Stash Yarn & The Baby

A little incident with my three year old led me to sort through and reorganize all of the stash yarn in my bedroom tonight.  (You don’t want to know what he did to prompt this.  I’ll just say that when he came to me and the husband excitedly saying "come see what’s upstairs!" I knew it wasn’t going to be good.)  I didn’t realize quite how much I had up there.  And, I had forgotten about some incredibly splendid yarns.  Thanks honey. (I should warn you that this post is going to be picture heavy, but it’s also going to be worth it!)

First off, this is the sea grass baskets that hold most of my stash.

   

um, except for the part in the tiered stand (everyone has one of these in their bedroom, right?  it’s strictly decorative).

And I don’t have to talk about the yarn in my studio or under my desk at work, because we’re only talking about bedroom stash here.

In all fairness though, I need to account for the totebags that hang on the door to my closet and hold works in progress.

There are only four of them.  That’s pretty good for me.  And yes, that is an incredibly use of the Kate Spade wicker tote that is probably ten years old.  It is the perfect knitting bag!  I use it for whatever pair of socks are in progress at any given time, right now, I need to start on the second sock in this cascade quattro pair.

The black Sac bag holds the start of Ellie’s fall sweater.  It was actually started but then ripped when I realized the gauge was off.  I need to go buy different size needles tomorrow. 

The green velvet bag holds a treasure — two skeins of sea silk.  It is so soft and lusterous and beautiful that I can barely stand it.  It remains to be seen whether a woman with four children who don’t sleep can actually knit lace.  I got a pattern along with the yarn but am thinking about doing the pattern from Lettuce Knits that Stephanie at Yarn Harlot wrote so eloquently about a few weeks ago.

I had to stop in my progress at this point just to fondle the yarn.  I think it is the prettiest softest yarn I have ever seen.  It was good that I took a break here because at this point, I opened the brown velvet bag, which I usually carry with me every day, only to discover that there was a hoard of projects inside.

Working left to right here: (1) the copper patina yarn is some of my hand-dyed merino and it is destined to be pants for the small child who initiated this entire evening of yarn worship, (2) the big white paper blob in back are my notes for the order of beads in an experiment involving knitting beads on wire that I started while watching a ballet lesson last spring, (3) the soft orange yarn is the top of Ellie’s Oh Jan dress.  I’m still in the two ball stage on the front, but once I finish that part I’m hoping the rest of it will go quickly.  You can already tell it’s going to be adorable.  It’s going to be super cute over the embroidered bootlegs from Mini-Boden,(4) the Milli Colori yarn in back jumped into my arms on a recent trip to my local yarn shop, Memory Hagler.  I love visits to this store because Memory dispense fabulous knitting advice as she sits with her customers around the big table in the front window of her store, and (5) finally, pictured in the front right and not yet on the needles are the linen yarn, destined to become Mason-Dixon towels for my guest bathroom and the wonderful little skein of pink silk yarn from Alchemy that my mom sent for my birthday (I’ve been carrying it around like a two year old with a favorite stuffed animal.)

I also neglected to point out this sweet little skein.  I bought it deliberately and unabashedly with no purpose in mind, knowing full well I would never knit it into anything.  Instead, it is destined to remain a pretty decoration on my dresser, sort of like the grown up version of the little porcelain figurines I treasured so much as a child.  Look at the colors.  How could you not love this yarn?  It’s incredible.  It is pure trophy yarn.

Since I’ve confessed to the contents of the bags, I will also share with you that I, um, prioritized stash yarn and ended up with a pile of wool I can no longer stand to be apart from.  Henceforth this yarn gets first dibs on cast ons.

It doesn’t look like much all smacked up like this, but is a little mini-stash of some of most amazing yarns.  Here it is a little bit closer up in bits and pieces.

The wonderful blue-green Plymouth is destined to be a sweater for my daughter — matching the one knit for her brother last year.  The incredible multi-colored Noro?  Anthropologie style capelet for me.  The funky blue pink stuff that doesn’t look like much is Karabella Labarint and it’s going to be a cool sort of Rowan style cropped sweater.  And that’s one little skein of Knitpicks Shimmer that my daughter thinks is going to be a belt for her.

The purple and green Ironstone wool/silk blend is really really beautiful.  It is a standout in the midst of some really luxe yarns.  It is destined to be a little shawl kind of thing — I would have sworn I had some solid purple to strand it with, but no such yarn showed up tonight in the bedroom.  The turquoise and brown are mercerized cotton meant to be Mason-Dixon washcloths and there is some hand spun in the very front, with the last bit still on the spindle, that is going to be a scarf.

And, because I have knitter’s ADD, before I put it all up, I grabbed this one lone skein of Rowan bulky that I found on sale and started a scarf.  I alsways like to have something very simple to knit in the car and at morning coffee with the guys (Oh Jan has had at least two major mistakes when the conversation there got too interesting.)

So thanks sweet baby, for giving me a reason to go through much of the stash and visit with some old friends.  I’m a little bit scared by how much yarn resides in my bedroom.  I am reassured that if bird flu suddenly strikes, I’m not going to run out of yarn.  Not even if it’s a five year-long epidemic.  I didn’t even show you the sock yarn or the contents of those two huge sea grass tubs.  Maybe I should be embarassed, but I’m not.  I wonder if there is a gene that predisposes one to knitting?  It probably runs in families where toddlers like pulling out all of that yarn and spreading it around the room.