One Geek to Craft Them All

So last year I posted the bead stash  What a difference a year makes. It has grown just a bit. Just a bit mind you, similarly to how I have just a bit of yarn. Or just a couple of books.

Where I once had a single case holding all my beads. It has increased a bit.

I now have three matching boxes of beads. So quite the amount of growth. I’ve created quite the number of new items, and gotten stocked up to create items that were surprisingly popular so I should always be able to restock if at some point they fly out of my shop. I’ve also developed a fondness for crackle beads.

So those are around in a lot of colors, and just waiting to be used. And I ordered more. And one can’t forget the pewter, and acrylic charms I have to use as accents or parts of earrings.

The case holding those has long since been filled and now a lot of pieces are living in baggies. Currently my craft room is in a state of half destruction as we moved a bookshelf to the living room and all roaming bits of craft to the craft room. Right now it means that there is more room and a lot of mess that will have to be dealt with followed by a trip to purchase supplies, and maybe a new work table.

That work will likely be a few more weekends in the making.

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beads, Etsy 31posts, beads, stash

I always want to use more yarn than I buy and work my way down in the stash. I  have plenty of yarn. But there is always a moment when on a yarn diet I go on a binge. So I didn’t it was more a focused calm and working with what I had and not jumping at every pretty yarn.

Learning to spin did help settle that as well as I had a whole other plie of things to buy. I think the spreadsheet will need a new tab soon. But looking at my stash by the numbers I started 2011 with 174 skeins and around 44K yards of yarn. A few things happened that helped me bring this number down by almost half. I sold a good part of my lace weight and a couple other yarns before I went to London in  March. In one fell swoop someone bought 24 skeins of a yarn that i was going to turn into a blanket…someday since 2008.

I also knit a few large projects this year, baby blankets, sweaters, a few shawls, even the hats and fingerless mitts helped to bring the stash into order. I would still buy a skein or two here or there, but much more was going out than usually would. And there was no binge purchase of a dozen skeins at any point.

Then Hurricane Sandy happened, and a friend lost her apartment, most of her things, and 90% of her yarn. Well we couldn’t give back much of those other things, but as a group as a group we could build a stash in our sleep.  We all went through our stash, and covered my dining room table in yarn. twice over, and treated it like a yarn swap where our friend got  first dibs. I knew she was a lace knitter, and I had finally accepted that I was not, and with a few beautiful skeins, thousands upon thousands of yards vanished from my stash.

So I opened my yarn spreadsheet. Marked off the used/sold/gifted yarn and blinked. Could I have really “used” 23 thousand yards of yarn and 70 skeins?  Yes. Well  2012 that was a first. If I had another year like that this year I would not have any stash come January. Instead I will endeavor to keep using more yarn than I bring in. That sounds doable. Mostly.

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Knitting 31posts, stash, yarn

Well I am finally doing it. Cleaning out the yarn bins and putting some stash up for grabs. Payment and shipment info are at the bottom of the post. You can also look over on Ravelry . I will update this post as soon as I can once I have received payment confirmation. Send an email to lonelyscribe[at]gmail[dot]com for what you are interested in.

First up 3 skeins of madelinetosh Pashmina. Each for $28 at 360 yards per skein. Two in Midnight in Manhattan which is The Yarn Company’s exclusive color way. sold.

The third in the Colorway Fjord.

A skein of Madelinetosh Tosh Lace in Ginger. 950 Yards. $22

4 Skeins of Malabrigo Lace. $7 per 470 Yard skein. 1 skein – 52 Paris Night , 1 skein 37 – Lettuce, 1 skein – 195 black, 1 skein 28 – Blue surf sold

Nine skeins of Patons SWS – Soy wool stripes in grey variagated, 6 skeins in solid blue, and 6 skeins in solid black. $4 a 110 Yard Skein.

Two skeins of Madeline Tosh Merino Light – City Lights $18 per skein.

• I will take payment via paypal and domestic Shipping is included in listed price. International orders please PM for a shipping quote.
• Please complete payment within 24 hours of my confirming the yarn is still available.
• Shipment is by First Class Mail; which takes 2 – 5 days, for faster delivery PM/email me (lonelyscribe[at]gmail[dot]com) and we will work out a price
• Yarn ships within 2 business days of payment receipt.
• Yarn is stored in plastic bins in a cat friendly smoke free home. The cat is not very interested in yarn but I can not promise it to be completely free of stray hairs.

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Knitting madelinetosh, sale, stash, yarn

I’ve talked about the yarn stash a couple of times. But it is not the only stash I have. With all the Jewelry and Markers that I make I have over the years amassed quite the pile of beads.

Beads and charms and crafty things.

I tend to grab a few of a lot of things wandering the bead district and then work from there. Sometimes I have ideas, and will grab a couple things online, but roaming the bead shops, is always fun inspiring and stash enhancing. Sounds a  lot like visiting the yarn stores.

Sometimes coming up with a new design is just laying things out, and seeing what comes to mind. Which may be something interesting or nothing at all.  This pile below, was a nothing at all.

Or a pile, turns into charms for all the seven years at a very magical school.

You have, Owls and castles, Diaries stones, padfoot, and moony. That set is still in progress but you get the idea.

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beads, craft 31posts, beads, harry potter, stash

So I finished the mystery Medallion shawl.

i think it came out really well for having no idea where I was going when I started.  I especially love the edging.

And I finally got a chance to block it this weekend.

I really like how it came out especially with having no idea w what it would look like in the end. I think it came out pretty well. The Summer Mystery Shawl I had to frog as there was something off in chart C that just got worse in every row.  I have finished chart A again and hope to be back on chart C by the end of the week.

It’s back at this stage of development, but hopefully not for long.

And did everybody see the post about our favorite scarf over at Geek Crafts?

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Knitting 11 shawls 2011, FOs, shawl, stash

Tidy mind, tidy stitches.

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised?

Well now isn’t that the question.  If you look at this:

You might thing oh not bad,  the bins are even sorted,  Top – left overs,  acrylics, and other washables. Middle, lace and sock weight, bottom worsted and bulky.

If pretend there isn’t yarn all over the living room and in other parts of the bed room, I could even pretend to have visual organization system. Its not like I have bags of wayward balls or anything…

But I know where most of my yarn is,  yes there are 3 skeins of Lace I haven’t seen since I opened the package they came in, but they are around, somewhere. Over there.

But honestly my real organization isn’t there its here.

My knitting spreadsheet. I’m an analyst, I spend all day in Excel, yet I could not think of any other place where I would want to keep my information organized.

My first tab, Yarn – catalogs my yarn, the color, brand and yardage, to the best of my ability. There are somethings that I have had so long and lost the tag so long ago I can only guess.  Brown lace weight, worsted that might be Cascade 220, Ella Rae, Lion Brand Wool ease or some thing else entirely.

The second tab  is for new yarn, to compare my output and intake. Not that the tab has influenced me yet but I very quickly went from almost no yarn, to enough to knit a house cozy.

With the yarn sheet I know it the number of skeins I have (168) , yardage (currently my stash is resting at 42,798 yards),  what is planned for it if anything, and what is on my needles.

I find a spreadsheet easy and intuitive, and simple to tailor to my needs.  I can check the yardage on a yarn I have, when looking up a project to gauge if I have the right yarn, or need to make a change.

I know what projects I started when to get a better idea on how much I knit throughout the year.  March seems to be a bad knitting month, but a good one for other crafts.  Did I mention I keep track of  beading and Clay work there too?

I track my spending, hence the knowledge that I needed a yarn diet in January.  I have ideas for projects and their matching yarns,  I know how much Yarn I have been using and  what kind of dent I am making in the 42K. Sometimes it helps with the guilt of buying more.

Even with the yarn there, there, there, and a bit over there, I can know in a glance what I have, and if that red cashmere wool blend  is enough for a shrug without having to hunt down the ball and pray the band hasn’t wandered off. I will know that yes, you do have 2 skeins of that purple, you just have to find the other one.  And alas you did use the last of that yarn in that other project.

Needles on the other hand…

We can talk about that later right?

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Knitting 2KCBW, 2KCBWDAY3, organization, stash, yarn

So its March. Month three of the plan to empty out the stash. How is it going? Slow going but there is progress. Also I found out the name of some mystery yarn when I saw it at Gotham Fine Yarns. It’s actually Noro Cash Iroha. I also found another skein of some purple lace.

And an update of the Year’s Goal:

Tally

Skeins Likely to Use: 138
Total Yards: 25, 558
Cast on in 2010:6

Days without a yarn Purchase in 2o10: 72

Completion

Projects: 4
Skeins: 12.25

I started yet another Dalek in Worsted Weight, and its been flying off the needles. I ran out of the yarn and that is likely the only reason its not my fastest finished Dalek ever.

It knit up in about 2 days which was great and reminded me that I may have been using lace for a little too long, for the Christmas cowl, beret, and dalek.

So I went back to the Marvel scarf and have mad some progress on DareDevil.

But along the same Marvel Plan I want to make a Captain America Circular shield shawl.  So the first part I wanted to get down was the star. I figure once that was done I could work out the lace and increases simply enough.

With that in mind I knit this star pattern, Stars From the East which was quick and easy. I think I would need to eventually make the star via a provisional cast on then work my way back out. There will likely be a lot of frogging and hair pulling but that is how the JLA scarf came to be so It shall be interesting. I have a couple other designs planned, we’ll see how that goes.

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Knitting, Lists 2010 goal, Captain America, dalek, Doctor Who, marvel, scarf, stash

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you all had a good time ringing in 2010. I was at a Steampunk Bar with a TARDIS (Yes it was bigger on the inside)  to the Bathroom and Absinthe  shots at Midnight I had fun.  So I mentioned before my friend’s idea for a stash bust. Well I figure I should keep track of it somewhere. And keep track of my progress or lack there of. And also keep track of any new yarn I buy, which is not allowed until I am employed (fingers crossed on sticking to that).

So  a list of sorts. First up projects started but not finished in 2009. Not sure how I will deal with projects that will used 25yds or less of something like Cascade 220 in a variety of colors but as the months progress I’m sure I’ll think of something. Then a list of all the yarn that I think I would actually use in 2010. So none of my acrylic or odder novelty yarns are on this list.  Sadly my ravelry stash needs an overhaul, so it will likely not be updated at least not right now.

In better news I remembered that I had emailed my Justice League Scarf Pattern around so there should be a PDF in the next couple of days now that the pattern won’t have to be rewritten again (my flash drive killed itself) . I may add a few more files on my version of Double Knitting once I AGAIN get a new camera.

Projects- Cast on ’09

Blanket 2/24 skeins used
Marvel Scarf/ JLA scarf 2 - 1/10 Skeins used
True Blood bag- 2/4 skeins used
Twilight Bag – 2/4 skeins used

Projects Planned

Office Shawl II
Knotty or Nice Hat
Green Lantern Bag
JLA scarf 2
Batman Scarf
Sock Weight Sweater
Cascade 22o Sweater
Dalek Kahn
Purple gloves
Slippers
Cabled hat/scarf/glove set
Armwarmers
Socks
Spiderman Scarf
Dark-Mark bag

Tally

Skeins Likely to Use: 137
Total Yards: 25, 558

Days without a yarn Purchase in 2o10: 4

Completion

Projects -
Skeins -

Below is a list of all the yarn and number of skeins.

Read more…

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Knitting, Lists 2010 goal, January, new year, plan, stash

So I have not reached SABLE level but I’m thinking I have enough yarn for  a few years at least.  So what am I going to do?

1> Keep Knitting – M0st of the yarn was purchased with a project in mind if not pattern (i.e. hat, bag) – and why would this be a problem? Usually it wouldn’t be, but I had Christmas deadlines and made an obscene amount of things in a very short span. All of a sudden I’m making things with no recipient and no deadlines. So its been harder to stay diligent.

2> Stop buying yarn – Now I know myself, this is a lot harder than it sounds. So I will give my self smaller goals. Finish 10 projects before getting more yarn. With the projects cast on, squares, and Geek Gifts for M I should be able to do this. I have 3 scarves and a glove cast on already.

3> Organize the Stash - I think it would help to be able to see how much yarn I actually have instead of keeping it in different rooms and different bags. And I should get a more reasonable stash managment tool, than shopping bags for when the weather gets warmer and the bugs start coming out. While we have never had a bug problem this would be the time it starts.

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Knitting plan, stash, yarn