More Sorting and Destashing

I freed up two more containers today by getting rid of some yarn and incomplete crochet and knitting projects.

There was over 30 orange and yellow crochet squares that were going to be my son's cot blanket.  I never did get to stitch them together - he is 20 now!!!  In addition to this I had started about four crochet blankets, a couple of scarves and other random projects that were incomplete.

Feeling pleased at having the will to give up over 20 years of projects ( if I haven't finished them as of now I never will) I trundled off to the town centre to hand them into a charity shop.  I explained that as well as various yarn I had a number of incomplete projects in the bags.  Three of the shops weren't interested.  I felt quite embarrassed as they told me they wouldn't accept unfinished items.  They said however they would take the yarn. I told them that I would only give the yarn to a shop that accepted the whole bundle!  I felt quite stroppy and nearly suggested that they finish up the projects rather than huddle around the till gossiping together!  Don't you think that a lot of charities seem so uncharitable nowadays?

Eventually I found a shop that was happy to take my donation.  I hope they are true to their word and will see that it is put to good use and that it doesn't end up in land fill. They did tell me that they have a lady that comes to the shop who buys up unfinished items and wool.  I hope they were not just humouring me.

Unburdened of these woolly items (and a little sad to let them go) I now have an accessible space to use for my papercrafting tools.

New Yarn from Old

I would like to share something new and exciting with you.  Well it is to me anyway!  Firstly, thank you all for the encouragement on tidying my craft room.  I have made good progress on it and hope to share some photos later in the week.  Right, back to the 'new and exciting' thing I have discovered. Do you see that multicoloured ball of wool above?  Well, it was made from the rather drab selection of wool below!

I was watching the telly recently when a woman was demonstrating knitting with gigantic knitting needles like broom handles!  They were beautifully crafted wooden tools but I think I would find them cumbersome and storage being a problem too.  Anyway, she said that if she used normal wool for knitting with the large needles then the work would be full of holes.  She got around this problem by using multiple skeins of yarn at once.  I think she used about 10 or even more.  Her intention was to knit a blanket in one piece on her giant needles.

This got me to thinking about the vast amount of wool I have amassed that is unused because it is so uninspiring.  I thought I would follow her lead but not on such a massive scale.   I randomly selected 5 balls of wool for my huge 15mm needles that I had bought for a project way back; found the ends of each and tied them together into one large knot.  I then wound the wool into a neat ball ready to use.

Ta-da!!!  This is what the wool looked like when blended together.  Much more uplifting then the colours used singularly.  I am now tempted to use up all my excess wool this way!  I am thinking of making some infinity scarves or traditional scarves or I could even cover a cushion.  I am not a big fan of knitting but I am now a big fan of blending wool!  Just think of all the yarn oddments you could use up.  All the wool I used was double knitting but you could use all different thicknesses blended together and maybe incorporate ribbon or metallic threads or thin strips of fabric?

This is a close up of a swatch I made up.  It is just normal knitting I think it is called knit stitch or garter stitch?  It took about 15 minutes to knit 12 rows and I am not a fast knitter!  A scarf could easily be made in an evening.  One thing to be aware of is to keep straightening out the threads as you are working to prevent them from tangling up.  I hope this post has inspired you to have a look at any boring yarns you might have and get making up new balls from old!