Stashdown | Elka Knits

Two more knits for others…

Elegant Gauntlets with Fetching Mitts

I started the Elegant Gauntlets for another coworker a month ago! I have been super busy on the weekends lately with birthdays galore and it took that long to complete them. I used Socks That Rock Mediumweight in Thraven by Blue Moon Fiber Arts which was stashed about 8 yrs ago. I purchased it at The Fold which used to be the only retailer for the yarn–not sure if it can be found elsewhere. Anyway back then there was much hubbub on the net about STR yarn and I was insanely curious. I drove through a virtual blizzard to see the yarn in person and joined the Socks that Rock club in 2008 to stash more. It was the last time I ever joined a club because I like a bit more control over what I get both pattern wise and color wise. Plus I decided I really don’t like the yarn that much. I did go nuts for the Raven series since I figured it would be less stripey and I was right. Love this color way. And the gauntlets are perfect. The yarn is nice and weighty so feel really luxe. I actually might like these better than the pair I made for myself! Anyway I am really pleased to be done with them and hope the recipient likes them as much as she liked the Merino Mia pair she had tried on before requesting a pair.

Immediately after weaving in the last end of the Elegant Gauntlets #3 I cast on for Fetching. A third coworker had asked for a pair of fingerless mitts. She specifically requested short so that they wouldn’t bunch up in her coat sleeves and I thought this pattern would do the trick. She provided the yarn herself and it is very slinky so I had to be careful cabling. It is called Diva Sequin by Yarn Bee. It has little pailettes spun in and they wanted to move to the purl side. I remember seeing an article in Vogue Knitting in the 80’s maybe early 90’s on how to knit with pailette yarn but I never read it since I don’t tend to pick out yarn that has sequins or beads as part of it’s composition. It was fun watching them come up and add a bit of glitz to the finished product. I worked really hard trying to weave in my ends invisibly so that she could wear them inside out if she felt like it and used my needle tip to shove the sequins to outside if I wasn’t able to hold them in place while working the next row. The yarn is also interesting in that it has very long color runs but I didn’t see any portion that repeated in the skein. I am sure it does mind you but it seemed like I was hitting slightly different shades of green and teal between the purple. The color way is Scotish Heath. Part of me is offended they misspelled Scottish.

Fetching Mitts

Fetching ends with a picot bind off and the finger portion flares because of that. I knit this pattern for myself many years ago out of Brown Sheep Worsted and that bothered me a bit but in the end it proved useful to not have my fingers hobbled so I repeated the specified bind off for her pair. I also didn’t gauge for the mittens but went down a couple of needle sizes for a velvety texture. The ribbing is forgiving and should fit her smaller hands well.

I am off to knit something for myself although I offered to knit a bit more for coworkers. A headband out of the remaining Diva Sequins and a pair of Toasts for a small child out of machine washable cherry red yarn. I am not sure I own any machine washable cherry red yarn and am in the midst of stashdown right now. I will have to stash dive and hope I find some or break down and go to store. Or swap. If you own machine washable worsted weight cherry red yarn you are willing to part with leave me a message.

yarny days and knitterly evenings

~Elka

Like many knitters I have little pockets of yarn squirreled away here and there. Lately, with the move to smaller digs, I have been feeling overrun with yarny stuff. Not yarny goodness but *gasp* clutter. Not meaning to sound ungrateful or spoiled but I miss having a yarn room. I haven’t had one since I was living la vida single. Even then the yarn was too much to be kept in one room. To take care of this I joined a group on Ravelry called Stashdown and it has been most helpful the past year. To demonstrate lets share the stats for last year:

yarn in: 3665 yds

yarn out: 43,978 yds

Most of the yarn out, to be sure, were via sales pages here and there. Plus they only count yarn out when you actually finish a project so some stuff I knit that needs assemblage doesn’t actually count. This year I am aiming for zero yardage in which is going to be super tough. Not totally tough since one can officially swap for new yarn with somebody else and as long as you are swapping out as much as or more yarn than you are receiving then you are still in the zero in column. Only when you buy yarn or swap for more yarn does it count as insies. Unless I totally misunderstand that rule. I might check with the mods on that one but that is how it worked last year.

This only matters because of the grandmama business since I am spending much time on Ravelry at the moment looking at cutie patootie baby things and coveting other people’s FOs which I could theoretically duplicate if I get the exact same yarn. And I am making it a goal to not acquire new yarn. Quite a conundrum. Swaps will be my saving grace should they still be acceptable given the rules above.

Spending time on Ravelry or other people’s blogs has been something I avoided like the dickens last year because I do have a covetous heart and know it. Nothing wrong with that imo after all that is why sample garments and such exist~ooh ahh see how pretty come buy X yarn in Y color and you too can have this. Actually that is why magazines and patterns and such exist at all. With photographs to boot 😛 Not just in the knitting business but any business. It is called advertising and is successful for a reason. Doesn’t really matter if you know there is an army of research going on behind it ~ it still works. Which is why we need our handy dandy coping mechanisms.

Recently somebody emailed me asking for a particular yarn that I had adverted several years ago on a now defunct blog. I just spent the last week going through bins of yarn organizing them into some semblance of order while looking for said yarn. I still have more bins to go through but they are in a storage locker…. I did mention the smaller digs and lack of yarn room. During this exercise I have set aside some yarn pockets, aka baskets in this case, to work my way through as well as several sweater lot of yarns in various weights in under the bed storage and such. Hopefully this tactic will also help me be full of WIN this year with my stash down goals.

How are you dealing with your yarn organization this year? Do you have any knitting goals? I know a lot of people use the queue feature on Ravelry to organize such things and I suppose I should do the same as well. After I finish rolling around in yarn 😀

yarny days and knitterly evenings, Elka

Elka Knits

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