Yarnometer: July 2018

The Yarnometer (my monthly look at what yarn has come and gone from my stash) has taken a bit of a back seat over the past couple of months, but it is back! Over the next few weeks I’ll be catching up with weekly posts. Here are my yarny ins and outs for July.

Projects finished

Socks for my son

These were a joy to knit; I had earmarked the yarn as socks for me as not only is it in my favourite colours, but it is also sparkly (it’s Opal Surprise if you want to try and get hold of some - the yarn is discontinued, but you might get lucky on a destash). In theory children’s socks are quick but as my son now has size 3.5 feet, they’re not that much quicker than mine!

Two Christmas stockings

The big reveal for these will happen in October, when the pattern is published by Knit Now magazine, but for now, here are a few hints: they’re intarsia character stockings and there’s a ‘boy’ version and a ‘girl’ version (not that that should limit you, I love them both!). The delay between writing this and publishing it means I can share these with you now! Here they are, Mr Men and Little Miss stockings! The patterns will come with issue 94 of Knit Now magazine.

Mr Men and Little Miss stockings. Image copyright Practocal Publishing

Siren Song socks

This was a pattern sample for my Siren Song socks and the yarn from Phileas Yarns was lovely to work with, if a pain to photograph!

The ins and outs of yarn

Yarn in

• 120 g of hand-dyed yarn from Beehive Yarns. This was part of the Tits Out yarn collective that happened in the summer, and this yarn is a very bright and very pretty speckled yarn with a bright pink contrast. In theory I think this was meant to be a sock set, but I think it would make a fabulous shawl.
• 200 g of yarn in the Love Knitting* sale. I was sent these Yarns to review, and the review can be found here. I didn’t get round to knitting the Beeswax Hat before the end of the KAL, but it will happen in the autumn,  it I have turned the stripey yarn into socks.
• 550 g of Sublime Extra Fine Merino* in pink, and 550 g in turquoise. Two discontinued colourways of one of my favourite Yarns came to my attention in a July, and I couldn’t pass up the bargain. I’m currently spending a lot of time trying to decide what to turn them into.
• 100 g ‘Blue yarn from Kath’. Who is Kath, and what was the blue yarn? I have no idea, but it’s on my list, so must have been a thing. I wish I knew what though...**
• 650 g yarn for a commission
• 100 g Bo Peep DK* from West Yorkshire Spinners to sample

Yarn out 

Destashed

• 589 g was sent to my mum (who likes a good yarn parcel!)
• 100 g was given to my friend Lynda for her birthday
• 120 g was sent to Knit for Peace 

Knitted

• 53 g: socks for my son
• 84 g: stocking 1
• 90 g: stocking 2
• 90 g: Siren Song socks 

Total

Yarn in: 2270 g

Yarn out or used: 1126 g

Total: +1144 g (hmm, another month where more comes in than goes out...)

Year to date

Yarn in: 20937 g

Yarn out: 7452 g

Yarn used: 4701 g

Total: 6514 g

Well, another month in which I seem to have managed to have bought rather more yarn than I’ve used. Did I do better in August?!

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**I remembered! It was some lovely blue hand-dyed yarn from a destash. It'll become a hat for this winter

Goodbye Mr Moth: some tips for preventing moths destroying your knits

There is a moth in the kitchen and it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.*

Even before I was a knitter I was not a fan of moths. Something about the way they flap so crazily when they fly around a room hunting for light. I do not like them one bit, and being a knitter they give me extra cause(s) for concern: moths have a tendency of eating your clothing/precious yarn stash/WIPs.

The moth that has taken up residence in the kitchen has been there for a few days. He only comes out when I use my Kitchen Aid (I suspect it disrupts the air quite significantly - it certainly does a good job of throwing icing sugar a very long way), and I first saw him on Saturday evening when he decided to fly from wherever he was hiding around the light-fitting for several minutes. I left the room; I cannot abide seeing moths flying around lights. And I didn't think of him again until yesterday (I assumed he'd left through the window that was open all day on Sunday), when he reappeared, did a couple of laps of the kitchen, explored the entire fixed-glass window, and stubbornly refused to fly out of the open pane at one end of the window. The moth spent yesterday evening sat on the window or window frame, moving only when I wasn't looking.** I would move the moth outside, but I haven't the faintest idea how to move the fluttering creature from the point where it chooses to land to outside without triggering its flapping mechanism, and I cannot cope with that [did I mention that the moth is huge? It is. His body is the length of my thumb (I know that's not huge really, but it is for the UK). I am not going near it.]. So the moth has stayed; not that I know where he is, he's moved from the window and I haven't seen him since last night.

My usual method of moth maintenance is to shut all doors and windows the second night starts to fall. Moths like the light and are attracted to open windows in the evenings, so by having the windows shut they don't tend to come in. But once a moth is in, I am always a little at a loss as to what to do with it. I have, however, taken some steps to make sure my stash is safe. And here they are, some tips on what to do to keep your stash and knits somewhat safe from moths:

1. Clean all your clothes, knits and yarn before putting them away (this includes new-to-you items such as vintage clothes or newly-acquired stash). This removes any moth eggs, preventing them from taking up home in your yarn collection.
2. If you're storing an item that can't be washed (e.g. new yarn), put the item in a plastic bag and store it in the freezer (at between –18 and –25 degrees C) for at least 48 hours to kill off any eggs that may be in the item.
3. Clean your cupboards and other storage frequently: vacuum, wipe down with detergent and make sure everywhere gets the once over. Insects don't like to be disturbed, and are particularly keen on dark corners.
4. Store your clothes and yarn in moth-proof containers, e.g. heavy-duty cotton garment bags or plastic boxes.
5. Put moth repellents in your storage containers: cedar and lavender both work. With cedar, you should sand the wood using fine sandpaper every year so that it continues to produce the smell that moths dislike. Replace lavender bags (or top up with lavender oil) every so often so they continue to smell.
6. Inspect your stash and clothing regularly for signs of moth damage. If you find any, clean everything.
7. If you find you have a major infestation, call out the fumigators and get rid of the moths for good.

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I tried to find some pretty photos for this post. But I will confess that I really struggled to even look through the pictures without feeling rather squeamish!

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*Heebie-jeebies: a state of nervous anxiety or fear.
 **Ugh. Yes, that freaked me out too. It's not paranoia if they really are watching you.

Confessions of a yarnaholic

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from a magazine saying I had won some yarn from Rico. Lovely I thought, not really remembering entering a competition (I often just enter all the competitions in a magazine as winning stuff is always nice). When I got home I looked the competition up and found that I had won a one-sixth share of 4 miles of yarn (I did some maths, that's about 500g of DK), in one of the six colours shown. The yarn arrived last week, and while Rico's merino is divine (and hard wearing - I have used it a few times for baby things), the yarn was a smoky rose colour, which I was never going to use. I put the yarn in the cupboard, and it promptly fell out again.

The straw that broke the camel's back! Beautiful yarn, but not my colour

I own a lot of yarn. There is yarn in almost every room in the house (the bathroom and downstairs toilet are safe). I have sweater quantities, and boxes of odd skeins, acrylic and wool. About 2 years ago I went through all the yarn and stopped tallying up the mass when I got to 5 kg. Since then the yarn pile has not gone down, and is quite a lot bigger. I get a lot of yarn for magazine commissions, and I always end up over-buying when I am designing something, and there are always more projects in mind than time on the needles.

This morning something snapped and I decided that today was the day: some yarn has to leave the house. As I want the space quickly (before I lose the impetus) I have gone down the eBay route, and over ten lots I have listed just shy of 4 kg of yarn. 4 kg! And that was just the stuff that I didn't have to sort through or make big decisions about, just the stuff that was taking up space. There's plenty more that needs to go.

Over the next few weeks months I am going to be a bit more considered before buying more yarn (I don't need more sock yarn), and will hunt right to the back of the cupboards and see what is really there. eBay might be busy with yarn for a bit... it really is time to liberate the yarn.