Three reasons to air your stash

I’ve never really subscribed to the notion of spring cleaning – or any kind of regular cleaning routine come to that. Apart from when it comes to my stash. Not necessarily linked to spring, or any other time of year, I will quite often get the urge to have a good rootle through my stash. 

Not that I’m looking for anything in particular, you understand. It’s more akin to visiting with old friends. A chance to check in with skeins both young and old. Frequent purchases nestling alongside never-to-be-knit classics. 

This year I have had to move some storage boxes around (thanks to the current situation and the never ending chaos of 2 adults and 2 near-grown adults all living and working under one roof). I took the opportunity to have a good rummage, clear out some old WIPs that were never destined to become finished objects and pick out a few items that could go to other homes. 

There are any number of advantages to doing this on a semi-regular basis, but three solid reasons (should you need them) are: 

1. A chance to check for unwelcome visitors. I’m not going to say the M word out loud but we all know how attractive our stored skeins can be for little beasties. I’m keeping my fingers firmly crossed when I say that I haven’t yet been troubled by this, but obvious signs to look for are little papery cases attached to your yarn, areas of breaks or weaknesses in the yarn or fine sandy grains in and around where the yarn is stored. This article is very informative – if slightly terrifying. 

1. A chance to reconnect with forgotten items. Despite my best efforts I often forget exactly what I have stored away, especially as it is currently stored in multiple places. I try to keep track with an Airtable spreadsheet but there’s no substitute for actually getting my paws on the yarn to remind myself what I actually have in my possession.  

1. A chance to rehome some yarn. Let’s face it, I have way more yarn than I can knit in the next few years and it’s all potential moth food. Quite often when I go through my stash I’ll find something that no longer appeals to me, or I never quite ended up using. I can often pick out a few items to either use as prizes or giveaways, or to donate either to charity shops or other organisations. I often like to donate to Knit for Peace as they will accept either full or partial skeins as long as it is clearly labelled. 

Lost yarn and other tales

A lost year - how can a simple ball of yarn bring up so many feelings?

Almost a year ago I had to quickly pack up the contents of our spare room - turning it into what we laughably thought was a temporary home office.

I hastily grabbed a load of project bags and yarn and packed them away into a large tub, and that was the last I saw of them until this week, when I had to go looking for some important tax papers.

There were quite a few long forgotten WIPs and yarn that I'd clearly set aside when I was naively putting together a rough 'to knit' list for the year.

This yarn, for example was clearly going to be a Christmas knit as I'd put it in my special @kalokshekellen project bag but I couldn't even remember the yarn, never mind what I intended to knit with it. (I now know that it's @edencottageyarns Brimham High Twist in Festive Fun).

If ever there was an analogy for our present situation. So much has been put on hold. I started to list all the tings that we, and more particularly, my boys have missed out on. But I deleted them as it's unhelpful at this stage to dwell on it too much.

It just makes me sad.

Luckily there were considerable upsides to unearthing my forgotten stash - more needles than I ever remember for having - for a start.

And I also took the opportunity for an impromptu 'finish or frog it' session.

So it's not all doom and gloom. And now I get to decide to what to knit with this lovely yarn, as it's certainly not going to disappear back into my stash again.

Pink stripes and brown mittens

I appear to have inadvertently created my favourite sweetie - Liquorice Allsorts in sock form - by adding in some candy pink stripes to these DIY self stripe socks.

In part I think I was motivated to "go pink" with these DIY self stripe socks as an antidote to an endless sea of brown mittens.

I made the mistake of checking Ravelry's hot right now page the other day only to see so many versions of brown mittens - and even a sweater version (untested, unknit - just a colour chart slapped onto an existing pattern -by a designer who has never made a peep about anything remotely political or controversial before. But I digress)

I counted 11 separate Bernie inspired patterns!

Seriously, when did knitters lose their sense of creativity? Why the rush to make a pattern (and presumably make the mitts) that everyone else is also doing?

The original mitts weren't even hand-knit. They were upcycled from a sweater. If you wanted to pay homage to the original intention and upcycle something yourself I could see the point. But indulging in a commercial activity as some sort of tribute to something that was originally about the opposite of consumerism seems very odd to me indeed. I even saw specific “Bernie inspired colourways” for heavens sake.

I know that knitting has always had it's wildly popular patterns. The ones that suddenly everyone seems to be knitting. But this is something else.

So many people rushing to capitalise on something that wasn't even hand-knit in the first place.

And yes a free pattern is still gathering social currency (if not actual currency), otherwise Caitlin Hunter wouldn't have bothered to go to all the trouble of colouring in a chart for it.

A quick glance at the Ravelry front page was enough to make me feel as though I was in a parallel universe - one where I don't really give a flying flamingo about brown mitts - or the old white man wearing them.

I'm far more excited by the historic firsts of that particular day for women, and women of colour. The amazing purples and jewel tones. The wonderful, inspirational address by Amanda Gorman. So many firsts and so many sources of joy and inspiration that knitters could have focused on instead of brown mittens.

And if you are intrigued by the thought of designing your own self-stripe socks but the thought of all those ends puts you off, you might like to take a look at the Clasped Weft Join - no fuss, no weaving in of ends, just pure self-stripe enjoyment.

Ravelry and why I'm not deleting my account

Fuss Free Mitts - one of my free patterns

Back in the summer I wrote about the accessibility issues over at Ravelry in the wake of their site upgrade, and the decision I had made to transition my patterns sales over to a different platform - Payhip. You can read that post here if you missed it.

I originally set myself the deadline of doing this by March 2021 as that is when the Ravelry team have informed us that the Classic view will be retired. After this time, folks who are unable to use the new version of the site will be left just that - unable to use it.

As a result of some downtime over the Christmas holidays (thanks to Covid for cancelling our plans) I was able to move all patterns across sooner than expected and so I started the new year with no active patterns for sale on Ravelry, instead they are all safe in their new Payhip home.

I will continue to keep the pattern listings live on Ravelry and will also be adding new ones. After receiving some pushback on this (and not very polite feedback either) I’d like to address the reasons why. Partly so I don’t have to keep typing out the same comments every time I launch a new pattern.

1. Ravelry is first and foremost a pattern database. The purchasing function is very much secondary. Just because a pattern is listed on Ravelry it doesn’t mean it’s automatically available for purchase there. Books, magazines, LYS kits - so many listings in the database are just that, a listing.

2. Anyone can add a pattern listing to Ravelry. You are adding the information about the pattern, not the actual pattern itself. This means that if I remove my patterns from Ravelry (and I’m not even sure I could) someone else will invariably add them back in at some point. If I want to maintain any element of editorial control over my content and my intellectual property - and I do - then that means I have to maintain a Ravelry presence and list the patterns myself.

3. Listing a pattern in Ravelry is of benefit to the knitting community and to indie yarn dyers. I’m a huge advocate of supporting indie businesses and by listing a pattern which uses indie yarn, it’s a real benefit both to that business and to customers who find themselves wondering “Now what can I knit with this 100g of sock yarn”. Every pattern listed adds information and knowledge to the database which is arguably Ravelry’s greatest strength.

So there we have it. Yes I will continue to list my patterns on Ravelry, with a link to my Payhip store where the actual purchasing takes place - via Paypal - in the exact same process that would happen on Ravelry. I’ve written about what Payhip is here.

The only difference is that the pattern will be emailed to you and not deposited in your Ravelry library. If you would like a copy gifted to you so that you have a library copy, please just email me (the email address is at the bottom of your pattern PDF) and I will take care of that for you.

Hats for humans - again

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

It’s that time of year when a certain smoothie brand (owned by Coca Cola) likes to indulge in a bit of PR fluff and invite people to knit tiny hats for plastic bottles that neither want or need a hat.

I’ve written about this before and why I generally prefer to knit hats for humans who need actual warmth, as opposed to plastic bottles that don’t - indeed the other year we had a Hats for Humans KAL which was great fun.

This year, time is a bit more limited but if the recent adverts for said knitted hats have got you thinking along the charity lines please do think about knitting for the fabulous Big Issue North who are asking for knitted items - hats, scarves etc - to distribute to people they are working with this winter. All items are gratefully received although they prefer natural/neutral colours if possible.

And if you are looking for a good basic beanie pattern you might like to know that I’ve recently added a free download to my ‘free patterns’ section here. It’s a basic hat knit in mistake rib and uses sock yarn held double - it knits up quickly and is ideal for using up some of those single skeins of sock yarn in your stash.

If you are looking for more suggestions on charity knitting you can find a comprehensive (and frequently updated) list over at The Knitting Goddess blog page.

Socktober Tips #1: It's all about the yarn

https://payhip.com/LouiseTilbrookDesigns

Of all the countless articles and endless advice written about sock knitting I feel that the one thing which should be top of the list, rarely is.

What am I talking about? The yarn of course.

You can have the perfect stitch pattern, the perfect needles and create socks that are the perfect fit with amazingly matchy stripes. But none of that matters at all if the yarn isn’t up to the job.

A lot is written about so-called sock yarns - often taken to mean a 4ply or fingering weight yarn which usually (but not always) is a wool blend with up to 25% nylon. This often leads to the assumption that this is the only type of yarn suitable for sock knitting. But in reality it is perfectly possible, desirable even, to knit a sock in 100% natural fibres.

Nylon is added to give strength to a yarn, a job it does admirably. But the same effect can be achieved by adding another fibre such as alpaca or mohair to the blend.

If you want to read more about this and maybe experiment with some nylon free socks for yourself, this article by the Wovember team in conjunction with Sue of Blacker Yarns is a great place to start.

Another crucial factor which is often overlooked is the matter of gauge. People often complain that their socks wear through quickly, especially in high friction areas and may blame the yarn. If this is a problem for you it might be worth switching down a needle size or two. Friction is reduced considerably when the fabric has a tighter weave - the fibres literally have less room to rub against each other - and the resulting sock will be much longer lasting. Knitting socks on 2.5mm needles used to be my default but increasingly I have noticed much better results (and increased longevity of heels/toes) by switching down to 2.25mm needles.

Whilst no one wants a bullet proof sock*, aiming for a slightly denser fabric than you might usually go for could work wonders.

* This reminds me of when, as a sock newbie I decided to knit a DK weight sock on my regular 2.5mm needles. What could possibly go wrong I reasoned - surely you always used ‘sock needles’ to knit socks.

The end result was a pair of booties that quite literally stood up by themselves.

And that’s never a good look.

To sign up to receive these #SocktoberTips as emails, please use this link