Hello TwentyTwelve!

Can you believe it?  I almost can't - but all the great knitting retrospectives I've been reading (and have waiting still in my blog reader) tell me otherwise!

I'm not organised enough to do a photo review of my knitting year, but thanks to the magic of Ravelry and my trusty moleskine knitting diary, I can tell you I started 34 projects, and I finished 34 projects.  If only the new projects matched the finished projects, heh!

Some of my FO's were big - my Olive jumper and Big Woolly vest, plus 2 skirts - Lanesplitter (which I have still to blog properly - woops!) and my Super Special Birthday Skirt.  Some were small - crochet snowflakes and a bunch of crochet dishcloths, plus a BALL!.  There were things for the little guy - a cardigan, 3 vests and a pair of pantses; gifts for friends - a baby cardi, a shawl, a hat, a tea cosy and a crochet ball; and of course socks - Nutkin, Heritage socks and husby's Frankensocks. And a few other bits and pieces - two scarves, a hat, another shawl, some mitts and a bag.

Amongst those FOs I managed to finish 7 pre-2011 WIPS.  And yet at the end of 2011, I still have 15 WIPS!  So it will be a Binding Off 2012 year again...but more of that in another post.  One thing that won't be bound off in 2012 - of course my Beekeeper Insanity! 

As for stash honesty...well, I am sad (sort of!) to report that I have not broken even, let alone reduced the stash in 2011.  But it hasn't grown much...heh heh.

In December, I just had to buy 2 bags of Rowan Calmer - a unique yarn, discontinued!  And a great price, thanks to Jannette's Rare Yarns.  I forgot to take a photo but I got a bag of garnet (a lovely red) and a bag of Tree, which is a fab green.  I can't decide which to knit up first!

I also received some lovely gift yarn - a skein of Cascade Heritage Silk from Bells - which I think just might be too nice to knit sexypuffs with!  It is so soft.  Yummo.

And a couple of balls of red yarn from my friend MissJ, who wanted to be a part of my Beekeeper insanity!  I must say, it is a lovely thing that so many of my friends are a part of my quilt, through their leftover yarn donations and gifts.  It really is a bit of a group project in that way, which makes it even more special.

So let's not put off the final tallying any further:

In: 22 x 50g balls
Actual balls used:  6 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent:  9.5 x 50g balls
metres used:  1076m

For the year 2011
Actual balls used: -16.5 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent:  112 x 50g balls
metres used:  13,054m

I was surprised to find I'd used the equivalent of 112 balls of 8ply yarn this year - I didn't think it would be that much!  And whilst I came out with a bit more yarn than I started with, it wasn't a crazy amount (and if I'd just ignored that Calmer, I would have been ahead!!  Oh well, I can't ignore a discontinued yarn bargain, that's nothing new!

Christmas snowflake sexypuff!

I will keep up the stash honesty next year, I think I need the bit of discipline that it gives me - because trust me, if I wasn't writing it all down each month, I know I would have more yarn than I currently do!

I will leave you with my first sexypuff of 2012 - I spent the last few minutes of 2011 and the first few minutes of 2012 knitting this in lovely Wollmeise whilst watching the NYE fireworks (yes, my life is that exciting!). You know how they say you should start a new year the way you want it to continue - well, knitting with great yarn, donated by a lovely friend, on my crazy but great big 5 year plan project.  Yes, that's how I'd like to continue TwentyTwelve.

Happy New Year! 

StashDownUnder - November 2011

Lots of knitting and crochet this month but I'm afraid I fell off the wagon when it comes to yarn purchases.  A ball here, a holiday skein there, a couple of destash temptations over there, a "well, I'm going hopeless anyway so I might as well buy another ball" here.

And surprise surprise, its all red!!  (shown with a bunch of donated leftovers for my Beekeeper Insanity). 

But on the Beekeeper front, I am doing well!  35 puffs this month, ahead of schedule!  Yay! What do you think of the chevron arrangement?

In: 14 x 50g balls (ulp!)
Actual balls used: 6 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent: 12 x 50g (LOTS of 4 ply work this month!)
metres used: 1395m

Year to date
Actual balls used: -4 x 50g balls. 
8ply equivalent:  102.5 x 50g balls
metres used: 11978m

Last month I commented that I might come out stash negative or at worst stash neutral by the end of this year.  I am predicting right now that that will not be the case!!  Darn you Rowan for discontinuing Calmer!  (not that I've bought any yet...but I'm prety sure I will be!)

StashDownUnder - October 2011

Ooooh, I had a good month this month!  Lots of knitting (and crochet!) and only a small amount of yarn in...well, it wouldn't be me if there was no yarn in, would it?!

I bought a skein of red alpacky sock yarn (for the Beekeeper, what else?!). I felt the need for some fuzzy alpacky sexypuffs.  And I acquired some red leftovers from Zena and Donna:

And speaking of the Beekeeper, I had a really good month on the sexypuffs - 36!  I wonder if I should do the blanket in diagonal stripes?  A row of plain puffs and a row of variegated?

In:  3 x 50g balls
Actual balls used:  8.75 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent:  15.5 x 50g balls (yes, lots of 4ply action this month!)
metres used: 1582 (that crochet really does use up the yarn nice and quick!)

Year to date:
Actual balls used: -2 x 50g balls - I really think I have a good chance of coming out stash negative or at the worst, stash neutral this year!  How novel!
8ply equivalent: 90.5 x 50g balls
metres used: 10583m

Woo hoo, I cracked the 10,000m mark!  That's over 10km of yarn!  Go knitting!

Bah Humbug!

A quickie that I knit up over a few days for a friend's birthday - something I have been meaning to make for a while but I finally got my butt into gear last week!

Details
Pattern: Red Comet by Loani Prior, from her Wild Tea Cosies.  A nice simple knit - two garter squares from corner to corner and joined in relevant spots to make a cosy.  So easy to knit to size, as you just make the square big enough to cover around your tea pot (from handle to spout), and then start the decreases! The pattern uses buttons as the "seams" to join the two squares, but I just sewed and crocheted in the relevant spots.

Yarn: Cleckheaton Country in black and white - just over 2 balls in total, for a medium sized teapot.  The stripe pattern is completely random.  I had more black than white so decided to make the black stripes wider, in general. It is meant to mimic the look of the old fashioned boiled lollies (humbugs, bullseyes etc).

Sticks:  The yarn is held doubled, so I used 6mm sticks - KnitPicks Options.  And a 4.5mm crochet hook to crochet around the edges of each square, to even out the lumpy garter edges.

Time:  21 - 24 October 2011.  As I said, nice and quick!    Happy birthday DrK!

Knit for Connor month: Floyd Vest

This is my third and final instalment of Knit for Connor month (which should more correctly be called Knit for Connor Two Months, since I made most of this in September rather than August!).

When I was planning the projects for KfCm, I found something very interesting - well, to me anyway.  And perhaps those also knitting for small children.  The sizes are SO INCONSISTENT!  It shouldn't come as a surprise, really, given that this is also the case for women's clothing (I can't really speak for men!).  But it is annoying, because it makes it very hard to knit in advance.  I knit the 12-18mo size in the Pembroke vest, and it is a good fit with a bit of room for next year (and with any luck, the year after, since people who know tell me small kids tend to grow up more than out for the first couple of years!).  This vest I knit the 3yo size, because I had enough yarn and I thought I might as well.  And what do you know, it fits pretty perfectly now.  With a little bit of room, maybe less than the Pembroke vest.  Although to be fair, I haven't blocked it yet, and being cotton it might grow!  And I even made it a wee bit longer than the pattern specified!!

Details
Pattern:  Floyd vest, by Martin Storey, from Rowan Miniature Classics.  This is a lovely book of baby and toddler patterns.  Sizing issues aside, I will definitely be making more from this book.  I hope!

As with almost all Rowan patterns, it is knit flat and seamed.  It could be converted to knit in the round if you desire, although the shoulder and side seams are fairly short and don't take much seaming really!

Yarn:  Rowan Handknit Cotton, 3 x 50g skeins in red (shade 215 lot 3883038).  I liked knitting with this cotton, although it definitely is harder on the hands than wool.  It knits up really nicely though, I am very happy with the way it looks.

Sticks:  I started this when I was away, and even though I grabbed my set of KnitPicks Harmony Options, I found I didn't have the correct size for the ribbing (3.25mm) so I used 3.5mm instead, and I think it looks fine!  I used 4mm for the main part of the vest, as specified by the pattern.

Time:  27 August 2011 - 28 September 2011 (it took me a little while to sew on the buttons!)

Modifications: I knit the vest as specified, except for the change in stick size noted above for the ribbing.  However, I omitted the pocket, because it really is pointless.  Not big enough to be useful, and for some reason which I cannot fathom, the pocket flap does not have a button hole, even though the pattern shows it with a button on it.  The flap is knit separately and then joined to the front of the vest as you knit it (very clever!).  But the pocket itself is seamed on afterwards.  I figured it would just add bulk and drying time, and as the flap had a tendency to stick up, I thought I'd just sew it down when I added the button.

The button-hole-less pocket flap!

If you want a useable pocket and flap, I'd suggest adding a buttonhole to the flap when you knit it!

I think this is a very cute, easy and practical knit.  I just wish that the size was a little bigger so it would fit for longer!  Next time, I will pay more attention to the schematics and Connor's actual measurements!

StashDownUnder - September 2011

I had a good month this month!  I can't say no yarn came in, because I did receive two lots of red 4ply for my Beekeeper insanity, but nothing that I bought myself!  So that's not too bad! And I somehow managed to have a HUGE knitting month, so go me! Heh!

This month:
In:  2 x 50g balls
Actual balls used:  10.5 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent: 15.5 x 50g balls (LOTS of 4ply knitting this month! plus a couple of balls donated to Guild)
metres used: 1,138m

Year to date:
Actual balls used: -7.75 x 50g balls (I might just come out neutral by the end of this year!)
8ply equivalent: 78 x 50g balls
metres used:  9001m

I thought I might as well do my Beekeeper update today too.  This month was a good month, I managed to do 34 sexypuffs - yes, more than one per day!  Hurrah!

I also tried out the crochet version, which is free on Ravelry.  I had to modify it a bit, to ensure they match my knitted puffs in terms of size, but that is easily done.

And I like the bit of texture that the crochet puffs give to the quilt.  Red and texture!  I might have to try a moss/seed stitch puff sometime soon!

August was Knit For Connor Month: Pembroke vest

As winter was drawing to a close, I started to feel a little guilty about the amount of knitting (or, more accurately, the lack of knitting) for Connor. So I thought I'd better rectify that and set aside August as Knit for Connor Month!

I have managed to get 3 things done (well, the third is almost done, heh!) and each will be transitional pieces into spring and will also, I hope, fit him next year as well.

Details
Pattern:  Pembroke vest by Kirsten Kapur.  A lovely, classic and free pattern which goes from 6mo to 8yo (I made the size 2).  I do love a good cable, and this vest has cables aplenty!  I wish there was a better way of managing cables and decreases, as it can look a bit funny to just stop cabling, but I'm not sure whether there are better alternatives (please enlighten me, if you know!)

Yarn: I had 3 x50g balls of the blue yarn, Karabella Aurora 8 (col 1555) and 20g of the white in the same yarn.  And I used it all, except for about 10g of the blue. I wasn't sure if I would have enough blue for the vest, so I decided to do the ribbing in the white.  And I knit the front first, as I figured if the cables ate up lots of yarn, I could do the back plain. But as it turns out, it was the white I ran short of, so the neckband ribbing is blue and white stripes. Which I think is quite effective, if I do say so myself!

Oh, and can I just say, I love this yarn!  So soft and lovely to knit with, and shows up a cable so beautifully.  And makes such a beautiful sproingy fabric.  Yum yum yum.  One of the balls did have a couple of knots in it, quite close together, which I discovered when I was knitting the neckband.  Grrr, more ends to sew in!  I'd still use this yarn again though, just lovely.

Sticks:  3.75 and 4.5mm KnitPicks Harmony Options.

Time: 14 - 26 August 2011.  I am amazed at how quick I knit this.  Especially as I discovered when I'd finished the front that I had done the armhole decreases on the neck, and the neck decreases on the armholes.  GAH!  What an idiot!  So I lost a day and a bit in unpulling and re-knitting these (yes, you heard right, I actually frogged and re-knit!)

Bottom one re-done ... much better!

Modifications: I used short rows on the shoulder shaping so I could do a 3 needle bind off but otherwise knit the pattern as written.  If I was to knit it again, I would change the ribbing so that the pattern flows neatly out of the ribbing.

I wasn't sure I liked the middle cable (some people on ravelry have actually changed it for a different cable) but the more I look at it now, the more I like it.  In particular, I like how it is designed to open out at the neckline, the designer has placed it really well on the front.

I'm very happy with this pattern, the yarn works so beautifully with the cables.  In fact, I liked it so much I might just pull out my hibernating Must Have cardigan, which also uses this yarn, and get back into the cabley aurora 8-y goodness!

You can never have too many

You can never have too many pairs of red socks, right?

I needed a nice easy portable project a while back (um, in February...) and what better choice is there than stocking stitch socks with a pretty yarn?  (let's not mention that I actually wound this yarn in May last year to take to hospital with me.  Yeah, it never left the project bag!)

I finally finished them, and seem to have taken almost as long to get around to posting them as I did knitting them!

Details
Pattern:  Just my basic cuff down plain vanilla socks!  Although I did add some calf shaping into these.  I think I started with 72 stitches and steadily decreased down to 64, as I moved down the leg.  I did a tubular cast-on and twisted rib, and my favourite eye of partridge heel flap, and wedge toe. 

Oh, I did do something different, I did a dutch heel, from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.  Thought I'd try it out, as others have commented on how they like it.  I don't mind knitting it, but I don't think it fits my foot as well as a regular heel.  Good to know!

Yarn:  A new yarn for me, Cascade Heritage Handpaints, a lovely blog prize from GeekKnitter.  I like this yarn, it feels nice but still sturdy, and I like how the colours behaved, with a subtle blue and purple stripe effect.  I would use this yarn again for sure.

Sticks:  2.5mm KnitPicks fixed circular, for magic looping - my favourite method for plain socks.

Time:  2 February 2011 - 1 August 2011.

And a nice little bit of leftovers which go straight to the Beekeeper Quilt yarn fund, heh!

StashDownUnder - August 2011

Yet another month goes by ... with a little yarn in, and a little bit more yarn out.

First, the ins.  I had some yarn leftover from my Lanesplitter Skirt.  So I did the honourable thing, and returned it to the shop.  I exchanged it, of course!!  Heh heh.  And I decided I'd get enough yarn for a cute little stripey cardi for Connor, which meant I had to buy a couple of extra balls as well, to ensure I'd have enough.

Sorry about crappy flash photo!  Red, charcoal grey and silvery grey

And while I was there I might have picked up a nice ball of red heathered yarn for my Beekeeper Quilt (yes, I must bee crazy, buying yarn for it when I have so much already!).  And some of my lovely knitting buddies also donated some leftover red yarn to me already, so I've counted that too.

This month:
In:  5 x 50g balls
Actual balls used: 8.5 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent:  12 x 50g balls (lots of 4ply knitting this month!)
Total metres used:  1070m

Year to date:
Actual balls used:  -16.25 x 50g balls (gah, still behind!!)
8ply equivalent:  72.5 x 50g balls
metres used:  7863m

I left you last month with a flash of two yarns I was planning on using in a new project.  Well, here it is!

(again with small hand for scale!  This is partly why I am posting less!  so much harder to do photo shoots now!)

I think I shall be able to wear this as a fluro safety shawl, heh!

I must be(e) crazy!

I first saw the Beekeeper's Quilt early last week on Ravelry.  As some designs tend to do, it kept popping up in my friend's activity tab, being favourited and/or queued by lots of people.  And I thought it was cute, but that was it.

But then something happened, and I'm not even entirely sure how.  But I couldn't stop thinking about it.  And how nice it would be all done in shades of red (how unusual for me!  Heh heh!).  But I didn't buy the pattern straight away.  I figured if I still couldn't stop thinking about it after a week, then maybe I should buy it.

And yesterday, I did!  And I went stash diving and gathered up my red sock yarn leftovers (reds and red-purples and red-oranges and a few red-pinks).  I also just might have bought a ball of heathered red yarn last weekend at Morris & Sons, and I have quite a bit of solid red 4ply/fingering yarn which MissFee picked up for me at the Wang mill last year.  But funnily enough, I don't actually have that much variegated and semi-solid red yarn leftovers.

And I made my first hexapuff.  And my second, and third, and fourth, and fifth (and I'm knitting my sixth right now!).  Each one uses somewhere between 11-15m (according to others on Rav who have knitted and then frogged one - I can't bring myself to do that, heh!).  So I'm going to have to accumulate some more red leftovers (or use whole skeins of sock yarn, which is perhaps a good idea - I mean how many pairs of red socks do I really need, heh!!)

I figure if I can make 5 each week then it will only take me, oh, nearly 2 years, to make one to cover a queen size bed.  See, I told you I must be(e) crazy!  Is anyone else going to join me?

StashDownUnder - July 2011

Quick post - because this month, I bought no yarn!  I think my blowout last month really did have an impact on my stash acquisition methods, heh!  I went to a lovely yarn store (Sew and Tell, at Berry) on Sunday and I Did Not Buy Any Yarn!  I didn't even buy any knitting books, which is my usual fix in a yarn store if I don't buy yarn. 

And I had a really good knitting month.  Yay for the Tour de France KAL!  I learnt this month just how much knitting you can get done when you actually knit in all your spare time, and not faff about on the internet!  Amazing!

This month:
Actual balls used:  10 x 50g balls
8ply equivalent:  11 x 50g balls
Total metres used:  1,106m

Year to date:
Actual balls used:  -19.75 balls
8ply equivalent:  60.5 balls
metres used:  6793m

And since a blog post with no photos is too boring, I'll leave you with a flash of the two yarns I'm very excited to be using in a project which will be started shortly. 

Can you guess what pattern this yarn will become?

StashDownUnder - June 2011

 A bit late this month.  You'd think, if you didn't know me better, that maybe there's a reason for my lateness, like, say for example, not wanting to admit to my acquisitions for June...ha!  As if I'd be embarrassed about stash acquisitions!!

(although, to be perfectly honest, when I did add it all up this month, I did go "gulp" at the final totals.  Those darn big Wollmeise skeins, they really do add up when you break them down into 50g lots!)

So I did some damage at the Craft and Quilt Fair.  After not going for a year (or possibly 2, I can't recall!) I bought a bag of Colinette Iona, in Velvet Plum.  In my defence, it's lovely yarn, discontinued, and was almost half price!

And then Ingrid, darn her, had to go and offer me matched skeins of Wollmeise 100%  in a red I don't already have (Zimtapfel).  And there were 4 of those, and it seemed a shame not to...  AND she happened to have a skein of Schwartz lace, which I was only daydreaming about that morning (not her skein, black WM laceweight in general!).  It was really meant to be.

Like the next purchse, a destash via Ravelry.  Rosenrot laceweight.  It's RoseRed!  Wollmeise!  Lace!  A colour and weight I don't have!  Also a foregone conclusion.  Yep, I am a sucker for a yarn with my name!  heh heh.

I also bought some yarn for a gift (already knitted and gifted, just have to post about it!) and picked up some yarn in the Morris and Sons sale, using a Christmas gift voucher - so this yarn doesn't count, heh!  Love making my own rules for stash honesty!!

So the totals (drumroll please!):
This month:
Actual balls used:  13.5 x 50g (thanks to a bulky knit, also yet to be blogged!)
8ply equivalent:  8 x 50g
In this month: 47 x 50g (ulp!)
metres used:  840m

Year to Date
Actual balls used: 3.75 + 13.5 - 47 = -29.75
8ply equivalent:  49.5 x 50g balls
metres used:  5687m

Ok, so I've added almost 30 x 50g balls of yarn to the stash over and above what I've used.  I think that really means I have to declare a total and utter ban on further yarn purchases for the rest of 2011.  Can I do it??

Thank you Baby Cardigan

You might recall a few months ago I was the lucky recipient of another knitter's (thankfully small but good) stash (the mother-in-law of one of the mums in my my mothers group).  I promised you (and myself) that I would make a little something out of some of the yarn I received for this knitter's granddaughter.  I hoped that this is what the knitter would have wanted.

Last week, I handed over this:

I used some of the Heirloom Merino Magic from the gifted stash.  I didn't have enough of one colour for a whole garment, so thought this was a good pattern for colour-blocking while still being pretty (I didn't want to do stripes as I figured I'd be doing enough stripes for Connor over the next few years!).  I used the cream (2 balls) for the fronts and bands, a whole ball of lilac for the back, and almost a whole ball of green for the sleeves.  I had a ball of blue as well, I initially thought I'd do one sleeve green and one blue, but after finishing one sleeve, I knew I'd have enough for the second sleeve.

Details
Pattern:  Provence Baby Cardigan by Cecily Glowik MacDonald.  This is an easy pattern, mostly stocking stitch with a moss-stitch edging and pretty lace leaf motif on the front.  I did make some modifications to the pattern (see the mods section below).

Yarn: Heirloom Merino Magic, 3.5 x 50g balls

Sticks:  4mm KnitPicks Harmony Options (3.75mm for the neckband).

Time:  9 May 2011 - 3 June 2011

Modifications:  I knit the body of the cardigan in one piece - which meant I had to do INTARSIA!!!  I swore never to do intarsia, ever!  Although really, just changing colour twice in each row, in a straight line up the side "seam", probably doesn't count as real intarsia.  But I still did it, and it worked!  Although getting the two balls of cream and one of purple tangled every so often was annoying.  But hey, no seaming!

I also knit the button band at the same time as the body of the cardigan.  This resulted in a bit of a puckered button band (may have also had to do with my not-so-great buttonhole skills!), which probably wouldn't have happened if I'd knit it separate and seamed it on.  Thankfully blocking evened it out, mostly...

And I knit the sleeves in the round, from the top down!  They were basic drop sleeve style sleeves, so it was easy to pick up stitches from the armhole and knit downwards, decreasing at the same rate as the pattern specified increases.  It was a bit messy under the arms, but I stumbled through and fixed it up when I darned in the ends (there were small holes where I'd joined to knit in the round.

I also added neck shaping on the back (so it would come down a bit lower on the back, not right up against the neck).  This was partly because I was worried I'd run out of the lilac yarn with a row or two to spare!  as it was, I only just squeaked it in!

And finally a three needle bind off for the shoulder seams.  And thus no seaming at all in this garment, woo hoo!

And best of all, the mum was very touched by the gesture.  It really is a lovely thing to knit for others.

For the maths geeks

Last weekend our parents group held a combined first birthday party for our babies (are they still babies once they are one?  I guess so, since he isn't a toddler yet, but he's just so much bigger than a newborn!).  I volunteered to make the cake:

and we also did a gift exchange, so I thought I'd make one of these:

And it was fun - mostly!

Details
Pattern: Celestine Crochet ball by Betsy Myles - a free pattern, yay!  A few people complain on Ravelry that this is a bit of a confusing pattern, or not well written.  I think it's written fine - you start off with a chain loop and steadily decrease to the point, then add another point building on the last one (got to love a join-as-you-go project!), but I did have trouble starting off each new point, more because I kept forgetting how I got it started the last time.  I think I managed to get it right after I'd made about 8 or 9 of the points!  Oh dear!



Half done!

 So I took some pictures, so hopefully I will remember next time, because I would like to make another one, they are pretty fun, and unusual looking - it's a 12 pointed star, a sort-of dodecahedron!  I just like saying dodecahedron, really!

Foundation row for new point

Yarn: Opal 4ply sock yarn col 1232.  Only 32g, so you can easily get 3 of these from a ball of sock yarn.  Or possibly from leftovers, if you'd already made socks!  You can use any size yarn, it will just affect the size of the end product.

Hook: 3mm

Time: 20 May 2011 - 27 May 2011 - a week, not bad!  I think it took me around an hour for each point, with all the unpulling every time I started a new point and forgot how to join the darn thing so it didn't twist and was facing the right direction!

Modifications: I made the pattern as written, but rather than doing the chain first and then the crochet into the previous point(s), I did the crochet into the previous points first, then the chain.  For some reason, this was easier to work out the joining. 

There's also a small error in the pattern when starting the 11th point, you only do 7 chain, the rest are all crochet into previous points.

The last point was very fiddly, but I managed it ok.  When stuffing the ball, I also put in a cat toy to give the ball a "rattle".  I was worried the stuffing might muffle the noise, but it comes out nice and clear, without being annoying loud like some (many?!) kids toys!

StashDownUnder 2011 - May

I have to confess, May was my fall-off-the-wagon month in terms of the StashingDown...more like StashingUp, I'm afraid!  I've already shown off my purchases from the Canberra Woolfest, and I also succombed to the annual WEBS sale - who could resist Cascade220 at $US4.95 when our exchange rate is so good!

So I bought a jumpers worth, in the lovely Mallard colour which Bells picked last year (in our previous annual WEBS splurge, heh!).  I'm thinking this will be the lovely Metro cardigan.

And since it was also on sale, and I've wanted to try it for ages, I bought enough Louet Euroflax sportweight linen (in a lovely purpley eggplant ) for Jordan. 

Hmmmm, which to knit first...

Fortunately, I also managed to destash a bit of yarn this month (a very rare occurrence for me!) and thanks to Del, I remembered that crochet dish/washcloths are a fabulous stashbuster! I may have crocheted 5 in just a matter of 2 weeks (yay me!).

This month:
Actual balls used: 9.25 x 50g balls used plus 6 destashed
In this month:  33 x 50g balls
8 ply equivalent: 10.5 plus 6 destashed
metres used: 992m

YTD:
Actual balls used: 36.75 - 33 = 3.75 balls used (yay, still in the black, so to speak!)
8 ply equivalent: 41.5 x 50g
metres used:  4847m