An adventure in crochet

Back in January, I wrote a post on my yarn stash, and how I'd like to reduce it significantly during the year. The fourth row from the right in this picture consisted of acrylic yarn, that I had no clue what to do with. The black and olive green are colours that I would wear, but the others were simply too bright for my taste. Luckily, I've found a home for those four skeins.

They are now Nesting Baskets! This was the perfect pattern for using up partial, but still quite large skeins of stash yarn. I didn't want to make accessoires, because the colours are so bright that I wouldn't wear them, and some of the yarns are quite scratchy. This was also a good opportunity to work on my crochet tension.

I started with the pink ones. The pattern calls for more height and a crocheted edge, but I like them this way. The numbers can be found here. (And here for the blue ones, here for the red ones)

The green basket is a different story. I started this one after I'd finished all the other colours, so I had already made 13 baskets. I also had quite a bit more green yarn left, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to making 10+ baskets in this yarn. It's not so nice to work with (which is fine, considering I bought 600 metres of it for €3). So, after I'd made the largest basket, I moved onto coasters.

This is the Set of Ombre Coasters, also by Marinke Slump. This gave me an opportunity to practise my double crochets. I made 8 coasters before I decided that was enough, and then I made the lid (details can be found here). I still have a bit of yarn left, but that will be used up in my leftover blanket.

I have made more things, but this is enough for today.
Until next time!

Lots of love,

Lisanne

Flash your stash 2016

Yesterday, I came across a forum thread on Ravelry, called Flash Your Stash 2016. I had already decided to try and decrease my yarn stash this year, but seeing other peoples' stashes gave me that little extra motivation. So, today, I took all my own yarn out, to see if my stash met my expectations, and to get a clear image of what I own.

This is almost everything, laid out on my bed. On the right are my WIPs. Apart from one, all of these are knit with yarn that has been in my stash for a while. Now for a close-up:

I'm quite relieved that I had a pretty good idea beforehand, of all the yarn I own. The only thing that surprised me was how many skeins of purple DROPS Alaska I had left from the cardigan I made with it (the second column of yarn). From left to right, there is cotton yarn destined to become a sweater for my mom, the leftover wool yarn I was talking about, some alpaca and DROPS Eskimo, in mostly whole skeins. The fourth column is all aran acrylic that has been dipped into. I started last year on my quest to make socks out of these skeins, although I may use the black one for my beekeeper's quilt.
After that, it's all leftovers or single skeins of yarn that were gifted to me. I've got no idea what to do with this, apart from knitting accessoires. The balls are still a bit too big to use for my mitered square blanket, or the wrong weight.

And lastly, my small leftovers. Also pictured is my mitered square blanket. I've used up leftovers, and I'm also using up my mom's stash on this one. Unfortunately, most of the yarn I got from her is blue, so this project is hibernating until I've created some more leftovers.

That's it! I'm very happy that this amount of yarn is quite manageable. I should be able to reduce this by half in the next year, although I'm not setting a specific goal. My fabric stash, on the other hand... Let us not speak about that one.

I'd love to hear from you about your own stash. Do you keep it small? Or are you happily drowning in yarn?

Lots of love and until next time,

Lisanne