Bold ambitions

I don't really call them resolutions, but as the year starts, I do think about what I want to achieve this year.  It beats thinking back on what I did not achieve last year.

I wrote a bit of a list if things I want to do that are out of my normal range.  Yes, I will do the usual knitting.  Making shawls and socks and a sweater or two and I will try to improve my skills and try out new patterns.  I will also have some boring knitting in the bag.  This is for long trips, sitting in queues and watching TV.  It is amazing how much plain knitting can get done in these times and how satisfying it can be too.  Right now I am busy with a shawl, based on The Age of Brass and Steam.  This is an extremely useful recipe for a simple elongated triangle shawl and I have used it a number of times now.  I am using some cashmere in a dark charcoal, dyed by the amazing Carle Dehning.  It is not much to look at, but wonderfully soft and will be a perfect neck covering for the winter months.

The list

• Felting:  I keep drooling over wonderful felting projects, especially on Pinterest, and have a feeling ( pun intended) that I will enjoy the freedom to go wild that this pastime offers.
• Crocheting:  I am relatively new to this branch of fibrecraft, and wish to get better at it.  Some mad impulse just a week ago sent me buying yet more cotton yarn to make a bedcovering/afghan/blankie.  More about this in a later post.
• Weaving:  In some ways this is the absolute opposite of felting.  It requires discipline and adherence to rules.  Well, at least to get started, one needs to know what one is doing.  I must set up the loom, warp it and get weaving.  But first I need to plan a project, reread my books and see if I can remember anything.  I know there is a lot of help out there, so if I become stuck, I will have to ask for help.  
• Spinning:  Yes, I have been spinning for years, but maybe it is time to go to the next level.  Spin to a plan.  Have a project in mind and spin for that.  Maybe....or maybe is is just going to remain my Sunday afternoon form of relaxation.
• Sewing:  Since I was 12 and made my first dress, the knowledge that I am able to produce a one off outfit for me, has kept me inspired and motivated to carry on.  I don't sew nearly as much as I would like to and there is so much scope as far as patterns and fabrics are go.  The choices are something I am reminded of every time I see boring, poor quality, mass produced and badly fitting garments in the shops.  I walk away in disgust and decide I really need to get back to sewing.
• Decoupage:  Just because...when fabric and fibre begin to pall (not that I believe they ever would), there is paper and scissors and glue.

Now, I just need to use every hour in the day that I can, and some of my bold ambitions may become real.

Stash, Destash and New Years Resolutions

I am back to blogging after a rather long break. I know what you are thinking. I could have just started an all new blog and pretended I was a fresh blogger. But I am too lazy for that and I am also rather fond of the content on this blog. I might even get my scanner connected and revive the seventies pattern series. I still have a few of those that beg for comments.

But right now, I am in a thoughtful place. Wooldiaries, of our South African Ravelry group has prompted us to haul out our stash, to flash it and to say what we intend doing about it. As a person who has "too much stash" ( in quotes because there is no such thing) I am a bit embarrassed about it all. The more I entered the stash into my stashery, and the more photos I took and posted, the more I started wondering if I do have a serious problem. The whole flash your stash thing feels a bit like sitting at a dinner party and every one is asked to tell about her most embarrassing moment. FFS! Why, if it was your most embarrassing moment, would you want to be embarrassed all over again by recounting the moment? I never understood it.

The last few days, I have been pondering about the whole stash thing and have come to terms with it. Here are the main points that come to mind.


I love knitting and to knit you need yarn. Like a painter needs a canvas and paint, a knitter needs needles and yarn. No one has ever said to a painter, you can't buy more red paint until you have used up all the blue that you have stashed. The artist would never be able to be creative if he was not allowed free range to pick and choose colours or to store up pieces of inspiration in what ever form he does, so that when he wants to create, he can get creative. It is the same for knitters. We may not be elevated to the status of artists, but this is a creative outlet to me. So I have stash, and knitting books, and my late M-I-Ls collection which spans her 50 plus years of knitting. I also have tools. Needles, two sets of interchangeables. Only a knitter knows how expensive our tools are. Ordinary people would be shocked at what some plastic cables and metal, bamboo or wooden tips cost. Ordinary people don't even know what a modern day knitting needle looks like!

Ok, creativity aside, do I deserve to have all this stash? Am I worthy? Am I aiming to be to yarn, what Imelda Marcos was to shoes? I don't know. She probably had warm feelingsabout her shoes like I do about my yarn. But that aside, we live in a material world where people collect all manner of expensive things, and then they flash them before the eyes of the poor and hungry. When you drive your luxury car past a beggar on the street, do you wish you had taken a taxi and not been so conspicuously consumptive? No, you probably say, this car created jobs and some people are lucky that I bought it because it meant that some families had food on the table because I love being a collector of things. Maybe yarn is the same. What I do know is that what I spend on yarn in comparison to what other women in similar circumstances to me spend on facials, manicures, and massages, not to mention hairdos, special treatments and pedicures, I can honestly say, what I spent on yarn this year would not keep my nails in good nick for the whole year. I am not condemning your beauty routine, just saying that we all waste our money in different ways.

I knit and give most of what I knit away. I don't mean charity knitting, but friends and family who love my shawls and socks and mitts are the recipients of my knitting and welcome to it. Sometimes when I spend a rand or two on yarn, I realise that I could never have found as lovely a gift for a friend as the what the yarn becomes. My humble opinion, so there!

So, what am I thinking as far as stash goes in 2015? I want to thank Wooldiaries for the challenge. It forced me to take out all my yarn and enter it into my stash on Ravelry. That is a gift in itself. Because I can glimpse at it and remind myself of what I have when I am planning a new project. I also know what the heck the yarn is called, the weight of it and how much I have. I am notorious for losing ball bands.


My 2015 resolutions about yarn:

Keep knitting, whether from stash or cash.
Try to have less yarn at the end of the year. I might need to downsize one day and it would be sad to say goodbye to some of the yarn I have yet to knit.
But never deny myself a flutter if the yarn tugs at my heartstrings.

Big resolution - whatever new yarn comes in to the house, enter the stash into my Ravelry page.

Celebrity knitter

Elizabeth: Oh, Mummy, do look at this. I have just turned the heel all by myself.

Mummy: You are a clever girl! I think you could take over running the country. Don't you think so Daddy?

Daddy: Yes, I am sure she can, but she will need to finish that second sock, before I let her give it a try.

Margaret: That is so unfair. Elizabeth gets to do everything first - running the country, learning to knit and you will probably find a prince for her to marry one day, too.

Mummy: Don't worry about it. Running a country is really not all it is cracked up to be.

Elizabeth: What a silly girl you are. I will have to marry a fusty old prince, but you will be able to choose whomever you like. Won't she Mummy?

Sulky Margaret: Oh, whatever! Mummy, when are we going to stop these silly poses for the photographer? I want to kick off my shoes again and put my feet up on the couch.

What is their occupation?

Tina and Tim are very seventies, new-agey and trying their luck at a new occupation. Can you guess what it is?

A clue: It is farming of a sort.

Watch this space and in a week or so all will be revealed, the occupation as well as the specially designed outfits.

The Afghans are rioting!!

Really? It all looks jolly peaceful to me.

Mandy contemplates giving up modelling

Mandy has had second thoughts about being a knitwear model. Her agent, Scintilla van der HoHum, called to ask her to take on a new assignment. "Its a knitwear shoot, Dahling! Perfect for you, rather revealing and sexy knitwear. It will be great for your portfolio and future work."

After a bit of internal dialogue, involving what Cedric, her boyfriend might say, Mandy is now on the shoot. But its not going at all well. This is just not how I thought I was going to look in skimpy knitwear. I may look like I am laughing, but inside I just want to curl up and die.

Just wait till I see you again, Scintilla - you are fired!

Bob and Clarissa

Bob: Hey, Clarissa. You look so cool today.

Clarissa: I know, Bob.This dress is just the thing, so swingingly modern. I just feel like dancing.

Bob: Me too, well singing actually. I am going to join a band and play my guitar.

Clarissa: Join a band? You are such a nerd in your grandpa button up cardigan! No band would have you.

Bob: Why not? This is a bright red cardigan, which is trendy and look at my knitted tie. That is special.

Clarissa: Next thing, you will tell me that your barometer is a guitar. What are you doing with that anyway?

Bob: (mumbling) Well, I just thought I would see how I looked with a geet and well, you know, ...I think I look pretty cool myself. (Thinks to himself: that girl has such a way of making a man feel like a like a complete idiot)

Clarissa: (Thinks to herself: that man is a complete idiot)