Skip to main content

Stashbusting

On Monday I went along to my first ever Stitch and Bitch London meeting. I was partly in my p/hop role as they were holding a yarn swap for MSF but I also went as a knitter and yarn swapper. I've written about the p/hop side of things over on the p/hop blog so I won't repeat myself here.

I did take part in the yarn swap which brings me to stashbusting. One of my favourite interweb knitting friends, mostcurious, spent a lot of last year monitoring her stash, measuring the amount of yarn in vs the amount of yarn out. I kept on meaning to do this but my yarn buying habit went out of control. This year I'm on a self imposed yarn diet. If I need something specific to a project that I don't have in my stash I will buy it however that is all. No more impulse buys (ahem, unless they are in the sale).

Stitch & Bitch for Haiti

So to the maths. I'm not even going to add up all the meterage in my stash as frankly it scares me. What I'm going to do is monitor new yarn in vs yarn out. On Monday I swapped 9 balls of kidsilk haze (in purple, gorgeous stuff but really not my colour) with the PurplePurler (she was very very happy) and also swapped a ball of undyed Bluefaced Leicester sock yarn and a few sachets of Koolaid. I took in 2 balls of DK weight Rowan felted tweed in a light mossy green colour and one ball of light brown merino.

Meters in 470 - Meters out 2214 = Overall change in meterage: -1744m
Weight in 150g - Weight out 325g = Overall change in weight: -175g

Money to p/hop from my transactions (me and the swapees), about £50.

So win, win , win all round.

It's good letting go of yarn. I'm still thinking up potential projects with purple kidsilk haze but I've had over a year to use it and it hasn't happened so I feel good about letting it go to a better home where it will receive more stroking and love.

As for Stitch and Bitch London, I loved it. It's the friendliest knitting group I've ever been to so I think I may become a regular. I met people who I "know" through twitter which was great fun, putting real faces to names and avatars. If you want to learn to knit or just hang out with a fantastic mix of knitters come along. The details are in their newsletter.

Comments

MrsGKnits said…
hi Clare!
just given you a Sunshine Blog Award. Details of what it is and how to pass it on are on my blog.
Agnes xx
14 February 2010 at 19:42
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We have a winner...

Check out my pea seedling, how intact and un-nibbled it is. My mysterious object, as correctly guessed by Madmurdock and Montyknits, is a gastropod guard. It seems to be working. I'd heard that slugs and snails don't like slithering over hair. I tried using hair clippings a few years ago as a barrier. It worked for a few days, til I found chewed, leafless stems and on further inspection a guilty slug covered in ginger hair. Hopefully the fleecy barrier will stay in place and mean I get a good late crop of peas. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who took part.
4 comments
Read more

Unravelling the NHS

If you follow me on twitter you'll already know I have a healthy interest in politics. Our current government is slowly and steadily dismantling our beloved NHS (National Health Service) from one with full public accountability to one which is more dependent on profit margins rather than evidence based medicine. THIS MAKES ME VERY ANGRY. There's a lot of despair at the moment, many of us feel our government is not listening to us, the people, or experts in the field such as the British Medical Association or the Royal College of Nurses. Yesterday our unelected second house, the house of Lords, voted through the government's ill-advised health reform bill. We all felt hopeless, then I read this blog post . You should read it too. Many of us are working out what to do. How can we reverse this disastrous decision when essentially the democratic process is failing us. "The NHS reforms did not appear in either the Conservative or Liberal ...
4 comments
Read more

TOTOROOOOOOOO!

I finally handed over the Totoro hooded top to it's two year old recipient today. It also fits his four year old sister which is good as she likes Totoro too. They both looked very cute in it. We met up at the Wellcome Collection which has a lovely airy cafe and free exhibitions. The Totoro kids mum is a fellow scientist so we went round the Exquisite Bodies exhibition explaining why calves are sometimes born with two heads, how babies are made (the four year olds current interest) and lots of other science fun to the kids. If you visit the Wellcome centre with kids ask about their young investigators pack. It's really cool (I was disappointed I didn't get one) and it's free. Brilliant. The staff were really helpful and pleasantly surprised at seeing young kids enjoying a strange exhibition, rather than being freaked out by it. Personally, I did enough human dissection as part of my degree to make me not want to see another cadaver ever again, although the models wer...
4 comments
Read more