24 Percent

 With the last blanket being finished it means that I have 24 out of 100 projects finished for 2021. At this point I really wish that I had made a sizable dent in my yarn stash, but alas the answer is a solid no, not yet.  So the 3 blankets used about 27 balls of yarn.  With about another 10 blankets to go that another 90 skeins. So with 13 blankets it will only use about 127 skeins.  With another 14 skeins of yarn for the hats that brings it to 141 and I think it was 10 for the shawl 151 skeins used this year.  I was really hoping for a much bigger dent in volume of yarn around the house.  I thought I would have at least one empty yarn tub by now.  Sigh..

Have you noticed that the estimate of blankets left to knit keeps going up to?  With all that said here is blanket number 3.  By the way with the 1st box of blankets almost full, with a lot more to knit, John graciously agreed to help deliver them. I added a prayer shawl that I knit and a couple of blankets someone gave for me to donate to a good cause.   

In case you were wondering the pattern is one of mine called Modular Baby Blanket.  You can get the pattern at you local yarn store, www.ravelry.com and www.love crafts.com.  It will be under Sheri Karobonik Designs.  It’s a great stash buster project because each square can be a different color.  So far I have only knit this in cotton, although other worsted weight yarn will work also.  Just remember if you start with cotton all the yarn must be cotton. If you knit with wool all the yarn must be wool.  This would also apply to man made fibers too. 

Stash Busting

Sometimes the realization hits in my stash busting journey just how many hats and scarfs for charity I will have to knit before an area becomes yarn depleted. Don't get me wrong I do love knitting and I need to knit to keep my sanity some days. If you have ever watched kids programing for 18 hours a day while taking care of a sick kid you know exactly what I mean.  But I am just 2 scarfs shy of knitting 2 trash bags full of Joann's Sensations Licorice in the past 2 months.

Today's cleaning and organizing yielded yarn for at least 24 more scarfs and some where between 50 and 70 hats. I know I will enjoy knitting each and everyone of them. I know that in this economy every one of them will find a home and be out of my house in a few months.  Then it is off to the next area, and the next. 

I am slowly knitting down my yarn and have even passed some on to new knitters. I can say that I have no more yarn in the storage room or the living room. Yes the living room does look much neater.  I have 2 areas still out of control the craft room and the area in the garage with 6 - 96 quart boxes of yarn. I hope some day to have my entire stash in my closet not overflowing the storage containers. This I hope will also include the fluff. When I stopped buying yarn I replaced it with fluff sprees. After all you get more bang for the buck by spinning then knitting it. Right?

 I know I will never be one of those people who buy one or 2 projects at a time. I know this because I have been know to knit 2 scarfs in a day and start the third. But how exactly do I determine how much yarn is the right amount for me. Don't expect an answer today but sometime in the next year or so. After all I come from a family of pack rats. How do I know this? Well there are still a few boxes, still sealed from a move in 1965 in my moms garage.

I don['t know if I will ever be as organized as John or Teri but I am really trying my best. Well It is time for more kids programming and knitting . Maybe another couple of scarfs will get finished.

A Perfect Day

What a wonderful day I had. I spent the day at the Tucson Wool Festival. The people were great, the vendors were awesome and a few sheep and goats got their hair cut. I would like to publicly thank Kathy and Mark Withers for putting on such an awesome event.

Some of the highlights included:

Demonstrations of spinning on wheels and spindles.

Farm tours.

Knitting and crochet demonstrations.

Carding demonstrations.

Mini lessons. I got to teach a wonderful 5th grader named Georgia how to knit. She had a good inch knit by the time the show was over.

There was a very quick visit by John and Eric. They were so wonderful and brought me a sandwich and of Venti cup of iced green tea from Starbucks. It was a little on the hot side for Eric so I sent John to look around and sent them packing after about 15 minutes. I did not think I have it in me to do an all nighter tonight.

Oh yes and I did not take home as much as I came with. I would also like to say what took me 4 days to assemble for the show was unpacked and put away in less than and hour. Go figure. Well it is almost 6 pm so I am headed out to Mayco's to pick up dinner. Have a wonderful evening.

Knittng and Winding Yarn

I have found that if I wind the balls and hanks of yarn into cakes, they tend to get knit faster. So earlier in the week I took a nice piece of pottery put a vase in the middle for knitting needles and started winding. I only put the needles in the vase for the weight yarn I had wound.


The progress was great, 4 scarfs were finished this week and the pot started to look empty. I think that it helped that Eric was home sick from school on Friday; because I knit 2 scarf’s on Friday. So today I went into my yarn stash and pulled out 8 more balls of yarn and wound them. I also wound 8 more skeins for Teri’s blanket which John has dubbed my enormous project of the year; I have passed the 34 skein mark and will knit a little more each night. You can see the work in progress. The blanket is 17 modular squares across.

I really know that I have made progress in my stash reduction process. The 2 closets that I had full of yarn no longer have the yarn in them. Yes I know that this involved filling another 95 quart box with yarn; but I am being more honest with the amount I have and am working hard to stash down. In case you were wondering it was the box of yarn that I knit through earlier when I went through 95 quarts in 3 months. So no new boxes were purchased.

Well it is time for Eric’s breathing treatment and time to make dinner. Yes multi tasking is essential. Have a great evening and enjoy your families.