#LooseEndsMAL: What could you win?

Last month, I launched the #LooseEndsMAL, a MakeALong (MAL) to encourage you to go and unearth some treasured works in progress (WIPs) and turn them into precious finished objects. If you’re not in love with the WIP anymore, now is the time to let it go! You can read all about the MAL here.

This week I’m going to show you what you could win! In the spirit of the MAL, the yarn portion of the prizes is from my stash – I have so much yarn, that it seems only fair to spread the love a bit! There are also some beautiful, beaded stitch markers donated by JensCraftyCharms – I have several of Jen’s stitch markers in my collection, and I use them a lot, so I really hope the winners enjoy theirs!

 

Here are the full details of the prizes, in no particular order…

Prize one

The first prize for the MAL is three balls of Willow and Lark* Ramble (DK; 175 m per 50 g ball; 50% wool, 25% alpaca, 25% viscose; one each in Oxford Navy, Dutchess Blue and Plover Grey). This yarn was donated to me by LoveCrafts a few years ago, but is now discontinued. The yarn would be fantastic for colourwork or stripes, and 150g is a good amount for a matching set, e.g. a hat and pair of mittens. I’ve paired the yarn with the unicorn stitch marker, which will make a great friend to keep you company while you knit!

 

Prize two

The second prize package consists of a skein of yarn by Owl About Yarn and a fairy stitch marker. I bought this yarn at a knitting retreat in 2017, and it hasn’t made it to the needles yet, so it’s time to liberate it. The yarn [Owl About Yarn Cuddly Owl Sock (4ply; 425 m per 100 g skein; 75% superwash merino, 25% nylon; Amethyst Obsidian)] is perfect for socks, if you win, maybe you could try knitting my Siren Song pattern with it? That cable would really pop in this yarn.

 

Prize three

The final prize is one skein of Norah George 80% Superwash Merino 20% Nylon High Twist (4ply; 400 m per 100 g skein; Hedwig). This base is my absolute favourite for socks – the high twist makes really nice plump socks that are lovely and squishy! The yarn has speckles of black, brown, and yellow against a natural background, and when knitted up, should be reminiscent of a snowy owl – my favourite of all the owls! The yarn is paired with a mermaid stitch marker. I love this stitch marker, and it’s a one-off, so if you win, you have something unique!

Each of the three winners will also receive one pattern of their choice from my self-published patterns. Winners will be chosen randomly from all entries received, and will be drawn after the closing date.

 

How to enter?

Use this form to register entries for the #LooseEndsMAL

Your entry needs to fit into one of the following categories:

1.      A work in progress (WIP) that you have finished

2.      A work in progress that you have unravelled, gifted, or disposed of

3.      Stash that you have passed on to a new home

4.      Something you have repaired to give it a new lease of life

To count as a WIP or stash, you must have started the project/owned the item in or before 2020.

You need to be able to share a link to a photo of the entry - you can host the photo on Ravelry, Instagram, or a photo hosting site, and the photo must be publicly viewable. Alternatively, you may email the photo to me - vikkibirddesigns @ gmail . com (remove the spaces!) By sharing the photo, you agree to me sharing the photo on my Instagram feed and in my Instagram stories (copyright remains with you and credit will be given); if you share the photo by email, let me know whether or not you give permission for me to share the photo.

Entries close at the end of February 28th 2021, all time zones.

 

If you have long-abandoned WIPs that you need a push to get finished, why not join me in the #LooseEndsMAL, either on Instagram or Ravelry,** or let me know in the comments below what WIPs you want to get finished this year. The #LooseEndsMAL runs until the end of February 2021. For full details on how to enter, read this post.

*Affiliate link.

**Ravelry link; may cause issues to people with photosensitivity.

#LooseEndsMAL: RIP time!

At the start of the year, I launched the #LooseEndsMAL, a MakeALong (MAL) to encourage you to go and unearth some treasured works in progress (WIPs) and turn them into precious finished objects. If you’re not in love with the WIP any more, now is the time to let it go! You can read all about the MAL here.

This week I’m going to share the projects that didn’t quite make the cut: the RIP pile. For knitters, RIP isn’t Rest in Peace, it’s rip, where you unravel the yarn back to yarn. There are many reasons to rip a project: the yarn isn’t as nice to knit with as you thought it might be; you got distracted so long ago that you have forgotten what it was you were making; your gauge changed over time, and whatever you were knitting no longer has the right gauge; you didn’t knit a swatch and the finished project comes out tiny or enormous! I think we’ve all been there! Sometimes I just lose interest in whatever I was knitting, usually distracted by shiny new projects that take priority.

Here are a few projects that didn’t quite make the cut.

 

1. Fruit-tastic stripes!

You met these last week: my watermelon socks. I cast these socks on about 18 months ago, and they were an experiment in two ways:

1.      The yarn is cotton, so this was going to be my first pair of hand-knitted cotton socks.

2.      They are shortie socks, so can be worn in the summer.

I misjudged the row gauge so the socks got put to one side as I made the first foot too long. I have absolutely no enthusiasm for them now, so they have now been ripped back.

Yarn: Regia Cotton Tutti Frutti in Wassermelone*

 

2. Pond Street

I picked up the kit for this shawl at Yarndale a few years ago. I love the colours, but not the yarn: I find alpaca too prickly to go against my neck, so this is never going to be worn. Add to that the fact that the chevron pattern isn’t something I enjoy knitting (I have an amazing talent for going wrong when knitting things that are seemingly simple), this isn’t a project that I want to finish, even as a gift, so this one has been unravelled. I’ve reclaimed 20 stitch markers in the process too, so that’s a definite win!

Pattern: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pond-street**

Yarn: Baa Ram Ewe Titus

 

3. Blue toddler jumpers

 

I think I cast these on for my nephews before the youngest was born, but got distracted and didn’t finish them in time. Both boys are now too big even for the bigger of the two jumpers I had planned. Yes, I could have finished them off for other children (there are always more babies!), but I didn’t find what I’d already knitted terribly inspiring, so they’ve been ripped back.

 

4. Owl mitts, sort of…

In my tidying, I found a bag that contained three flip-top mitts. No combination of the three created a matching pair, so I’m not quite sure what happened there! I didn’t unravel them, but put them straight in the bin! There was a pile of spare yarn too, but the colours really aren't my thing, so they've been rehomed.

5. Flamingo socks

This is another pair of socks I introduced you to last week. I love the yarn, I love the sock, but I used a really cheap set of needles and I cannot get the gauge to match between sock one and sock two!! The needles have been put in the bin, and I’ll try to make some socks from the spare yarn later in the year, but I can't quite bring myself to unravel the sock, so I might do experiments with that later in the year...

Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply* in Pink Flamingo and Sarsaparilla.

 

What do I do with unravelled projects and spare yarn?

Once I’ve unravelled a project, it’s very rare for me to go back and re-use the yarn, so what do I do with it? First up, I offer it to my mum! She likes to knit blankets from squares, so scraps and oddments are perfect for using up in striped squares if they’re small, and plain squares if they’re larger. I send any other oddments, and partial balls left once I’ve finished a project, to Knit for Peace, a charity that distributes finished knits (e.g. blankets and hats) to places they are needed, and will find a good home for any yarn and knitting supplies to places where they can be used (I tend to send spare knitting needles and notions from magazines to them as I already have plenty of those things). What do you do with your leftovers and oddments?

If I have larger amounts left after I finish a project (usually because I overestimated how much I needed to make the sleeves and body of a jumper longer), or larger quantities of yarn I realise I am not going to use, I tend to list them on eBay as auctions. I set the minimum price I am willing to accept, and then take it from there. I love that the auctions have a finite end point, so I’m not stuck in limbo with the yarn for ages. If you do this, do bear in mind that eBay take fees on both the sale price and the postage, and PayPal take a cut, so it’s not generally worth selling anything that’s worth less than about £5, especially if yoy have to make a special trip to the Post Office to post it.

After all that clearing out, I got rid of a grand total of 768 g of yarn, which feels pretty good! How is your project sorting going? Have you found any hidden treasures?

 

If you have long-abandoned WIPs that you need a push to get finished, why not join me in the #LooseEndsMAL, either on Instagram or Ravelry,** or let me know in the comments below what WIPs you want to get finished this year. The #LooseEndsMAL runs until the end of February 2021. For full details on how to enter, read this post.

*Affiliate link.

**Ravelry link; may cause issues to people with photosensitivity.

#LooseEndsMAL: Sock WIPs - part two

At the start of the month, I launched the #LooseEndsMAL, a MakeALong (MAL) to encourage you to go and unearth some treasured works in progress (WIPs) and turn them into precious finished objects. If you’re not in love with the WIP any more, now is the time to let it go! You can read all about the MAL here.

It turns out I have *a lot* of sock WIPs, which might explain why I can never find any sock needles. I shared the first four pairs last week (you can read about them here), and here are the next four pairs that had disappeared into various corners of the house.

1. Fruit-tastic stripes!

I cast these watermelon socks on about 18 months ago, and they were an experiment in two ways: 1. The yarn is cotton, so this was going to be my first pair of hand-knitted cotton socks. 2. They are shortie socks, so can be worn in the summer.

I misjudged the row gauge of these ones so they got put to one side as I made the first foot too long. Re-examining them, I have absolutely no enthusiasm for them – in the summer I wear sandals all the time; in the winter, I like my socks to come up nice and high to keep my ankles warm. These are either going into the RIP pile, or I’m going to finish them for someone else.

Yarn: Regia Cotton Tutti Frutti in Wassermelone*

 

2. Candy Cane stripes

I cast these festive socks on in November, but ran out of time to finish them for Christmas, so sourced something else for the original recipient. They’re a UK size 5, which is far to small for me, but I have a few friends who might like them. I am going to play about with the length though – I wanted to do the heel in red, but putting the heel so it fell on a red stripe made the socks either too long or too short. I went with too short, but I think I’ll be happier if I switch to green for the heel, and work it on the green stripe between the two red stripes. Definitely a pair to revisit.

Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply* in Candy Cane and Cayenne Pepper.

 

3. Flamingo

Wow! This abandoned pair is OLD! Possibly summer 2017. I love the yarn, I love the sock, but, I used a really cheap set of needles and I cannot get the gauge to match between sock one and sock two!! One for the frog pile. I will reknit them though as I love the yarn. Those needles should probably go in the bin…

Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply* in Pink Flamingo and Sarsaparilla.

 

4. #gbboknitalong

This WIP is a much more recent one: I cast these socks on this summer to knit along with Great British Bake Off. The yarn is cake-inspired (Birthday Cake by Strawberry Fields Yarns), and the pattern I designed for the socks is also cake-inspired: Swirls and Sprinkles. The yarn is a bit busy for the pattern, and while I’ll finish the socks for myself, I think the design is going back to the drawing board.

Yarn: Birthday Cake by Strawberry Fields Yarns

 

WIP update

In case you were worried that I may never actually finish all these WIPs, have no fear! This week, I have been working on the Bah Humbug and Arcadia socks I shared last week, and they’re both making good progress. I even cast on sock number two in the Arcadia pair, so I should hopefully have a couple of finished objects in the not too distant future.

Bah Humbug sock progress

 

Arcadia sock progress

If you have long-abandoned WIPs that you need a push to get finished, why not join me in the #LooseEndsMAL, either on Instagram or Ravelry,** or let me know in the comments below what WIPs you want to get finished this year. The #LooseEndsMAL runs until the end of February 2021. For full details on how to enter, read this post.

*Affiliate link.

**Ravelry link; may cause issues to people with photosensitivity.