Cornering in on the Granny

I am admitting, I have always wanted to make a granny square.  I am working on a crochet along so I can learn to make granny squares.  In the process I am also hoping to get better at crochet so I can diversify my fiber skills.  I am also trying to use yarn out of my stash.  I am succeeding at all of it, but the last one.  Knitting or crocheting out of my stash is hard.



Test Granny

After a test corner granny with much crocheting and ripping out and weighing of the yarn I was able to work up a strategy to use stash yarn and get the 20 blocks I needed.  I have been hooking away to get these blocks done. I have got one corner of corner grannies done.  Check granny squares off the fiber bucket list for me.

A Corner of Corner Grannies

The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

Okay, I am admitting I have problem.  Because I knit I have lots of yarn.  I am sure there are others with stash issues larger than mine, but whatever I am talking about my problem, not theirs.  Sometimes I buy yarn with projects in mind, but sometimes not.  In 2009 I made a hairpin lace wrap for my mother with 6 skeins of a cotton / acrylic blend yarn I bought in a rainbow of pastels for the project.  The DK weight yarn was 250 yards per skein.  I thought it would be just enough for a nice wrap.  The pastel colors when laid out side by side they reminded me of the marsh mellows in one of my favorite morning cereals, so I called it the "Lucky Charms Hairpin Lace Wrap."  I liked the end product and my mother seemed to like it too.  However, it left me with about a half a skein of each color or I thought about 750 yards of yarn. 

I put all the yarn in a bag and shoved it in my pie safe trying not to let it bother me that I had these half skeins just hanging out in my stash.  Most of the time I could forget they waiting in there unknitted, but occasionally it would nag at me. I would say to myself I should get that yarn out of my stash.

One day while looking at a knitting pattern book I saw just the thing for the waiting yarn, a cowl.  The design was called the "Ice Cream Cozy Cowl."  As you can guess the pattern used pastel colored yarn.  I thought that is the perfect pattern for eating up all this leftover yarn.  Now I had two things nagging me, using up the yarn and making the cowl.  Until one day I gathered the yarn, the pattern, needles and cast on.  I was convinced this cowl would relieve me of these leftovers.  Magical thinker me.

Well, that didn't happen my friend, once I was done, I still had yarn.  Lots of yarn, over 300 yards of yarn.  I guess I had more than I thought in those skeins.  Instead of just getting rid of the leftovers from the leftover yarn like a sane person might do I decided to knit a towel.  Well then I needed to knit another towel.  Still I had yarn, so in desperation I knitted a doily out of the scraps.  When done with the doily I still had about 18 inches of yarn left.  I gave myself a pass on those last inches of yarn, but I am not going to lie I kind of wished I could have used it in the doily too.

In total I knit a hairpin wrap, a cowl, 2 towels, and a doily.  I wish I could have just said no to my obsession with using up all of my yarn, but I just couldn't.  MUST knit to the last inch of yarn...At least I am admitting I have a problem.

Yarn Stash, Part Deux

First I do not speak French or even pretend to speak French, so please forgive the pretentiousness of the title.  I think I am trying to convey the ridiculousness of my yarn stash by using a highfalutin French word.  In literature this language could even denote the beginning of a mock epic. Now that I have established the silliness of which I am capable, I will move along. 

Today I walked by my mail chubby at work and found a ball of yarn with a single size 10.5 knitting needle shoved into it.  I must admit I looked around to see if this was some sort of joke played on the flakey records lady.  Next came the double take of is there really a ball of yarn in my chubby.  With a little effort I got the ball of yarn out of the small space and ascertained that yes there was only one needle stuck in it.  I scratched my head, yup even in a jail yarn falls out the sky to land in my yarn stash.

Later a co-worker admitted that she was cleaning out her craft room and found the yarn and thought about me.  She did not really explain the lone needle, but you know I think I can let that mystery wait for another day.  Apparently, my yarn stash is  becoming like a planet with a gravitational pull, it is attracting random balls of yarn from other people's homes. Why can't money come to me as easily as yarn does?