Author Archives for Apanthrope

Stashdown 2017: Q3

That’s quite a bit better! Yay for donating and destashing??

 

I have to say: I am quite chuffed at how well Quarter 3 went in terms of my Stashdown efforts. Look at those lovely green numbers!

I had not realized I bought zero ounces of fiber for a second quarter in 2017! It’s amazing how much my purchasing attitude has changed since last year. I seem to have finally reached a place where if I’m not spinning much, there’s no reason to be stashing. Most of that number out was spun during Tour de Fleece, but about 1/3 of it was destashed to a spinning friend who was running low on fiber… and I have so much excess. It felt nice to rehome it. I’m rather hoping Q4 can be another Impossible! quarter, and that I will end the year with quite a bit less fiber stash than I had at the beginning. (On a fun side note, this is the first time since Q4 2015 that I’ve had under 500 oz of fiber in my stash. That feels pretty shameful to admit, as 500 oz is  31.25 pounds. I still have a large 2-3 year old child’s worth of fiber waiting to be spun up. It’s ~ 125 braids of fiber, y’all.  Eeeesh. It took a long time to start getting that number heading back in the right direction, but I’m hoping it’s a trend that continues.)

I did very well on the yarn front as well, despite some big numbers in for blanket solids and handspun made during the Tour. Honestly, I would have been in the red had it not been for a large donation I made to The Lemonade Shop and her program to send fibery donations to those who lost their stashes in the hurricanes this fall. I know yarn seems like a silly thing to donate, but it’s something I have plenty of on-hand, and I know that I find keeping my hands busy with craft work therapeutic. (OMG. Am I secretly Cher donating my impractical sporting equipment to those in need??) Not a single yard out came from finishing a project this quarter; it was all donated, gifted as prizes for the podcast, or rage-binned after disastrous projects. So that part doesn’t feel so amazing. And despite all of this, I still managed to eek out a stash loss equivalent of only 2 skeins of sock yarn–which is very little space made in my bins.

Last quarter I discussed what my big goal is with all of my stashing down efforts over the last 7 or 8 years: I want all of my fiber and yarn stash contained in a single storage unit without satellite stashes throughout the house. My time line is slightly different now–we’re moving summer of 2019, not 2018 as hoped–but I’m still not optimistic that at my current pace this can happen in that time frame without some aggressive destashing. We will see what the end of this year and all of 2018 bring. Here’s hoping to an amazing 4th Quarter!

Are you stash tracking, kitten? How has yours been going? Do you have some other resolutions or goals you’re keeping track of that you would like to share?

September 2017: Wrap-Up

Yardage Totals 2017:

 January: 1,065yds
February: 1,075yds
March: 1,659yds
April: 1,453yds
May: 1,595yds
June: 379yds
July: 313yds
August: 646yds
September: 373yds
October:
November:
December:
2017 Totals: 8,558yds or 4.86 miles

So.

To say September didn’t go as-planned would be one of the bigger understatements I’ve made lately, so we’ll just say that, I suppose? After the last yardage tally, I was feeling fairly optimistic that September would be full of knitting–I had a sweater to knit for Rhinebeck, after all!

BUT.

Life has a funny way of liking to change your plans, and almost immediately after my last posting… my knitting mojo abandoned me. POOF! Off it went into the aether, and it has yet to return. I wasn’t too concerned at first; it’s not unusual for my desire to knit to wane or fully disappear for a few days or sometimes up to a week and a half, but this time has been a bit different. It’s been a full month, and I’m still not really *feeling* knitting. The only yardage I racked up in September was thanks to finishing square #3 on my super-scrappy 10-Stitch Blanket and starting square #4. That’s it. No other knitting has been done. No socks. No sweaters. No quick little projects. I have tons of plans but no follow-through at the moment.

It’s bumming me out, but I know it will eventually come back, and I will be obsessively knitting again like nothing happened. So until then, I will work on other crafts. What have you been working on in the last month? Have you been getting lots of crafty projects accomplished? Have you switched into gift knitting mode with the winter holidays fast approaching?

Here’s to a more productive October!

August 2017: Wrap-Up

Yardage Totals 2017:

 January: 1,065yds
February: 1,075yds
March: 1,659yds
April: 1,453yds
May: 1,595yds
June: 379yds
July: 313yds
August: 646yds
September:
October:
November:
December:
2017 Totals: 8,185yds or 4.65 miles

So. Bad News is that August was another low yardage month. I did not come close to my monthly goal of knitting 1,000 yards for every month of 2017.

The Good News is that I knit almost twice as much yardage in August as I did in July. So even if it didn’t meet my goal, it was better than I’ve done the rest of the summer. It means I’ve been making more time to knit which is always a good thing! Even with another low yardage output month, I am still riding on the edge of meeting my goal for the year: I am still averaging 1,000 yards knit per month. So let’s hope September is more kind!

Summer is almost gone here in the North Country. Is it cooling down where you are? (Or warming up for those of you in the Southern hemisphere?) Have you been knitting much, or did you switch to other crafts during the summer?

Show Notes: Episode 187

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♥ Please come join us in the Ravelry group!
♥ The podcast is now on YouTube, if you prefer to watch there. Please remember to give my videos a thumbs up and do the same for other podcasts you enjoy!
♥ If you like speckle-y sock yarn, you might want to check out my Etsy shop:lambytoesshop.etsy.com.

Show Notes: “Ch-ch-changes”

♥ Sock it to Summer 2017 is ending the last day of August! You still have time to get those last minute finished socks entered!

WiPs:
♥ O4 of 12 Socks: these are almost finished. They are the longest socks I have ever knit, and I’m getting a bit sick of them.
♥ 10 Stitch Blanket: I am almost done with the third square. I have two more rounds to go then this one is fini!
♥ My daughter picked my next pair of socks for my personal sock club. It’s not looking good for getting through 12 pairs this year, but I’m OK with that.
♥ Next on deck is Threipmuir. If I do not get started soon, I may not finish it in time for New York Sheep and Wool.

Life Chat:
♥ I discussed the last 3 weeks of my life.
♥ I discussed changes that are coming to both the podcast and my shop. I hope it will not be too disappointing to anyone, but I really need a change.

Discussion Topic: “What I wear, vs. what I do not.”

I have discovered that I wear only a small portion of most items I knit which can be disappointing, but I think I’ve honed in on what makes different types of knits wearable for me. I would love to hear what you have learned during your time knitting! Do you wear everything you knit? Have your tastes changed? Let me know in the comments!

Episode 187: Ch-ch-changes

 

Hi, kittens! Thank you for spending some of your time catching up with me today! Today’s episode has a couple of WIPs, a little Lamby update news, and a few minutes of chatting at the end, including my plans for the future of the podcast and my shop. Show notes can be found on the blog at SewKnitpicky.net, and please consider joining the Knot A Podcast Ravelry group!

Blog: http://www.SewKnitpicky.net
Ravelry Group: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/knot-a-podcast
Shop: http://www.lambytoesshop.etsy.com

Pixelland Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Show Notes: Episode 186

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♥ Please come join us in the Ravelry group!
♥ The podcast is now on YouTube, if you prefer to watch there. Please remember to give my videos a thumbs up and do the same for other podcasts you enjoy!
♥ If you like speckle-y sock yarn, you might want to check out my Etsy shop:lambytoesshop.etsy.com.

Show Notes: “Second Recording”

★ Please remember that Sock it to Summer: the fifth ends 31 August! Get those FOs posted if you have them!

WiPs:
★ O4 of 12 socks
★ 10 Stitch Blanket

★ Future cast-on: Threipmuir by Ysolda Teague

Spinning:
★ Wrapped up Tour de Fleece

Stitcher’s Corner:
★ Stranger Things by Stitchbucket

Today’s Chat Topic: What “kind” of a knitter are you? What is your motivation? Has that stayed the same or evolved over time? Do you think of yourself one way, but you’re actually another? I would love to hear about it!

Episode 186: Second Recording

 

Hi, kittens! Thank you for spending some of your time catching up with me today! Today’s episode has a couple of knitting WIPs, a Tour de Fleece wrap-up, some Lamby update news, a little cross stitch, and a few minutes of chatting with future possible discussion topics! Show notes can be found on the blog at SewKnitpicky.net, and please consider joining the Knot A Podcast Ravelry group!

Blog: http://www.SewKnitpicky.net
Ravelry Group: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/knot-a-podcast
Shop: http://www.lambytoesshop.etsy.com

Music provided by bensound.com

July 2017: Wrap-Up

Yardage Totals 2017:

 January: 1,065yds
February: 1,075yds
March: 1,659yds
April: 1,453yds
May: 1,595yds
June: 379yds
July: 313yds
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
2017 Totals: 7,539yds or 4.28 miles

It was another low output month, but I was expecting that given that July is Tour de Fleece time. So I accomplished quite a bit of spinning but not so much knitting outside of two shorter knit dates with a local friend. I did omit a small amount of yardage for this month, but I would rather just tack it into August’s tally instead. It keeps things clean and neat. Those ~30 yards weren’t going to make much of a difference anyway.  Despite this set back, I am still on track to average knitting 1,000 yards of yarn a month; I still have a healthy buffer!

Soon, the weather will cool here, and I will be more inspired to knit larger projects. Not much else to say this month, since I worked on so little. I hope you all have had a lovely summer so far! (But I will admit: I am longing for fall and winter again.)

Show Notes: Episode 185

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♥ Please come join us in the Ravelry group!
♥ The podcast is now on YouTube, if you prefer to watch there. Please remember to give my videos a thumbs up and do the same for other podcasts you enjoy!
♥ If you like speckle-y sock yarn, you might want to check out my Etsy shop:lambytoesshop.etsy.com.

Show Notes: “35th Trip around the Sun”

♥ Friendly reminder that Sock it to Summer: the Fifth is still on-going in the Ravelry group! There is plenty of time to enter if you want to play along for prizes.

WiPs:
♥ 10 Stitch Blanket
♥ O4 of 12 socks in Paton’s Kroy Sock “Blue Striped Ragg”

Spinning:
♥ Still working on the same combospin as before. I’ve really slowed down since the last time we talked.

Extra Birthday Stuff:
♥ If you want to make your own funfetti cake, this is the recipe I worked from.

Episode 185: 35th Trip around the Sun

 

Hi, kittens! Thank you for spending some of your time catching up with me today! Today’s episode has a couple of WIPs, a little spinning despite Tour de Fleece, and a lot of chatting! Show notes can be found on the blog at SewKnitpicky.net, and please consider joining the Knot A Podcast Ravelry group!

Blog: http://www.SewKnitpicky.net
Ravelry Group: http://www.ravelry.com/groups/knot-a-podcast
Shop: http://www.lambytoesshop.etsy.com

“Pixelland” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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