Stashbustin’ Like A Boss Part 1

What do you do with something that has lost its purpose? The first answer would be to give it away to someone who might have use for it. The second answer would be to re-purpose it.

Well, prior to us leaving for Indonesia,  I had already donated quite a lot of my cold-weather yarns to my daughter’s school in Melbourne. I don’t know why precisely I hung on to these that I chose to keep but likely, I was feeling wasteful and wanted to redeem a bit of my guilty conscience.

At this point though they’re at a risk of seriously inhibiting my crafting mojo if I don’t do something really soon.

So I made the decision not to buy any warm-weather/tropical/beach yarns unless my stash of cold-weather yarns are at least  80% used up.  I figured I would still use the yarns to make items – even if these items are for cold weather and will be shipped off for donation at the end of this goal – as long as the projects expose me to new lessons in crochet & knitting.

Kinda like investing in collateral materials in a self-imposed knitting & crochet class.

Genius! 😎😎

And so for this first entry, may I present a knitted cowl and a crochet baby cocoon:

Ze Cowl:

This project presented me with the opportunity to knit in a particular stitch pattern that required copious amounts of expletives and the frustrating experience of frogging 7 times (I kid you not, I actually counted the times so I could tell you afterwards).

This pattern required absolute concentration lest I forgot a single “K1” or “YO” or whether it was a “K2tog” or an “SSK” and whichever came first 😵😵😵. As a matter of fact I ended up reciting the individual stitches out loud while executing them to help keep me on track. For all 12 pattern repeats! I couldn’t wait for it to get finished 🤒

As you can see, I persevered and am proud to be able to claim having experience in the following:

• Following a lace stitch pattern – it’s my 1st time to do it and I just find the result very encouraging even with the frogs and the errors 😍 😆
• Provisional cast on – my tip: be very careful when unraveling
• Kitchener stitch – mine is a bit wonky but still exceeded my expectations
• How to frog with grace 💩

Here is the beautiful pattern if interested.

Ze Baby Cocoon:

Now this I might end up actually using for B3 😍 – although I still have to check later on if it won’t be too stuffy. Compared to the 1st project, this one was a breeze and I learned the following:

• Crocheting in the chevron pattern
• Crocheting in the round (I need to improve my joining stitches)
• The back post double crochet (or bpdc)

Here is the pattern if interested.

I think I reduced my stash by 2 1/2 skeins of yarn by the end of this project 😁 Yay!

Now on to the next!