Hip to be Squares

So scrap yarn blankets have been all the rage for a few news cycles now, but I had started one years before I knew to be cool.  It's made of tessellating fish, and this wee, single fishy is the only one I got done during the Deep Stash Half Marathon.



It's made of the last tiny bit of the heathered, dark red Berocco Comfort from which I made the NICU baby hats in the last post.

Sock yarn scrap blankets seem to be the most popular weight of cuddle-wear just now.  I went ahead and started a blanket in this yarn weight, too, but instead of going for the mitered square pattern that spread faster than a stadium wave, I decided to weave my blanket squares into being.





Each square is four-by-four inches and was woven double-stranded on a Zoom Loom, a modern version of a pin loom, made by Schacht Spindle Company.  Both sets of these squares are made from the leftovers of the socks I mentioned in the last post.  It takes about 15 grams of fingering weight yarn to make four squares, and each set of four will be coupled in my blanket with another set of four as well as a single square in a different color to go in the middle of nine-patch blocks.  I started out as a quilter, after all, and a nine-patch block blanket is a pretty basic, beautiful layout.

Now, the final object that counts toward my DS Half Marathon yardage is a square that is not for a scrap blanket.  In fact, I think the term "square" is too demeaning.  It is a block, dear ones.  A Block, and not one meant for a mere blanket but for an afghan.  That is, the Great American Aran Afghan.  (And lest you think I'm getting all pompous up in here, I usually refer to this long-term project by its street name GAAA.)



I started my GAAA back in 2013 with Berocco Comfort yarn I bought in 2009.  I add to my collection of blocks slowly.  This one, designed by Ginger Smith, is the sixth of how many I know not will be needed.  I simply cast on one when I get the yen.

Now, yardage of all these individual blanket/afghan parts count toward the yardage total despite the fact the blankets/afghan aren't done because once the yardage is in that fish, square, or block, it is not coming back into the stash.  It's out.  Forever.  Even if the larger project is never completed, that yardage has been cast out of the nest to make a life for itself in the cold, hard world.

So, drumroll, please...in your imagination...

Yardage for this post:
Fish:  14.7
Zoom Loom squares:  132.6
GAAA block:  142.8

Deep Stash Half Marathon 2016 update:

Total yardage from this post:  290.1
DSHM current yardage total:  13,470.1 (7.7 miles, rounded up)
DSHM yardage remaining:  9,602.4  (5.5 miles, rounded up)

So!  I did NOT finish my Half Marathon challenge by the end of 2016.  Surprise, surprise.  I did at least manage to purge a little more than a quarter marathon.  This means I will need to surgically remove almost ten thousand yards of yarn from the Deep Stash, in order to honor the terms of the challenge to myself.  This I will do.  I will!  In an upcoming post.  Stay tuned for that and for an announcement of my plans for 2017.

Head to Toe

Or, in this case, toe up.  That is, I'm starting with the Half Marathon projects for the feet.



My first dive into Deep Stash back in July was when I cast on for the Twists and Turns socks with Cascade Yarns Cherub Collection 4 Ply, in green.  This pattern by Adrienne Fong was the first sock for the 2016 Tour de Sock Competition.  The entry fee for Tour de Sock is used to benefit Doctors without Borders, and the competition coincides with the Tour de France bicycle race.  There were a handful of other sock patterns one's entry fee bought, but Twists and Turns is the only one I made.  I think that's because I got a little burnt out on socks, having made several over the prior year.  I didn't pick up my skinny needles for another pair until December.



For several years, my husband and I have exchanged stockings as our way of giving each other Christmast gifts.  Among the goodies in my stocking, I always get a tin of Altoids.  For the last two or three years, he's gotten a bar of some luxurious shaving soap from me.  This year, he got a pair of handmade socks, too.



This is the first pair of socks I intentionally made for him.  He got the first two pairs because I knitted the feet of them just a touch too long for me, but just right for him.  Turns out, he likes colorful socks (one of the pairs I messed up is orange).  So, I dug out two skeins of Regia Cotton Color in the creative colorway name 5433 and worked up Ann Budd's On Your Toes pattern, a toe-up and ribbed sock.  He wore them just after the appropriate length of time admiring them on Christmas morning.  This man is knit-worthy.

Case in point:  His brand-spanking-new Felted Clogs.



For his birthday this winter, I finished the slippers I had started for him in honor of our wedding anniversary over a year and a half ago.  I can't remember if we'd replaced our old washer by then, but I know when the time came to replace it, I tried to pick out a model from the modern generation of top-loaders (all sans a central agitator) that might still be able to felt a willing wool.



As you can see, the clogs felted down, but it took all. night. long.  The yarn I used, Patons North American Classic Wool Merino, is a tried-and-true felting wool for me.  But, even with a full load of sheets, then blankets, then quilts, those suckers shrank slowly.  I lost track of the loads of water that had to go through a full cycle of washing before I could start another load all over again.  My old washer, before it quit, could be stopped mid-cycle and restarted at the beginning without pumping out all its water.  Change in technology is not always an advancement.

Anyway, the rest of the projects, for the top of the human body, are for babies--newborns who are either going home right away or in the hospital for a longer stay and in need of some cute warmth.



These and the purple hats below were made from Morgen Stamate's LCD Basic Hat Free pattern.  The heathered red hats above are knit from a remnant of Berroco Comfort, and the purple hats are from remanents of Caron Simply Soft.



These are my first pom-poms, thanks to the Clover pom-pom makers.  The purple hats went to Kansas Children's Service League, for their Period of Purple Crying hat drive.  This program distributes purple baby hats as a visual reminder to parents of newborns that they should not take out their frustrations on their baby during its sustained bouts of crying.



This baby Citrus Hat is made of Serenity leftovers from my Saqa sweater.  It and the red hats above went to a local hospital's NICU.

And now for the yardage tallies:

Twists and Turns socks: 297.6
On Your Toes socks: 298.7
Felted Clogs: 666.9
Red baby hats: 065.1
Purple baby hats: 272.4
Baby Citrus Hat: 067.0

Deep Stash Half Marathon 2016 update:

Total yardage from this post:  1,667.7
DSHM current yardage total:  13,180
DSHM yardage remaining:  9,892.5

Sweater quantities, part 2. Saqa

For National Knit a Sweater Month (NaKniSweMo) in November, I dug through my pattern books and found this Jane Ellison design.  It's meant to be a blanket sweater for more slender figures, and when it's laid out on the floor, it's easy to see why.



I choose Saqa because it's boxy, comfy, easy, and eats a lot of yarn.  In this case, a lot of Premier Yarns Serenity Worsted Weight--also known as "the Deborah Norville yarn"--I purchased in 2009 (only a day or two after Mariella's Knit Picks Palette, in geologic time).



Even with so much going for the pattern, the sweater took me every day of November to finish it on by the end of the month.  After the knitting, there was the seaming.  Fortunately, since I slipped the first stitch of every row, seaming with the mattress stitch didn't take a lot of concentration, either.





I'm impressed with how well the neckline turned out.  I haven't picked up stitches for a neckline in an age (again, geologic time), and I twisted the picked up stitches like I do in socks so as to tighten them up.  (Thank you, Jen H., for teaching me that trick.)



Another glorious feature of this simple sweater is that there is no dedicated front or back.  I can just throw on the thing and not think about checking which side is which.  I've been wearing the heck out of it this last month, too.  It's just so squishy, I can't stand it!  A knitting friend bought yarn for one of her own when she saw Saqa in person, and she even went hunting online for the out-of-print booklet by Miski.  Saqa recommends itself, apparently.



Deep Stash Half Marathon 2016 update:

Saqa yardage:  1,824.7
DSHM current yardage total:  11.512.3
DSHM yardage remaining:  11,560.2

Sweater quantity, part 1. Mariella

Today is a double-header posting here in the Scrapdash blogdom because I'm going to be showing you the sweater quantities of yarn that left Deep Stash since July.

First up, the Mariella cardigan made from ancient yarn picked up during the Mesozoic era (2008 AD).  Yes, Knit Picks Palette was around then, in Rainforest Heather.  Apropos.



And nigh, an epoch or so later, a human appeared whose forethought in the sweltering temperatures of the middle plains made preparations for the coming autumn...when temperatures are only slightly less sweltering because summer just doesn't know how to let go around here.

I took a class from a friend, the fabulous Chauntel of Firebrunette Knits, because there are a few bits and bobs in this pattern I would need help with, especially the part where I added sleeves one size larger than what I made the body.  Oh, and I shortened the sleeves--see the aforementioned complaint about stubborn Kansas summers.

The great thing about this class was Chauntel taught us how to make this cardigan reversible.  The neckband already sports a reversible cable design, and Chauntel helped us graft the top of the band and seam the part of it that rests against the back of the neck in invisible ways so the cardigan can be worn knit side or purl side out.  Brilliant.  With her permission, I'm sharing my progress pictures of the grafting method which can be found as Option 1 on Techknitter's blog.



Since the neck band is ribbed, I separated every other stitch at the top of the band onto four different needles/stitch holders so I could graft first one set of knits to knits and then the other set.  It's not perfectly invisible, but there sure isn't a seam bump on one side, and both sides look the same.



One problem I encountered was moth damage to my yarn.  The yarn has been in the stash a long time, folks, and I have been battling cloth moths for the last year or so.  I sanitized my stash using mostly the freezer method found here, and everything is now in plastic bags.  However, the damage was done already to this yarn, and I had to deal with it.  Those pesky moth larvae neatly cut through fibers, so I had a lot of ends to weave in.



But once I was done with all that, I ended up with a sweater that actually fits me.  The first time ever.  I am seriously happy.  Thanks, Chauntel!



Deep Stash Half Marathon 2016 update:

Mariella yardage:  1,538.5
DSHM current yardage total:  9,687.6
DSHM yardage remaining:  13,384.9

Fitzgerald Scarf

Deep Stash Half Marathon 2016 update:

Fitzgerald Scarf yardage:  380.9
DSHM current yardage total:  380.9
DSHM yardage remaining:  22,691.6

I have more yardage to add from a pair of socks and some sold/given away destashing, but I'll post that later.



Ravelry Stats on my Fitzgerald Scarf project page.

The Fitzgerald ticked a few boxes for me.  Besides yardage for the half marathon, it's my donation to this year's Red Scarf Project campaign and my challenge during the Olympics while playing Ravelry.com's Ravellenics Games.  Both events need some explanation, I suppose.

Briefly, then...

The Red Scarf Project is part of a care package program for college students run by Foster Care to Success, America's College Fund for Foster Youth.  For the last several years, FC2S has included a red scarf in its Valentine's Day care packages sent to students who have aged out of the foster-care system.  I read about the program through the Now Norma Knits blog and have been making annual knitted contributions for the last six years.  If you're interested in making a red scarf for some chilly student, please read the guidelines.



The Ravellenic Games run concurrent to the Olympics and are an opportunity for fiber enthusiasts around the world to knit, crochet, spin, and weave on challenging projects as a celebration of the athletes from around the world doing the amazing things they do.  Much like the Olympics, the Ravellenics have events (Scarf Hockey, Afghan Marathon, Sock-Put) for which feats of astounding crafting are attempted.  Finished lines are crossed, virtual medals and laurels are awarded to all participants with completed projects, and warm fuzzies are felt.  It's been a fun way to sit and watch the games in Rio.

That said, this scarf nearly did me in.  Not because it's hard.  It is not.  It is, in fact, addictive.  But I started it halfway through the Olympics and had never finished a scarf of this magnitude (6 inches by 75.5 inches) in less than ten days.  This one took me seven, plus one day to block.  Rows flew by, but there were oh-so-many!  Two rows in each repeat require a couple stitches for every eleven to be completely off the needles, flapping in the air conditioning.  While you'd think that might be nerve-racking, it's not.  Those stitches stay put like good little kiddos until you need them again.



I had thought I would like to make a blanket with this pattern.  However, the fabric this stitch creates rolls horribly.  I blocked the dickens out of the scarf, but it still wants to roll in on itself when handled and not sitting still for photos.  Don't know if a lap full of this pattern would behave the same way, but I'm not eager to find out now.


The scarf before blocking, but it rolls up after blocking, too.

Anyway, here's to the first scant quarter mile in the half marathon.  Onward!

Deep Stash Yadda Yadda

So, the DS marathon isn't going anywhere, as is evidenced by the scads of blog entries I haven't posted about it.  I also haven't been keeping track of the yardage faithfully (and there is a little some to keep track of), so the idea of going through the backlog to count it all is just a bad one.  It's not gonna happen.

I maintain that the marathon is a good idea, I've just been going about it too casually.  A marathon is a race, after all, and I haven't been acting even like a tortoise in a race.  It's time to introduce the game into this game and set some real goals and real consequences.

[Insert ominous music here.]

And knock down the yardage miles a bit to, say, a half marathon.

Beginning July 1, I'm running my first ever Deep Stash Half Marathon.  I have until the end of the year to work through 23,072.5 yards of deep stash yarn (13.1 miles) or else I must sell/give away/toss the difference of what I don't use in projects.  Either way, I will be rid of just over 23K yards of yarn.  Gone.  Outta here.  Boom.  The sad consequence will be that some of it I won't get to use myself; it'll just be yarn echoes in the corners of my mind.

[Insert Debbie Downer sound effect]

And there are rules!  As follows:

Deep Stash is yarn that has spent five years or more in the stash (added in 2011 or earlier).

Only yarn taken from Deep Stash counts toward the DSHM2016 goal total, not from more recent stash.

Yarns can be held in multiple strands while working them into a project, and the individual yardage of each strand will count toward the goal total.  Because yardage that is gone, is GONE.

All projects finished by December 31, 2016 (using DS) will count.  They do not have to be started after July 1, 2016.

The goal total that isn't met by completed projects will be met as well by destashing methods (sell, give, toss) from Deep Stash.

Deep Stash destashing may occur at any time during the half marathon, not just as its end, and count toward the goal total.

So, how much do I have to work into projects to avoid the dreaded DESTASH decisions?

23,072.5 yards = 3,845 yards/month = 961 yards/week = 192 yards/day (for a five-day week).

Right.  Knitting almost 200 yards a day isn't setting myself up for failure.  Nope.

Yeah, I know it is, but the challenge of the race here is the difficulty.  I'm simply trying to work as much yardage through my fingers before I have to destash the rest, unused.

I intend to report yardage totals as I complete each project.  So, the blog entries may come sporadically, but I hope there will be several between now and the end of the year.

Now, if anyone wants to join me, great.  But, this isn't one of those decreasing-stash-alongs where there will be prizes.  Therefore, there will be no rule nannies to keep anyone in line.  If you want to use my rules for your race, fine.  If you want to expand the rules to your entire stash, great!  It's just that, I know my deep stash alone is still at least 138K yards (78 miles), so I've got a few half to full marathons in front of me before I've whittled it down to a more comfortable level.

So, okay then.  Get ready, get set...

Green Deep Stash

Deep Stash Departure Yardage
Since last tally:	2,756	1.57 miles
Current Total:	3,182	1.81 miles

It started with yoga socks.

Actually, it started with decrepitude in my knees, officially diagnosed as oseoarthritis.  To strengthen the joints, I took up yoga this summer, and THAT prompted me to knit yoga socks.  For which, I dove into the deep stash and whipped up this unispiring yet serviceable pair.

YOGA SOCKS

Yarn:  Unlabeled green acrylic
Yards:  103.2



Tubes with holes for ankles, toes, and heels.  So, stirrup pants without the pants part.  Remember stirrup pants, Gen Xers?  A '90s nod to a more equestrian era, no doubt.

I made a few modifications from Diana McKay's Mindful Yoga Socks instructions (free, through Ravelry.com), such as working from the toe up, keeping an inch of the ribbing all the way around the toes but working stockinette stitch for the bottom of the foot.  I cast on with the stretchy Old Norwegian Cast On and bound off with my favorite Miraculous Elastic method.

Weeks passed, and I knit on various and sundry things I'll write about at a later date.  My blog remained silent because I had nothing cohesive to add to it.

And then the temperatures began to fall, finally.  In mid-October, for crying out loud.  So, I pulled out the fat needles and bulky yarns which also happened to be green.  (A feeble common denominator, thematically, for a blog post, but my life is what it is.)


I purchased both of the following yarns at the same time with the intention of creating a matchy-matchy winter wear set.  And so I have.

OWL MITTS

Yarn:  Mirasol Sulka in Pear
Yards:  72.6



My grandma Mc was an owl fan, and I thought of her while I made these Owl Study Gloves, pattern by Meghan Bosanko.  Of course, I changed them a bit since I can't leave well enough alone.  I added more stitches to the cast on since my wrists are of the stocky variety, and I repeated the ribbing at the fingers.  Again, I used the cast on and bind off I mentioned earlier, except for the thumb which was the standard-issue bind off.

The buttons came from the collection handed down to me from my mom.  I believe they're mother-of-pearl, the tiny kind that could once be found on the cuffs of ladies' dresses.  So, my owls have beady, untrustworthy little eyes.  They don't need to see anything, anyway.

MOURA HEADBAND

Yarn: same as above
Yards:  37.4

The rest of the Sulka I put into the Moura Headband, pattern by Clara Beauty.



I followed the example of a fellow knitter on Ravelry and tapered the beginning and ending of the headband.  I had enough yarn to work only six pattern repeats, but I had enough left over to extend the tapered ending by three or four rows of seed stitching.  I blocked it to about 23 inches before I seams the ends together.



I think that's the first yarn I have completely eliminated from stash.

ARCTIC VERT COWL

Yarn:  Cascade Magnum
Yards:  almost 212.8

Finally, I had a super chunky yarn that looks like pencil roving, so I put it into this cowl of fat, undulating cables designed by Patrizia Momigliano.  It's called Arctic Blanc on Ravelry.



The husband told me I looked like a shady Star Wars character when I tried it on.  Fine.  A shady, WARM Star Wars character, thankyouverymuch.

I didn't modify the pattern in any way except for all the mistakes I made.  I've never cabled on the edges of a project before, and twice I held the cable needle to the back instead of the front like I was supposed to.  Also, my grafting stitches are loosey-goosey because I held the parallel needles too far apart.



For every mistake, I just was too unmotivated to fix it.  If they can't be discerned by someone on the back of a galloping horse (equestrian nod, again), and I can tolerate them, then they get to settle in.  There.  Proof of tolerance on my part.  Don't I feel morally wholesome now.

A grand total of 426 yards have taken their leave of Deep Stash with all this.  A bit shy of a quarter of a mile.  Not bad.

Crispy-first Sky Scarf

Some of my closest friends are those I've known since college, so we're all somewhere in our forties now.  One of them--maybe even me--received one of those Hallmark audio cards in which cartoon puppies/bunnies/unspecified, cutsey-snark mammals with the chipmunk voices congratulated its recipient for reaching over-the-hill status.  For being more than well-done.  For being crispy.

This was three or four years ago.  When I turned forty-one around that time, another friend gave me one of the most decadent creations on the face of the earth:  CHEESECAKE.



And, I decided to begin a sky scarf...which I apparently didn't share anything about here on the blog.  My project notes on Ravelry are pretty sparse, too, but I'm going to share about it now, years later.  You're welcome.

Sky scarves have been around for awhile, originating with Lea Redmond of Leafcutter Designs.  The idea is to knit, every day, two rows that resemble the color of the sky for that day:  one row to the opposite side of the scarf, one row back to the starting point.

I loved the idea, and figured my forty-first birthday was as good an occasion as any to begin one.  So, I cast on 41 stitches.   I decided to knit in a seed stitch pattern and to separate each month's set of rows with two black rows.



I used fingering weight yarn and held two strands together that were not always the same color (say, if there was a partly cloudy day, I held a blue and a white yarn together).  In the end, I used a light blue, a dark blue, a light gray, a dark gray, white, a grungy tan for that season when the pastures in the Flint Hills are burning and the smoke drifts southward, and, of course, black.  (I was fully prepared to include a pale green for those skies that look nauseous before tornados descend.  I never had to, thankfully.)

I was pretty faithful to knit my two rows every day, for awhile.  Each day around noon, I looked up, took note of the sky's color, wrote it in a pocket calendar I carried with me, and knit its likeness later in the day.  And then, less than six months in, I got tired of it.



At which point, I would record a few days' colors before I knit them.  And then in the ninth or tenth month, all I was doing was writing in my calendar.  By my forty-second birthday, I had filled the calendar but not completed the scarf.  That didn't happen until over a year later.  There's only so long I can stand having a knitting UFO around before I rip it all out, and there was no way in all of God's Great Glory I was going to do that.  So I buckled down and finished it.

All the time I worked on it, I carried the yarn colors I used most often up the side of the scarf.  The yarns that I snipped off and then cast on again several days or weeks later were strands flopping out up and down the scarf.  The snaking yarns and floppy yarns together made that side of the scarf look like Zeus' straggly monobrow.  And then there was the fact the scarf had grown long enough to throttle Zeus, so I decided to connect the ends with a three-needle bind off, and I encased the ghastly side of the scarf with an applied i-cord.



I have worn this scarf two or three times since finishing it.  On those days when the wind chill might have sandblasted my tender, aging skin, I piled a year's worth of days in loops over my face.  I drove that way.  People saw me with it on, a mountain of skies on my shoulders, but I didn't care.  I didn't get freeze-dried crispy.

How I taught my dragon to count

Deep Stash Departure Yardage
Since last tally:	2,379	1.35 miles
Total:	2,756	1.57 miles

I have a competitive smudge.  Not a streak.  No, it's just a smudge, like a little war paint under the eyes.  (Though, I believe the modern stuff is called concealer, and I rarely do makeup, but of course here I'm speaking figuratively.)  Because I constitutionally despise confrontation, and see most competitions as glorified strife, I am selective with the ones I participate in.  A win isn't just a win but a means to an end.  I'll fight a war to gain a better peace.



Now, in whittling down this stash of mine, the greater peace is gaining greater space in my house as well as reducing the clutter in my mind.  To that end, then, I'm participating in a couple of competitions that spur me on to knit and crochet and knit some more, and to shop my stash to get it all done.

For a few years now, I've played along with the creative--genius, really--organizers of the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup on Ravelry.  Every three months (with a month's break between "terms"), a clever set of volunteers head up a fiber lover's Hogwarts, complete with Houses, classes, quidditch matches, and advanced studies like OWLs and NEWTs.  The stories these folks concoct to inspire the participants are worth more than the price of admission (FREE).  I've already plowed through thousands of yards while playing this game.

Then recently, while listening to a few knitting podcasts, which I do sporadically, I found out about Stash Dash, another stash-shrinking competition started by The Knit Girllls.  It's running between May 22 to August 14 this year.  This, like its name states, is a decent, flat-out run I can do inside my marathon, so I've jumped into it.

Both the HPKCHP and Stash Dash have a similar rule about counting yardage/meterage when more than one strand of yarn is held together while knitting or crocheting.  All strands are held as one, the logic goes, so the one length they lend themselves to is what is counted, not the lengths of the individual strands.  I can understand this, well, line of thought (pun not intended, but I didn't edited it out).  I don't entirely agree with it, but these are their games, so their rules.

My marathon, however, does not take that route.  Because, and follow me here, ALL THE LENGTHS that leave my stash are no longer in my stash.  What yardage was there before I finished a project and is not there afterwards, I count.  Whether I hold a yarn single, double, triple, or by a half dozen to arm knit, each yarn's length has been removed from the stash.  It gets counted.  Case in point, the shawl that has taken me over the mile and a half mark just this week:



My version of Melanie Berg's Drachenfels Shawl (Dragon Rock, in English) was knit with lace weight yarn, all from stash.  Two of the three colors came from Deep Stash.  In order to thicken the yarns and meet the gauge for the sport weight yarn the pattern calls for, I held each color threefold by working it into a Navajo ply.

So, a shawl that would have taken about 1,150 yards in sport weight, took three times as much in the lace weight.  When I submit this project to both the HPCKHC and Stash Dash, I'll say it took a Concurrent Length of 1,150 yards/1,052 meters.  It's Stash Departure Length, however, is 3,451 yards; it's Deep Stash Departure length (for the two yarns that come from Deep Stash) is 2,379 yards.

I count it the longer way because that is how many yards are not in my stash anymore.  The greater goal of this marathon, after all, is stash reduction.  As of today, I have a grand total of a mile and a half missing from my Deep Stash.  And I don't miss it, and that is the point.  That is the win I'm striving for.

Deep Stash Marathons

We're approaching the third week of the new year, so my resolution is right on time. And with a new year comes a new Deep Stash challenge.  Why?  Because that yarn isn't going away by itself.  Another Deep Stash 9 challenge won't cut it, however.  DS9 eliminated a mere 5,178 yards out of the more than 33K of what I considered deep stash last year (yarn acquired during 2008 and earlier).  In addtion to what was left over from DS9, I am increasing Deep Stash to include 2009 and 2010 yarn.  My philosophy is that any yarn five years or older in my stash is mature enough to be out on its own in the world, being worn or admired or clogging up someone else's stash.  With the inclusion of those years, however, the total yardage of my Deep Stash has swollen into something horrendously huge.

That is, marathon huge.

Okay. two marathons huge.

Yes, Deep Stash has enough yardage now to cover the length of two marathons--92,290 yards.  Apparently, I went bat guano crazy in 2009 and 2010 and thought I had to insulate my entire house with nothing but yarn, thereby almost tripling my yarn stash at the time.  (I have not literally stuffed the walls with yarn, of course.  It's harder to get to that way.)

So, here's the plan:  I am focusing my efforts on Deep Stash, and I am going to see how long it takes me to work my way through 46,145 yards of yarn, one marathon's worth.  I know, I know.  I have at least two marathon's worth.  For that second amount, then, I'm going to see whether I can give away, sell, and/or toss an additional 46,145 yards.

Gah!  The very idea sends my electrolytes plummeting!

I might not be able to do the concurrent marathon; I might be too yarn flabby or hooked on it or whichever pathology the DSM-V might pin on me.  But I think I must try.  Both challenges will make my basement craft grotto look so much bigger.

A few guidelines and allowances:

The focus is on Deep Stash, but I may work with newer yarn from time to time, either from newer stash or brand, spanking-new yarn.  I would like to keep DS work to three out of four projects, though.

I may buy new yarn without a project in mind.  However, I want to finish the race(s) with more yards eliminated from the stash than what I take in.  My ultimate goal from June 2013 hasn't changed; I want to fit all my stash in my dad's old bureau.

There you have it.  This isn't a resolution that can be contained to 2015.  More than likely it will extend into the next three or four years.  After doing a lot of math for this post, I discovered the most I've knit in one year is 12,072 yards.  Now that I'm not employed at a yarn store, I can knit my own yarn more often, yet I'm not as motivated to finish projects quickly by shop sample deadlines.  I'll have to figure out how to "pace myself," I guess.  I will endeavor to keep the blog up to date with my progress...for myself and for the sake of my throngs of readers.

Deep Stash 9, the initial frontier

I've left a lot of the last several months unrecorded on this blog. When I last waxed on and on, I was giving Monday The Finger, right? It turns out that not only has my defiance helped me throw off the Monday Blahs, but so has just owning up to the blahs out loud, in print. Digital print, anyway.

I was kind of surprised by that. It's not that I was trying to keep my intermittent depression a secret and that tossing it into the blogosphere became a huge relief from a hoarded burden. I hadn't been secretive, but the relief came anyway.  After I set it all down into (moderately) ordered thoughts for more witnesses than just my journal pages to stew over, I somehow created distance--an interruption to some self-defeating cycle. I have had very few very bad Mondays since.

One of the things I've left unrecorded here is that I have finally “Deep Stashed” nine projects. I'm bummed I didn't share the process here. I said I would try, but nope. Didn't happen. I actually made eleven projects, but two different yarns sourced two projects each. So, in order of completion:

(Each project title is a link to its respective Ravelry page.)

Asymetrical Cables Socks, blogged about here. (281yards of yarn used.)




Hourglass Throw, also blogged at the aforementioned link. (1512 yards used.)




Magical Mystery Headband, an attempt to mimic a stitch pattern on a small scale. (A meager 88 yards used.)




Juno Regina Stole, blogged here. (818 yards)




Buckland Sweater, blogged here. I dipped into that Donegal Tweed yarn again to test knit a currently unpublished cowl pattern. I wish I could show you a picture, but it'll have to wait until the designer releases the pattern. (1114 yards used, in total)




Little Minx socks. For a busy yarn, I made the counter-intuitive match to a busy pattern. The pattern is regular, however, so it doesn't get lost in the manic color changes and actually tames the colorway a little, in my opinion. Which was the one that counted, since I was knitting it. (286 yards)




From a skein of thermonuclear green Caron Simply Soft that WILL NOT DIE, I made two projects: Nermal the Roly Poly Kitty and a set of IV Site Wrist Covers for the pediatric ward at a local hospital. These two projects were also used in my local yarn shop's BINGO game, which is still going on. Nermal covered the Toy Square, and the fingerless mitts covered the Charity square. I'll have to blog more about the Bingo game later. (79 yards altogether)




Meadowsweet Cardigan, suitable to cover the Something for Baby square in Bingo. (234 yards used.)




Birds of a Feather shawlette. Is it a skinny shawl? A fat-ended scarf? Yes! It's also the first mystery knitalong I've ever done, all to check off another Bingo square. (766 yards of two different yarns)




That's the first nine projects. Did the nearly 5200 yards of yarn I plowed through knock a dent in my oldest stash, the yarn I bought in a new knitter frenzy back in 2007/08? Um, no. Not even. I did the math. I have almost nineteen MILES of yarn left. (I converted the total into miles because the yardage number is just too ridiculous to type. You go convert it back if you really want to know.) So, I'm considering my options. I might give away some of the yarn, sell it, or (more likely) keep knitting it. I'll let know.