Day 23: Use Your Supplies

Back on Day 17 when I was sorting through and sort of taking stock of all of my knitting supplies I realized that it was almost absurd to have so much yarn. My Husband actually saw me stacking up all the now-neatly-rolled bundles and laughed "you'll never need to buy yarn again!". Problem is, I'm CONSTANTLY tempted to buy more yarn when I'm at the store. So, in order to keep off the Hoarding  show, I decided I wasn't going to buy any more yarn until I used up some of that stash!

I have been looking at knitting a cowl, or infinity scarf, for a really long time. I love how they look and figured they would be pretty wearable. I'm the kind of person who is constantly cold, so it would be nice to have a kind of scarf that I could not only wear under my jacket, but also around the house.

When I was sorting my yarn I noticed that I loved the way that these olive toned green and oatmeal colours go together. I was instantly inspired! I grabbed a pair of circular needles and set to work.

For this project I used:

Around 5mm or 6mm Circular Needles (The Packaging is gone, and it doesn't say anywhere on the needles the exact size, sorry!)

I cast on 135 stitches with the main colour
(you could make it wider by casting on more, or more narrow by casting on less, but for the textured pattern I recommend using an odd number of stitches)

I  used a (British) Moss stitch pattern, or Seed Stitch which just means that you Knit 1 Purl 1 all the way around.
        - Because you used an odd number of stitches you do not need to change anything when you start a new row, you just keep going around with your Knit 1 and Purl 1. The design is created because all of your knits are on top of purls and vice versa.

The way I did my rows was 10 rows of the main colour and 5 of the contrast colour alternating, with a total of 55 rows all together.

I'm really happy with the way the cowl turned out! and I'm also really excited to be knitting again. I already have two more cowl ideas I want to try. It's just really fun, relaxing, and rewarding! As these can be knit up in just a few days even if you don't have a ton of time to commit to them.

Day 17: Taking Stock

So I'm realizing that sometimes you just don't realize how much crafty-type supplies you really have!

I have been wanting to start up some knitting again. I used to knit and crochet all-the-time when I was in University, and a lot when I was growing up as well, but for the past year I haven't really touched it. I started looking at a few small patterns to try, and started thinking about what sort of yarn I should pick up when I thought "I probably have some knitting stuff in the storage room that I could use." Yeah, understatement of the year, for sure.

I forgot how huge the box was that I used to pack up all my knitting stuff when I moved. It's enormous! And what's worse is that I sort of packed everything pretty unceremoniously so it was a disaster sort of a mess...

I realized that I really haven't been knitting because I forgot that I even had this stuff! And realistically, looking at this mess of tangled yarn didn't really inspire me. So I decided to take stock!

I dumped out all of my yarn, half finished products, bits of stuffing, and sorted it all.

When I was finished I was actually shocked at how much yarn I had!

I am so inspired people. Like, I want to make a million different projects now. And This is perfect timing because it's just starting to get chilly outside! It really really helped me to get to see exactly what it was that I had, and to have all of my supplies in front of me. It also made all of my knitting supplies a lot more useful! Now that they aren't just a tangled mess. I'm really happy that I decided to put in the time to sort all of my yarn out. Now I just need to think of a really cute way to store it!