The great Stash Down continues! The kids were off last week for March break. We had no plans for travel, and some of us were feeling a little under the weather: that made it easy to keep plans off the table and just stay home. It was pretty quiet, but we had a few days out to break up the week. On our home days I stayed in my pyjamas until noon, crocheting as much as I could. After the Tulip blanket finish I wanted some quick little projects to keep me motivated.
First off the hook is the
Vagabond:
I was excited to try out this gradiant yarn from Red Heart, colourway 'Nautical'. I didn't use the whole cake, and in fact could probably make another of these asymmetrical shawls if I wanted. It works up pretty quickly as there are only two rows to repeat. I like asymmetrical shawls best as they seem to have less bulk around the neck.
The weather is still on the wintery side, so hats, scarves and cowls seemed fitting. I like them because they're so quick: it only took about four days to make all of what I am going to show next.
This pattern, with a small modification from me, is the
Trailing Vines Cowl by Kathy Lashley. It used two braids of Caron X Pantone in the colourway 'Blue Peacock'. While I love the colour combinations of the Pantone braids, I really don't enjoy working with them. I am happy to have these out of my stash.
This Caron Chunky Cake has been falling off my shelves for months, so it was nice to work it up and get it out of the way. This colourway is called 'Cherries Jubilee', and some of those pink shades are VERY bright! A simple v-stitch scarf and basic beanie with pompom used up every last bit of the yarn. I love having no left overs!
This was a new-to-me yarn called 'Loops Boucles'. It is intended for finger knitting, which is why I passed over it in the first place. However, a
local you-tuber did a tutorial on on making this hat, which only required one skein of this yarn. The yarn is on clearance at Michaels, so I thought it might be fun to give it a try.
This only took a few hours to knit up, and the yarn is wonderfully soft. I am still not a fan of knitting, so I am glad I just bought the one skein. You can find the tutorial
here, but check out her other videos because there are a lot of great ones.
And finally, some small skeins got used up for a few projects. They didn't make much of an impact in their absence from the shelf, but little grams add up to kilos over time!
I doubled up two strands of Loops and Threads Woodlands yarn to get something similar to a DK weight. The beanie is again a basic beanie pattern, this time stitched in half double crochet. I love the tweed-ish look of the yarn, and the high wool content makes it feel like a tweed fabric as well.
You get a better idea of the colour blending in this picture. The pattern I used for the cowl is called
'Fantail Cowl'. Mine is much shorter than the pattern because I ran out of yarn, but doubled up it makes a cozy neck warmer.
So despite it being a lazy sort of break it was productive. Until the weather warms up I just need to keep on hookin' on and reduce my yarn stash even further. I still weigh my finishes and record those, along with any aquisitions, every month. So far my losses are creeping up on my gains: a few more weeks like this and I might just be in the black!
Thanks for visiting,
xo Jenn