FO: A bit of this, a bit of that

To be honest, I'm not sure what all went into this skein. There are bits of cashmere, a fair bit of unknown wool, some llama, a bit of merino, and probably a smidge of silk up in there. Beyond that, there could be unicorn fuzz for all I know. These batts had a bit of everything.

I've been reading up on the mechanics of spinning (of which there are many) and trying some different things with my wheel, so I wanted to use some fiber that wouldn't make me cry too much if I messed it up. Turns out I prefer double drive to Scotch tension, but my bobbins were backwards. I think I've got it sorted now.

So here's 3.6 ounces of about sport weight: A bit of this, a bit of that. I'm not sure of the yardage yet, but it's probably somewhere on the order of 250ish yards. 

FO: Ballet Bear's Steeked Cardi

This little thing came right out of my brains with the fair isle design yoinked from Alice Starmore's Fair Isle Knitting. It's off-center, but Ballet Bear didn't complain. He did say that he liked the improvised shawl collar, though. 

I used some leftover Knit Picks' Brava, about fifty and some yards of the green and twenty-four of the brown. That yarn is now out of the stash and I learned to steek. For this one, I hand-sewed the steek before cutting to make sure that I grabbed all the yarns and I didn't worry overly much about finishing the inside. Again, Ballet Bear did not complain.

Here's a better picture of the design before I put in the sleeves:

Overall, I give it an B+, would go again, but perhaps with wool next time. Teeny bear sweaters are just about perfect for practicing technique and great for using up little odds and ends of stash.

So. Awesome.

I am hanging out in the Windy City this week, visiting with Husband's family. It is a festive season of festivity and I have been kicking back with some festive knitting.  And it's been a busy week, but a fun one.

I've organized my stash and made sure everything is updated in Ravelry. It's now put away by color in the stash, which is how I often like to look at it in Ravelry, too. This here is my whole stash.

After some careful calculations, I figured that I had about 8 years, 3 months' worth of yarn. That's a respectable amoun of yarn for me and all of it is stuff I want to work with. I don't feel the burninating need to buy more yarn and I do feel the need to knit with the lovely yarns I have. That's a good place to be with your stash. I'd say it was a successful stash fluff.

And this happened:

I had the great pleasure this last weekend to have seen The Movie at a private showing with some serious cosplaying fellows from the 501st Legion. It was awesome. It was really, really, awesome. That's all I can say for now. So. Awesome.

I also made a lot of progress on some grinchy socks (I have a sock and a half, minus heels now) and finished a couple pair of jammies for a little Bu, which I will show you in a separate post. Blogging on the iPad is weird, I gotta say.