Monday, May 11, 2020

Building with scrappy Blocks

This is again Stephen West shawl, the Building Blocks. I don't remember just when I cast on for this but it was on the needles for a long time.
It is often, that I make a wrong choice or make a mistake and then the progress comes to a stop. The bright orange kept disturbing me all the way to the very end. Almost after every row I stopped to see if that orange had lost any of its glow... but it did not, it kept burning all the way to the end, and it still does.

This shawl uses only scraps from the stash. There are some hand spun skeins too and if you look at this red striped stripe, I have run out of one yarn and just added another one and no one will know.
I made an inventory of my stash this spring. I gathered all my yarns together, sorted them out to boxes, either according the way I am going to use them, like sweater yarns are grouped... or my special, precious skeins are grouped... I put all of these different groupings into their own, designated, numbered boxes. Then I wrote down into a notebook the box number and what is there and how much. I did this to most of my yarns. If there were only bits and pieces left, I did not bother to write down them all but even those I sorted into similar groups.
When I am planning, I will look at my notebook, see what do I have. When I find something I like, I right away know where is that yarn. I am so proud of this system. Finally after all these years, I have a working system. Even though I have more yarn than I realized, I feel good that it is all sorted out and manageable.
This inventory of the stash has also prompted me to use the stash more. I am in love with stranding mohairs with everything I have, so lately I have just bought few skeins of mohair to spice up the old stash.

I thought of doing this for a long time and it did take me days to get it all organized, but in the end it is so worth every hour it took.

Otherwise, we got 4 inches of snow yesterday... it is kind of depressing. It truly is. I had to go to town today to get groceries and I almost could not make it out of the driveway.

Wool with you,
Lene

15 comments:

  1. Oh dear! so sorry about your snow. May?????

    That Stephen West piece is AMAZING!!!

    I have started crocheting Granny Squares (first time in 45+ years) from my left over sock yarn scraps. I'm loving it. I have the bits and bobs in a big basket type thing and just reach in and grab one. Whatever comes out is what I use. Fun~!!!

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    1. Thank you, xx.
      I know, snow in May is so sad. Granny Squares are so much fun to make, I have one crocheted blanket on the making, but slow, very slow progress there. One of these days...

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  2. I love it! The orange brings it to life.

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    1. It does, in the end it found its place! xx

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  3. Lene, it's beautiful.

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  4. The orange is perfect (and I don't as rule, like orange).

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    1. It has earned its place there, somehow in the end the color choices (mostly) work... although, I have made some bad choices too over the years.
      xx

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  5. Your system sounds perfect! At one point a few years ago, I kept an up-to-date Stash on ravelry, which was good but somewhere along the line I let it slide and now I would have to do as you did - gather up all the yarns in the house and organize/record them. It's on my list, but not close to the top although I've been thinking about it since the frustration of not finding the sock yarn I know I have saved to use for a special baby sweater! One "bonus" of that fruitless sock yarn search was that I found the cashmere yarn from Maine that I was beginning to fear I had accidentally donated to a hospice shop in a bag of other yarns. So the searching was not wasted :)

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    1. I don't dare to tell you just how many years I planned for the organization and how much inspiration I had to gather to make it happen. Now I am dreading that I will let it go wayside again...
      Finding something that has been missing, is so rewarding!
      xx

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  6. Anonymous19:33

    It looks great. Lovely that you are posting again.
    Catherine

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    1. Thank you Catherine for reading, xx.

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  7. The two shawls you've photographed and written about this month are wonderful!

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  8. Thank you Helen, xx.

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  9. The shawl is beautiful - so vibrant. Your system for your stash sounds like a good one for you. I do love to knit with scraps. Once a year I go through all my yarn sorted by weight - one for fingering, another for sport and dk, another for worsted, and a fourth for current knitting. Sometimes I am so surprised by what I find in those bins.

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