Everything today is centred around my various stashes - knitting and choosing projects based on stashed yarns and patterns. While I have started feeling a bit tired of my 'old' yarn stash, there is still so much to love within it. And it is certainly incredibly satisfying to be able to pair them perfectly with patterns already in my library!
02:53 Catch Up
15:37 Handy Dandy - Rivers Hat
20:09 - Greenwich
24:47 - Baby Lamb
32:59 Stat Chat
33:48 Multicrafty - My sweater design
38:59 - Spinning
44:33 - Boxet Bag (crochet)
51:31 Craft for Thought
59:24 Heart Full of Craft
1:02:01 Thanks!
Transcript
Greetings and welcome to another episode of Bobolog. This is episode 14 and today I have to share with you one pattern that I have been eyeing, one finished object, two works in progress, three multicrafty projects, and I will also be having a bit of a chat about yarn and stash. So let's get to it.
My name is Bobbie Olan and this is my vlog where I come to share my knitting and crafty endeavours with you. You can also find me on Instagram, @PlatypusKnitting, and I am on Ravelry under my own name, BobbieOlan, and I would love to see you or hear from you on either of those platforms as well as here on YouTube.
All of the projects that I will talk about and anything that I mention will be in the YouTube description down below. If there is anything that I have missed or if you have any questions, please leave a comment down below or shoot me a message on Instagram or Ravelry.
I live in Victoria with my partner. We are on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people and I would like to pay my respects to them and their elders past, present and future.
To get started, I will just begin with a little bit of admin. So if you are returning you may have noticed that the last episode - Episode 13 - I split up into two parts because I had realised that my episodes were getting quite long. My preference is for them to be a bit on the shorter side: at least under one hour but ideally half the length that they have been lately. So I split the last episode into two parts. I did find it a bit confusing and I didn't like doing it as much though. So I will now be trying something different.
I will try instead to actually be brief in what I say and a bit more succinct in the- how I explain things. And I will also just edit a little bit more stringently. So hopefully that will be enough to cut these episodes down to decent length. But if you have watched from the start, then you may notice that it's a little bit different from now on. Hopefully it's just cleaner and tidier and you find that enjoyable and that works for you.
Catch Up
I will start off with just a little bit of chatter about things of n- significance that have gone on in my personal life. Not really things of significance, more like things that I have done that I just thought I'd share. I don't do much. I am an introvert and of course all of the lockdowns and all of the situation with the pandemic over the last few years has really heightened that. So I don't often have all that much to share in this catch up.
But one thing that I did do since I last recorded is I went and saw Moulin Rouge, the musical, in the city. My sister who lives in London actually got that for me as a Christmas present last year, and we- I was meant to see it with her. And then in December when she was down - Unfortunately, she had booked the tickets for when Omicron was starting to ramp up, and I wasn't comfortable going out to a theatre and very sadly I told her that I wasn't up for attending the show with her so she just rescheduled it for another time. And sadly I couldn't see it with her which is of course part of the present. But I still got to see it.
I took a friend with me and it was a lot of fun, but I don't think I would want to see it again. The last musical that I saw in a show before that was Come From Away and that one I saw twice and I would have happily gone back to see it more and more times but that would have been spending quite a bit of money. So this one I have to say I didn't love as much. The fun in it is that it used a lot of pop songs. So that just automatically sort of makes it enjoyable if you like pop music, which I do. So having the familiarity with those songs and having them presented in that setting was entertaining. But I do have to say I liked the story from the movie much better. I didn't necessarily appreciate how they changed it for the musical production but that's just my opinion of it.
The only other thing I have to say about that is it is definitely the biggest thing that I have done in a long time. It's the furthest, I guess you say, it's- it's the furthest I've ventured out into the public in quite a while. And I was really surprised to see what the crowds were like because I don't go out. And I know that people have been but it was- it was- it was like pre-Covid times. There were just crowds. People jammed in. The bars were spilling out. And I was just- I was not expecting it. I was running late to meet my friend for dinner before the show so I have to say I didn't take as much care to physically distance that I normally do because I was rushing to meet her. But yeah, the crowds were just really unexpected.
I mean, in a way it's definitely nice to see that happening. But me being me and me being how I have been the last couple of years, I wasn't completely comfortable with it. Having said that I still chose to not wear a mask in the theatre even though it was a full house. So- And nothing happened and I'm fine. Didn't get Covid so that's that, I guess, and that's a good thing, obviously. And I guess that that's kind of like the only real thing I've done that isn't sort of, you know, ordinary going about my life.
Eye Candy
I guess I will move on to Eye Candy.
So the pattern that I have been eyeing - Actually I will start off by talking about how I found this pattern.
The yarn
So when I was editing the episode that went out last week, which was mainly me talking about my experience doing a natural dyeing workshop at Tarndie, I just got really excited about using that yarn. I just was reminded - I mean, it had only just happened so it's not like I had forgotten about the yarn - but it just reminded me how beautiful it was. And I was just so inspired to use it.
And I had thought, going into the workshop, that I would come out of it with yarn that would be marked as that 'special yarn' that just has to wait for that 'special project' and just ends up sitting in your stash for a really long time. But like I said when I was editing last week, I was just so inspired to use it that I actually paused. I stopped editing a couple of times just so I could search on Ravelry. And the search features and the filters on Ravelry are just so brilliant. They make it so easy to really refine what you are looking for.
So one of the searches that I did was looking at patterns that are in my library because I'm trying- I'm making an effort to not spend money on patterns when I have so many already. Of course, I will still buy patterns because there are so many that I like that I don't yet own. But my preference is to try to find something that I want to make in my pattern stash first, and to knit from my pattern stash.
So the yarns that were produced in that workshop included three different colours of fingering weight yarn. So they are these ones here and this- this set, I really especially love. And I knew I wanted to use them together because this colour here and this colour here are the same colours that were used to dye this. The green is the yellow and the brown is the orange. It's just a different colour because this one was then over dyed or dip dyed in indigo, which produced completely different colours. And I just I love that. I think it's - I mean it's just basic colour theory really - but it's just- it's beautiful. So of course I wanted to try to use these together.
Luna Lovegood's Spectrespecs Gloves
So in Ravelry I searched for patterns in my library that used around- somewhere around 300 metres (m) of yarn because I'm- I'm guessing that's what I have. I weighed these and then I looked at the metreage of a full skein of Tarndie's 4 ply yarn, and I put in Ravelry the weight of these but said that one full skein was whatever Tarndie's normal metreage is. So for me that was just the best way to guess how much I actually have.
So I put those search parameters into Ravelry: a pattern in my library using three colours. And it pretty much only gave me one result that I thought was appropriate. But I'm really quite thrilled with that actually because it is in this Knitting Magic book by Tanis Gray that I was given for - I can't remember if it was a Christmas present or a birthday present - but it was a present from my crafty aunt who I've mentioned in previous episodes, who's just a whiz at all crafts. So she gave this to me a while ago and I haven't made anything from it yet.
So the pattern that came up from the results is this one here. So this is Luna's Spectrespecs Gloves, designed by Stephanie Lotven. So my initial idea was to use the variegated colour as the main colour, as the background colour. Because it kind of just makes perfect sense that this one which uses both of these is in both gloves, and then that these provide the contrast colour.
I forgot to mention earlier - I'm not sure if you can hear the construction that's going on, but sorry about any extraneous noise that might come through. They're dismantling a carport next door, I think.
Anyway, so that was my original plan for the colours for the gloves. However, yesterday, I caked them up and then I took a black and white photo - which I'll put up here - and as you can see - which which I suspected anyway - the contrast doesn't really work out in the way that I had planned to use it.
So previously, before I had done the black and white photo, I knew that the pattern wasn't going to come out as cleanly as the gloves. Particularly because one of the yarns that I'm using is a variegated yarn. But my justification for that was just that these are Luna's mittens. These are something that are going to make me really happy and Luna would approve of that. And it's being creative and playful. So I was completely fine with that until I took the black and white photo and I saw how similar the variegated and the orange actually are and how much of a contrast the yellow provided. So of course I was torn.
I know - I know in my heart of hearts that it will look best to use the yellow as the background colour and to have the orange as the main contrast on one glove and the green and brown as the main contrast on the second glove. But I was torn because I really like the idea of using the colours in the way that I explained just before.
So I have put it out to my knitting group and I've asked my crochet friend, Hannah - who I also like to call my colour guru. So far, the response has just been that I'm better off really going by contrast, but at the same time I should do what makes me happy. But honestly, as much as it would please me to have that variegated skein as the background in both gloves and have it make sense in that way, I do think I would be happier and use them more if I do have something that contrasts better and therefore it looks better.
What I really should do - that Mel from Three Cats Yarn suggested - is I should swatch. But I I can't be bothered. I am being lazy. I'm usually a really good swatcher but for these I can't be bothered. But I think I will try to do a faux swatch and if I do that, I'm going to try to do just like a mini- mini tutorial for it. So we'll see how that goes. So that is the the pattern I am looking at in Eye Candy.
Handy Dandy
To continue on with that theme of using my naturally dyed yarns but moving on to Handy Dandy -
Rivers Hat
You may have noticed that I am wearing this beanie that is also made out of yarns that were naturally dyed at that workshop by Tarndie. So I am super happy with this beanie. This one is made in 8 ply yarn. So out of the workshop we got three 4 plies - three fingering weight yarns - and two DK weight yarns. So with this one, obviously, I searched again by a rough metreage, 8 ply, and something that used two colours. And I came up with a few options for this one but I liked this pattern the best.
So this this is the Rivers Hat by Alice Caetano. I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. But the spelling will be in the description down below and the pattern will be linked as well, like I said before.
So this one comes from the Making Forest magazine that I featured in a previous episode. It wasn't actually a pattern that had caught my eye as something I actually want to make when I was first looking through the magazine, but when I was looking specifically for something small that used two colours, I knew that this one was perfect.
One reason for that is because it- it looked like it would need almost double the amount of one colour as the other colour. And thanks to one of the lovely women who took the workshop with me, Judith, I actually did have double the amount of one colour than I did the other colour. This- this green and white colour that's on the brim here is actually Judith's yarn. My version of this was a lot more white than green and I had told her that I thought hers was really nice and she said she doesn't knit with DK yarn and that I can have it. So I thought this hat was just perfect.
So what I did is, I did the brim completely in her colour, which is more of the green. And then once it started- when- once this patterning started, I was alternating between her green and my lighter green mini skein of yarn. So it kind of fades up and then about halfway through the pattern her green one ran out and I was just using mine.
I do have to say that the- the indigo - the blue is the indigo - I didn't follow the pattern exactly getting towards the top of the crown where- about where the decreases start because it wanted to use a bit more of the contrast colour than I ended up using because I knew that I wouldn't have enough. So you can see here that it's pretty much just the blue and white in the centre. And there should be more indigo in there. But I think it doesn't look like that colour is missing. And I'm really happy with how this has turned out.
One thing that I want to mention - it got quite warm. The- You can see the sun has come in while I was talking and it's quite warm now. So one unexpected thing about this pattern is I actually also really love the inside of it. I think that that texture is also really pretty. So I may even also wear it inside out because I think that works as well. So yeah, I guess it just depends, you know, what I'm feeling when I want to wear it. But that is the Rivers Hat and I'm really, really happy with that.
So I cast that on at some point last week and it didn't take me too long to do. So that is a completely new project and a finished object there.
Greenwich
In part one of episode 13 - I believe it was part one - I talked about how I had made the Greenwich sweater by Martin Storey for my sister in London. I made it for her at the start of last year and I made it to pattern, which had a cropped front and a much longer back and it's quite- it was quite a big difference in the pattern. Which I had hoped my sister would like. I felt like it was a trendy, fashionable sort of feature. And I am not a fashionable person by any means. I don't know anything about fashion, that was just speculation on my part, but she's much more fashionable than me and I guess I was kind of just hoping that she would like it that way.
When she was here in December and she tried it on, she did say that it was a bit on the short side for her so I offered to lengthen that for her. So I did that. The problem is that it is a bottom up pattern in pieces. So I couldn't just unravel from the bottom and then knit down because it's fisherman's rib and if there's a way to make it look the same going the other direction I do not know it. So my options are to see if I can look that up and see if there is a way or to re knit the front because when I grafted it on, it made quite a visible line, unfortunately.
So I do think I was able to graft the in pattern pretty well. So what I did on this extra bit that I knit is, on the last pass of the fishermen's rib stitch - so it takes two rows to do. In the first row I held it with an embroidery thread of a contrast colour just so I can see exactly how that yarn travels across. And then when I knit the second row of the fisherman's rib, I used a different contrast colour in embroidery thread. So when I grafted it I was able to follow exactly how the yarn moved. So it's grafted in pattern.
And then when I cut off the original bottom bit, I left a long tail and I followed that part again of the stitch pattern on the bottom bit just to make it a bit more of a solid seam. And because- with just the single line of grafting it was a much more distinct line, I would say, than it is now. I was hoping that by sort of having a double graft, it would help blend it more. And it did. But it's still incredibly obvious, And I did wet block this bit a little bit in the hopes that it would help but it didn't. And I'm not happy with that. I would not be happy gifting this. So I am just going to have to take out the whole front and re knit it.
So the good thing is I did take extensive notes, when I knit this the first time, about lengths that I made, how many rows, and everything. So I should just be able to take out all of this front bit, pick up from the top of this new bit, and knit up again and re seam it together. And obviously I will also have to remove the neck band to do that. But I'm pretty sure that that is it because it is se- also seamed to the sleeve, so it's not like I have to do anything really complicated there.
So that is my progress on the Greenwich sweater. So an unsuccessful surgery but I enjoyed knitting that the first time around and I think, you know, it'll be a pretty mindless knit once I have unraveled everything and get back to it.
Baby Lamb
The last Handy Dandy that I have to talk about is the Baby Lamb pattern by Lorraine Pistorio which I started earlier this year, but I haven't worked on it in a little while. I haven't worked on it in about a month so I hadn't had anything to show in the last few episodes.
But I picked it up again towards the end of last week and I just couldn't put it down and I just kept knitting and knitting and knitting. So I think previously what I had done is - I had done the two front legs and hooves. I had done the two hind legs and hooves. And I had just started the bottom, connecting those two hind hooves together and starting to shape the bottom of the lamb. So this- this sheepy stitch marker here - which I thought was appropriate for this pattern - that is where I was when I last showed this to you.
So you can see I have knit the whole body now. It's super cute and it's super soft. I was a bit worried that even though I had marked which of these front ones was the left and the right - they look like they're really turned out and I was worried that I had gotten that wrong somehow. But it is meant to sit kind of like that and then they- they do face up. So...
I paid no attention to the dimensions of it as well because I wasn't going to try to do a gauge swatch or anything like that for this. It's a toy. I didn't think it mattered too much as long as I was getting a nice tight gauge for the yarns that I was using, but it is bigger than I was expecting. So it's almost going to be as big as the baby that I'm knitting it for. So that'll be quite cute to see them side by side and see how it compares in size.
So the next thing that I have to do to this is stuff that.
I have also started on the head and I've gotten quite a bit of the way through that. So the body I knit on my Lykke circular needles, and the head - because it's a much smaller circumference - I am using my Addi CraSy Trio.
So I have used the Addi CraSy Trio needles before. My crafty aunt gave me one in 2.25 mm size and I have to say I didn't love using it. And then I discovered that they have what they call the Novel Long. And the reason that I didn't like the other ones that my aunt gave me was because holding those small needles wasn't comfortable for me and it hurt my hands. So when I discovered that there was a longer version, I bought a couple of different sizes of those. And they're brilliant. I love them.
So not only are they longer, they're also square. And if you saw one of my exes last year where I bought the Foursquare interchangeable needles set, you may be aware that where possible I will choose ergonomics, and square needles are best for that. So I was really extra pleased that these are square. My only wish is that they were wooden. They do have bamboo ones, but I don't think they're square. I think they're round. And also I wanted to wait and see how I like them first before I just went on buying more. And really, I don't need more noodles.
Anyway, I have digressed too much. So anyway, this is what I have done of the face. So I've started stuffing it because it's going to start decreasing from this point. The eyes are French knots, which I have never done before. So the pattern does suggest safety eyes, but I thought I would prefer to embroider them on. And then this marker here is just denoting where the nose will go. So I used Neville for nose and I just think that it's gonna be so adorable when it's finished. ...What am I doing? I think it's gonna be really cute.
It's also got to have some ears and I believe it has a tail and I can't wait to finish this one. I would love to have one for myself, but I'm not sure that I would knit it again.
And I definitely like the texture of this yarn for it. But I have to say, I'm not completely loving working with it. It's incredibly soft, but it is almost impossible to see your stitches. So when working short rows for example, I find it really hard to see what's going on and to know what I have done and what I need to pick up to do the shadow wrap short rows that are in the pattern. And because I had done half of the short rows for the bottom before - which got me to this progress marker here - then I put it away for a month, and when I came back to it I had sort of half forgotten how the shadow wrap short rows work. And I did read the instructions again, but I didn't read them through properly or something and I did get it a bit confused. And I know that there were- there must have been a couple of times where I didn't knit the shadow wrap and it's paired stitch together and I knit them separately because my stitch counts were wrong.
But I guess that's also the good thing about this yarn is it's so easy to hide mistakes in because you can't see. So I just did a couple of knit togethers where I thought it'd be appropriate and that got my stitch counts back to where they should have been. Yeah.
Oh, the other thing that I want to mention about this one is - for the legs, I stuffed them using fabric scraps. So I got together some of my fabric scraps of cotton and linen that were in creamy, light colours. And I cut them up really small and I stuffed the legs with that which worked well. You're meant to stuff it quite firmly and it is quite firm but it's also it's a bit harder, I think, than I would have liked. So since I have been spinning lately and trying to use up that crazy amount of wool roving that I have, I realised after I stuffed the legs that I could use that for stuffing. And it is 100% Merino, which I probably wouldn't have used for a baby except that it is completely enclosed and it's, you know, that- it's not going to be against the baby's skin. So it shouldn't cause any allergic reactions or anything like that or any itching if the baby is prone to that. That is my hope anyway. So that's all I have to say about the Baby Lamb pattern.
Stat Chat
The next section is Stat Chat. So this is just a really brief one to say that I have knit four different swatches. One, two, three, and now four colour swatches. Sorry. Yeah. Four yarns, nine different colours, to make four swatches, for the one design that I am working on.
Multicrafty
So that leads into Multicrafty.
My sweater design
So although it is knitting, because for me it is more about design, I am counting it as a Multicrafty project. So this is finally actually the yarn that I am intending to create the pattern in. This is Bendigo Woollen Mills, Rustic - and I didn't mention that the Greenwich sweater I knit is in Bendigo Woollen Mills, Classic.
So this is Rustic, and I haven't used their Rustic before and I have to say I love it. I am really into blues and greens and originally I was planning to get the main colour in the blue or the green that the Rustic comes in. And at the last minute, I decided that I should step out of my comfort zone and try something different. And I- I am so much happier with this colour than I had expected that I would be and I really just think that is because of the yarn itself, so how heathered it is. You can see that there is one spot here where it's got like a a big nep of the black, but the rest of it is just so beautiful - all the different tones and shades that are in that yarn.
So the main colour is called Hermitage. And the contrast colour is Pebble and I- I'm really enjoying how they work together as well. They did have lighter colours. They did have colours that were more white, but I didn't want- although I wanted a strong contrast, I didn't want the most extreme contrast that you could get.
So I chose their Rustic yarn because it is a hand wash yarn. It's not a superwash. So I was hoping that it would be grippier and better for colourwork and better for steeking than some of their other yarns that I have used before which are machine washable. In the description on the website they do say that they've called this yarn Rustic because of how the colours are blended together, because it looks more rustic. But like I said it's hand wash so I was hoping it would have a quite a rustic feel to it as well. And it's actually a lot softer than I had hoped it would be. Beautiful to work with. Really nice to work with. It's not as splitty as I have found some of their other yarns, which is excellent. And yeah, it just- it's just really soft and smooth to work with.
So then I was concerned that it wouldn't hold up well being steeked. So the colourwork is fine. That's the back of my colourwork there. And I have never done steeking before and yet I want to use it in this design that I'm creating. So when I did this swatch, I made it in the round and I had steeking stitches so that I could see how that would work in it as well. So I did five columns of steeking stitches. And then I basted it by hand.
I basted it by hand using this reinforcing woolly thread that I got from Sunspun, which is one of my local yarn stores. So it's not a perfect match, but that's pretty good. And I had heard that it was better to go darker than lighter because they did have a lighter colour of this but it was lighter than- than this as well. So I went for the darker one. So I basted it by hand instead of basing it using a sewing machine. And then I cut and there are a couple of spots where I didn't cut carefully enough. So you can see there where it's fraying more than in other spots. There I actually cut through some of the the yarn in that basting column instead of in the the centre column that I was meant to be cutting through. Just not paying enough attention, but it has held together.
So I basted it, I cut it, and then I gave it a soak and I gave it, like, a bit of swish in the- in the water with Eucalan in it and it's held up. I, you know, I blocked it. I had it pinned out stretching it and it has held together. It has held up so, you know, it's great. I'm really happy with how that is coming along. So now that I have my swatch in the actual yarn, I should be ready to start writing the pattern which I will get to sometime this week.
Spinning
The next Multicrafty project that I want to talk about is my spinning. So I took up spinning this year. Self taught with a lot of thanks to YouTube videos, obviously, particularly to Jillian Eve who has a fantastic YouTube channel and podcast with a lot of spinning content. She knits and weaves. I think she crochets as well but I haven't actually seen it. But she is mainly a spinner and I- I love her.
Yes, so I got my uncle to 3d print me a Turkish spindle as a cheaper way to get started to see if I even liked it. So I have produced one little mini skein of yarn, which I spun on this Turkish spindle. So I spun three separate singles and I plied them together. So this I am calling my second spin. It will be my second spun yarn.
So this beautiful turtle, I am going to try chain plying this one. So I prefer the ones that have at least 3 plies just because I like the characteristics of that yarn better than a 2 ply and I'm not really a fan of singles, which is why I want to try chain plying because it's a way of plying the yarn that does give you 3 plies, but you just use the one single to create it rather than having three different singles like I did last time. So I just want to see how that works.
And this yarn is made out of this roving so it is mostly all this light grey colour. I have about two and a half kg left of that from when I bought 15 kg to make a chunky blanket. But I did also get some little tiny samples in other colours when I was purchasing that yarn. So with this one, I had a go of hand blending one of those samples which I think was only about 5 g with about 15 g of roving. So as you can see it's- it didn't really blend in a lot of places. It stayed separate, but it kind of just mixed it all up so that it was all a bit more random and not just like chunks of one colour then chunks of another colour. So I'm happy with how that is looking and I am quite keen to see how that will look once it is plied.
I do feel like I've finally gotten the hang, sort of, of short forward draw and my yarn is already a lot finer and more consistent than my first attempts, which is really exciting to see. So it still is thick and thin. But there isn't as much variation in the thickness as my first attempt. So I'm really excited about that.
And I'm really excited to see what this looks like as a plied yarn. My first yarn that I created, I checked the wraps per inch and I think the count was producing - I believe it would have been an aran or a worsted weight yarn. I think maybe aran. I can't remember exactly. But what I am hoping is to create a DK yarn so hopefully 3 plies of this creates something more like a DK weight yarn.
And I do want to keep doing a few more little tests with different ways of drafting and different ways of plying to see what I like and then I want to try to produce a sweaters quantity. I still have more of the sample colours so with the tests that I'm doing, I'm going to blend two different colours together to sort of help me distinguish which yarn is which once they're all done and also just because it's fun And I will keep using the Turkish spindle.
I do want to actually take a beginner spinning course at the Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria, but I decided recently that I don't want to take that course until I feel like I'm ready to buy a spinning wheel. That will still be a couple of years off I reckon. Because I don't want to take the course now, which is really using a spinning wheel, and learn how to use that and then not get my own wheel for a couple of years and forget it all and have to do a refresher.
So for now I'm happy with how I'm progressing trying to teach myself and using this roving of who knows what quality that I already have and just seeing how that goes. So that's my spinning.
Boxet Bag
The last Multicrafty project that I want to talk about is my crochet project that has featured in the last few episodes. So it is this here which is huge. It's huge. Oh my gosh.
Again, like with the toy, I figured - it's a bag. I don't really need to swatch I'm just gonna go for it, and I was trying to use up as much of the yarn I could as possible. So here it is. Here. That's the front of it with handles, the sides are blue, and the bottom is pink.
So this is the Boxet Bag by Cal Patch and it is made using rug yarns that I purchased at a trash and treasure market. And I didn't know what to do with them for the longest time. I had actually put them on Ravelry as 'will trade or sell' but of course no one was interested in them. Not surprising. And then when I decided that I wanted to make this, I thought that those yarns were just perfect for it.
So I am calling this my Colourblock Boxet. That pattern uses colours differently. I think it's really pretty how the colours are used in the pattern itself. But because I was trying to use yarn and I only had limited quantities, I chose to do it in this colourblock way. So I used brown as my main colour because I had the most of that. I think I had four skeins of that. I put pink at the bottom because I'm not a big fan of pink and I will see that colour the least.
So I did the bottom first. I did it on a 8 mm hook which is a lot bigger than what the pattern calls for and I'm also using a lighter weight yarn than what the pattern calls for. All with the aim of trying to use up as much yarn as I could. So after I did the bottom, I did the two ends - the blue ends - and then I- then I did the yellow wide ends with the handles.
So as you can see, the top of the yellow is just all yellow with no brown because I ran out. I think I had about this length left of the brown but because I've been making it all match, I didn't want to have a part of a row that had brown in it and the rest all yellow. So to make them match, I've just done the top row there completely in the yellow colourway. So at the end of that I still had some pink left and I still had some yellow left. I didn't have any blue left because I used it all up to make this swatch. So when it came time to seaming it all together, I used the pink on the sides and the yellow to seam the bottom of it.
Now, the pattern does also called for doing a row of single crochet around the whole top edge of it once it has all been seamed together. And I was planning not to do that because if I did it in yellow, I feel like that just would have been too much yellow. Yellow is already the dominant colour on here. And I didn't want to do it in pink because, like I said, I'm not the biggest fan of pink. And this is already quite prominent and I didn't want to feature the pink any more than that.
But I kept looking at it and thinking about it. And what I really would like to do is to have the blue going around the whole top of it and that way each colour is also used in a seam. And then that also helps the blue to become a bit more prominent in this bag, because I'm a fan of blue. But I will need to unravel this watch and I don't need it anymore, really. So that's not a problem. It just would have been a pain. And then how much do I unravel to get enough to do this? Especially because you need to hold the yarn double.
So anyway, I'm going to do it. I know that I'm going to be a lot happier with it if I have that line of blue running along the top. And then once I've done that, I am going to chuck it in the washing machine and felt it a bit. Cal Patch called that fulling and I'm not sure if that's just the term for it in crochet, or if it's a different thing. But she had put the sample one in the washing machine a little bit.
And like I said, it's huge. It's a lot bigger than I had expected. And on top of that, because I'm using a bigger needle, it is quite a loose fabric and I would like to full it up a bit more and maybe also shrink the bag too. So I will do that once I have done that row of blue along the top.
The only other thing that I really have to say about this is when I was doing the handles on one of them I accidentally put in an extra stitch, but by the time I realised I just couldn't be bothered going back and redoing it. I found creating the handle actually a bit fiddly to do, and you can't really tell looking at it. You can't really tell that one of these handles is one stitch wider than the other. So I'm happy to leave that as is and I am really happy with that project.
It has actually really stirred up an interest in crochet for me. I really enjoyed doing this and I have to say the other couple of crochet projects that I have done in the past didn't give me that same feeling. They didn't inspire me to want to do more of it. They were kind of just like, "I want to try this. Let's see how it goes. Alright, they're done. That's it." But this one just made me so happy that I feel like I would like to have a crochet project going at all times alongside all of my knitting. So I was really excited about that.
Craft for Thought
And that now is a good segue into my Craft for Thought where I want to talk about yarn and stash.
I've been catching up on a couple of audio podcasts that I haven't listened to in a long time. The main two that I've listened to in the past are the Stash and Burn podcast and the Yarniacs podcast and I believe it is - I'm sorry, I can't remember - but one of them has a Love Your Stash... I don't know what you'd call it but I think every year they do this Love Your Stash thing where you go through your stash and assess all the items that you have, whether you still like them, whether you need to move them on because you're not going to use them or they just don't bring you any joy anymore. And it's also about being more mindful of your stash as you're building it up and, you know, making sure that you're creating a stash that you really love.
So it was kind of interesting hearing them talk about that again and just how they were talking about - it's okay to get rid of yarns that you just don't love and you're not going to use it and and you have no reason to have any more - which I completely agree with. But I found it really interesting that this rug yarn was exactly that. I did not like having it. I never thought I would find any project to use it in because it is so rough. It's so rustic. It is definitely not next to skin. But then I found this project and it was the perfect match and it has made me so happy to use the yarn to see how it looks. And to just create this beautiful object that I have crafted.
So there really is something to say about matching yarns to projects. Which I understand is not a new thing. There's always talk about, you know, finding the perfect project for that special skein of yarn, like I was talking about with my naturally dyed Tarndie yarns, which I'm still amazed that I was able to find projects that I love for them so soon. But anyway the right project can just really elevate a yarn and realizing that has just made me so happy.
I have destashed yarns previously. I have a cousin in the Philippines who took up knitting a few years ago and from what I have heard, there isn't a great selection of yarn, there aren't a lot of options that you can get in the Philippines. It's a tropical climate so I don't imagine that they have a big need for wool and that kind of thing. So when I have destashed yarn in the past, I put them all in a bag and give it to my parents for when they are sending over a whole box of items to the family in the Philippines. So I put my yarns in there, I put knitting needles that I no longer use in there, and I think I've given one book as well. So that is how I choose to destash my yarn.
But I never gave this because I just didn't think it was good enough. I didn't want to just give it to him because I didn't like it anymore. The other yarns that I had given were mainly because either they were leftovers that I didn't think I would ever use or they were just balls of yarn that I have had in my stash too long and have never found a project for and I was sick of trying to find the right match for them. So in saying that, it was great to hold on to this yarn because I eventually did find a project for it.
I am also completely all for getting rid of yarn that is not appropriate to keep anymore. I am trying to be more mindful of the yarns that I buy. I have purchased quite a bit of yarn recently. I have projects in mind for all of them and a lot of the yarn in my stash - I still have a lot of leftovers in there which I have plans for and I have a few sweater quantities that have already been earmarked for specific projects. And because of that I haven't really been getting a lot of joy from my stash because I don't feel like it's a stash that I can really play with.
Until recently. I didn't feel like I had beautiful single skeins or smaller quantities of yarn that I could just, you know, pull out and throw together and try pairing them with different patterns. I see people doing that on other vlogs that I watch and I hear people talking about it - how they see a pattern that they like and they can just pull yarns from their stash and mix and match this and mix and match that and see what works and I don't feel like I have a stash that I can do that with. So lately I have been getting a bit tired of my stash. And I am still looking forward to making all of those projects that certain yarns are assigned to. But lately I've just been feeling like I want to try to curate a stash that had a bit more allowance in it to experiment, to be a bit more spontaneous.
So I really am trying not to purchase yarns. The yarns that I had bought this year are pretty much all for gifts that I'm going to make.
That's the other thing as well. Historically, I have been much more of a gift knitter than a self knitter. And lately I have been feeling like I want to make more for myself. So I just want to have a stash that has a bit more flexibility. I'm trying- I'm trying to not buy yarn unless it's for a gift but I am planning on doing quite a bit of shopping - we shall see - at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show in July which I have bought a ticket for.
I bought a ticket for one day of the three days that it goes for. I think one full day of browsing and shopping really should be enough. I haven't been. It's quite a huge event so I don't even know if one day will be enough for me to see everything, especially if I'm stopping a lot to browse and shop. But I don't want to set myself up for too much and for spending too much because I also want to be smart about my stash. I don't want to just build up a huge stash for the sake of it. I'm happy with the size of my stash at the moment. So I'm trying to knit from stash and I'm trying not to let it grow any bigger than it is.
Heart Full of Craft
Which is a good segue into my final segment, Heart Full of Craft, where I share a highlight or something that I am grateful for. So in this episode, I would like to share my gratitude for stash, surprisingly enough.
Not just yarn stash but also pattern stash. I am the type of person who will not purchase an individual pattern until I am actually ready to knit it. So like with the Baby Lamb pattern, for example, I favourited that - I'm pretty sure it would have been early last year. And even though I knew that a baby was on its way that I would be making it for I didn't buy that pattern until I had purchased the yarn and was ready to get going on it.
I do like buying pattern books or knitting books that I'm really interested in. And I like getting magazines even if I never knit from them.
So like I have said previously, my favourite publication is the Making magazines because I feel like it has a really good balance of mainly knitting things, but then also some crochet, some sewing, some embroidery. And I think it's just got a really good mix of crafts. Plus I do like a lot of the patterns that are in it. But if I never knit from some of the issues that I have, I am still really happy to have them on my shelf.
So like I said, I am really trying to prioritise knitting from my yarn stash, but also from my pattern stash. So I am just grateful that I am able to have these things to choose from - even though I just finished talking about how I'm a bit fed up with my stash at the moment. I still have enough stash that I don't need to be buying new things all the time and I can still find yarns in my stash that make me really happy to work with. And even this - the eyes on this lamb was like this tiny little ball of black yarn that I had leftover so I didn't need to go out and buy a whole new skein of black yarn just to make these two little French knots.
So yes, I'm really grateful for my yarn stash and my pattern stash and for being able to pair them together. So I think I have talked enough.
Thanks!
Thank you so much for spending your time here with me today. I hope that you've enjoyed what I had to say. I hope that you've gotten something out of it. And I hope that you are all taking care, looking out for yourselves staying safe. And yeah.
Like I said earlier, you can also find me on Instagram and Ravelry. There are links in the YouTube description below to my profiles there. So I will see you in a couple of weeks.
Fare thee well.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Resources
Mentions
Knitting Magic by Tanis Gray
Three Cats Yarns (Mel)
Making magazine - Forest
Making magazine - Color
Patterns (on Ravelry)
Luna Lovegood's Spectrespecs Gloves by Stephanie Lotven
Rivers Hat by Alice Caetano
Greenwich by Martin Storey
Baby Lamb by Lorraine Pistorio
Boxet Bag by Cal Patch
Yarns (from my LYS, or on Ravelry)
Tarndie yarns from polwarth sheep
Bendigo Woollen Mills, Rustic
Bendigo Woollen Mills, Classic
Scheepjes, Sweetheart Soft Brush
Scheepjes, SoftFun