Withdrawal

Does anyone else experience withdrawal symptoms when they are away from my stash? In my case this manifests as a strong desire/need to cast on All The Things as soon as I return home. 

We had an amazing and fun weekend in London celebrating our boys' birthdays and on coming home I should have either been relaxing with a cup of tea, keeping the mellow mood going - or doing laundry and getting ready for the school week. Instead I found myself pawing through my stash and seriously contemplating winding 5 skein of sock yarn (in my tip of a kitchen) so that I could start a Find Your Fade shawl (or similar). Never mind that a particular skein of yarn has been in my stash for over 2 years. I have to knit it and knit it now.

Fortunately DH knows me well and lured me away with a well timed glass of Prosecco - otherwise I dread to think what the consequences might have been.

I was sensible and knit on a sock (whilst drinking the lovely Prosecco) and disaster was averted. Tonight through I feel might not end so well. I definitely need something soothing and gartery on the needles.

How to get your afterthought heel in the right place

As much as I love the afterthought heel I know that not everyone is convinced and one of the most common questions I hear is from knitters who worry that they won’t know where to place the heel to ensure a good fit.

This is one of the most common concerns and is heard a lot with toe-up sock knitting in general.

With cuff down socks it is very clear. You knit the leg until you have a length you are happy with - for me it’s 6.5”, for my husband it’s 7.5”. The you knit the heel, then you work the foot.Simples!

With toe-up socks it is more of a leap of faith. Standard instructions tell you to start the heel between 2-2.5” before the back of the heel ie total foot length minus 2 to 2.5”. If you get to the leg and find that the heel is in the wrong place, then a bit of judicious ripping is required.

With an afterthought heel this is a rather more unnerving prospect as once your heel is cut, there isn’t much room for error.

The best advice I can give for this, which will also increase your confidence, is to practice doing a few standard toe-up socks first with either a basic short row heel or a fish lips kiss heel. Learn where the best fit point is for you - you can put in a lifeline if needed so that if you do make an error in the heel placement you can just rip back to the lifeline and not worry about lost or dropped stitches.

Make a careful note of the exact length for your ideal heel placement then use this measurement when doing your afterthought heel.

Also - my best tip for making sure you get a good fit is rather than measuring the toe-up sock flat, actually slip it onto your foot and use a bulb pin or similar to mark the point on the base of the sock where the cut should go. For my UK size 6 foot, this is usually at 7.5” from the toe (with sock slightly stretched). My total foot length is 9.75”

Armed with this information I can now pretty much pop in an afterthought heel (for me) wherever I am, safe in the knowledge that the sock will fit me fine.

I hope this helps ease the nerves somewhat. If you do decide to be brave and give it a go - do let me know how you get on.

Project overload

Too much choice?

It was inevitable. Yesterday in a fit of pre Stash Dash planning I pulled out all my WIPs and neglected projects and piled them up in a heap on my bed. And then I sat back and looked at them. 

I'm not going to outline them all because to be perfectly honest with you I felt a sense of shame and overwhelm that I find quite hard to put into words.

In my house I have, let's be frank a lot of money tied up in projects that have lain untouched for months and years. And in an age where austerity and very real hardship is a problem for so many people I have to say it made me feel incredibly sad that my WIPs had got to this level. I am lucky enough to be able to buy beautiful yarn and yet some of it is yet to see the light of day and again.

I have no wise words or cunning plan today I'm afraid. My tried and tested list making skills failed to help as itemising it won't make the problem better. Equally, shoving it all back under the bed won't help either but that was the solution I opted for.

One day, when I have steeled myself I will go back and pick out a few projects at random and make a decision on them. Frog it or finish it. I'm not going to number them or set goals for myself right now but by the end of Stash Dash I'm hoping to have considerably fewer bags under the bed and hopefully a lighter heart too.

Lists of lists

So, today I'm all about the lists and a bit of organisation. I have decided to get all my ducks in a row before the start of Stash Dash 2017 in an effort to beat my total from last year when I completed 14 projects with a total of 7826m.

Poor planning on my part meant that a few larger projects were finished up in April and May when in actual fact I could have saved them up and counted them against my finished Stash Dash tally.

This year I would like to pass the 10K mark - I know - why do we do it to ourselves. But, show me a challenge and I can never resist.

Phase 1 of my cunning plan involves assessing all my sock WIPs and seeing how much work is needed on them. Short answer - a lot. I'm aiming to get each one to around the 75% complete mark and then in the first week of stash dash I can have a burst of finishing and give myself a bit of a motivational boost into the bargain.

I does mean of course though that I'll need to cast on a few more things - so that I have something to work on as May 26th (the official start date) appraoches.

If you'd like to find out all the rules and requirements for Stash Dash please follow the thread on the Knit Girlls Ravelry group. Their next podcast episode is promised to be all about the event - so you are far better off getting all the information direct from them.

Right, now I think I might just go and set up a spreadsheet or two.

To finish or not to finish...

It's a dilemma that most knitters will empathise with. I have at a conservative estimate 5 pairs of vanilla self stripe socks in various stages of completeness. Most of them are toe-up with an afterthought heel and at least 2 pairs could be finished in an evening if I put my mind to it.

My problem of course is that Stash Dash starts in just 3 weeks - on May 26th - I think (but don't quote me on it). Under the rules of this annual event all yardage from a completed project counts towards your Stash Dash total - no matter when it was started. So I could wait until May 26th and then whip a load of afterthought heels in and easily get the first 1000m or so under my metaphorical belt.

But then, I'm feeling the urge to finish a few things and free up some project bags. Oh.. and I've run out of sock needles too. Decisions...

Insert lovely blog post here

This blog post was intended to be a review of my yarny activities over the weekend and a quick recap of events around the country for Yarn Shop Day. 

However through the wonders of social media I have found out some more behind the scenes information about the day that have made me question my former enthusiasm for the 'official' event.

I knew that some yarn shops were participating officially and that some werent. What I wasn't aware of was that yarn shops had to pay to be included in the official event as advertised. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this information, particularly in a community which is overwhelmingly inclusive. Like many knitters in the UK I like to support as many indie yarn sellers as I can whether they be local Yarn shops or online indie dyers or online yarn sellers. They all play a pivotal role in keeping our UK knitting community vibrant and alive - and let's face it our knitting world would be a pretty sad and dismal place if we had to resort to shopping solely in the 'big box' craft stores.

As a result I have pulled this blog post while I have a rethink and find out some more background information. As a blogger I feel that I have a responsibility to know more about the events I talk about here and maybe I was slightly naive in some of my earlier assumptions.

Goodness me - that's all pretty serious stuff for a Monday morning. Im going to suggest some calming knitting and a cup of coffee. Normal service will be resumed shortly.