversions. I think they turned out rather well in the end, if I do say so myself.
I’ll be making up another few pairs over the next month, and will have the pattern available to whoever wants it then. I’ll also have an optional modification available, that will allow the gloves to be strung together or worn as are.
Why the modification?
It may have something to do with the fact that less than a week after these photos were taken, one of the gloves had been lost. I can’t feel annoyed though, as HusBeast was upset/peeved/frustrated enough for both of us. Happily my ever-growing stash has another skein of the same dye lot in it, so it won’t be any real bother to make up a second one…and a long string like little kids have that will go up the sleeves and across the shoulders. Not me being precious about my knitting though. This was entirely his suggestion. We don’t have sock brownies in our house, you see. We have glove brownies. Apparently they prefer warm hands to warm feet.
Speaking of stash, I’ve updated things on Ravelry. Lots of new entries, sans photo unfortunately. I’m still camera-less (it’s almost a year!) and the light these days just isn’t good enough for my cameraphone to deal with. Hopefully I’ll “acquire” housemates camera at the weekend for long enough to catch up with things.
The photos are the least of it, to be honest. I haven’t really bought yarn in months. I think I’ve bought……10 skeins since the end of the summer. 7 of those were bargain bin skeins of Rowan Felted Tweed, and 2 full price ones to make up a Tangled Yoke that will circumnavigate the boobages. The other was a skein of the new Kaffe Fassett designed-for-Rowan ColourScene. It’s pretty damn expensive, but lurvely. One of the most expensive skeins I’ve bought to date, actually, which is scary. Will make a great hat though. Probably another Urchin, seeing how I’ve fallen in love with the pattern.
Still, I digress.
I think after major destashing, that I have at least a blank photo and a yardage for everything in my stash up on Ravelry.
I have hit SABLE in a crazy way. I have 26 FRICKING MILES of yarn. Ok, a 50g skein short of 26 miles.
Considering how little knitting I’m really getting done lately (I blame the large number of books that I got for Christmas. Must figure out how to read and knit at the same time without damaging either the book or the wip.) it’s a stash that’s gonna keep me going until retirement. Or until I go completely batshit some day and give 90% of it away.
It’s getting easier to part with. So is a lot of the “stuff” I own. The clearing out continues. The big black bin bags (trash can liners) in my hall have become a permanent feature, full of things that are to go to various people and places are not me. Even more terrifying - I’ve been culling books. Books! Now don’t get me wrong, I still have enough of them to open my own store, but the shelves are getting far less packed these days. There are 2 moving boxes of the little buggers on the landing, ready for departure, and another 2 boxes that need reading by someone in the house (we read a huge amount of the same kind of stuff) before making their way to the landing.
It feels fantastic. Once I got over the initial feeling (it’s not actually like selling your first born. Not that I have one of those or anything) it has just been liberating. The really bizarre thing is that the more stuff I give away, the more stuff I want to give away. It seems that I’ve finally managed to shed my urge to hoard things til doomsday (one of the less than win things I inherited from my mother).
For any Irish readers who might be interested, I’ll be sticking a link up soon to the ginormous list of books (and possibly yarn) up for grabs. It’s a mixed bag, but someone might be interested. I’d bookmooch them, but I have a load of points built up there, and none of the books I’m after seem to come up with any sort of regularity.
That was rather longwinded. A lesson in GaietyGirl needs to get off her butt and blog more regularly if ever I saw one.
Sorry it has been so long. Forgive me?
I am addicted to these little feckers.
Pretty, ain’t they?
