Stash Dash 2015 Finish Line

So Stash Dash finished for another year on Friday - and if you follow me on instagram then you saw my slightly panicked posts in the run up to Friday as to whether or not I'd get my last three WIPs finished. This in itself was slightly ridiculous because I was already well over my 5km goal - but I do love a challenge and I was adamant I wasn't going to finish with more projects on the needles (or bobbins) than I started with! I stuck to a very tight knitting schedule last week, but everything got done in time!

In the weeks between May 22nd and August 14th, I finished: 1 adult cardigan, 2 adult hats, 8 baby hats, 11 pairs of socks and spun (and plied) over 2,250m of yarn. I ended up with 7460.5m of yarn under my belt and I'm ridiculously pleased. If you're interested in the details of the projects I finished - you can find them here.

I still have a couple of projects on the needles - a shawl that needs to be frogged and another that has around 400m of knitting left on it, but I knit through a lot of the yarn that I've been hoarding - which is a great excuse to buy more, I think ;) I'm currently in that happy place where I've finished a lot of projects and am free to cast on whatever I want! So expect to see a handful of new projects in Friday's post...

I can't wait for next year's dash - I'm going to aim for 10km I think - go big or go home! In the meantime, I think I need a new arbitrary goal...

♥

Stash Dash Progress Update

It's been two weeks since my last Stash Dash recap and I've accomplished a fair bit of both knitting and spinning in that time. Below is my list of current FO's, with everything finished since the last recap in bold.

Old Romance cardigan - 1360m

Lime Green Jelly BFL Cashmere Nylon 3ply - 370m 

Handspun Socks (out of the above handspun yarn) - 233m

Tic-Tac-Toe-Up socks - 355.5m

Easy Peasy Newborn Hats x8 - 336m (actually, slightly more than this as I haven't weighed the last two hats I knitted)

Jaffa Cake socks - 310.5m

Katy's Birthday socks - 310.25m (a gift, not pictured above)

Rainbow Trekking socks - 284.75m

Mixed Lilacs hand-dyed merino 2ply - 237m

Simple Skyp socks - 220.5m

Cocoon Hat - 121m

Spring Beret - 113m

The following spinning meterage is the results of my Tour De Fleece efforts so far: 

Nunoco Wild Wood N Ply - 128m

SpinCityUK Faux Cashmere 2ply - 115m

Taylor Made Yarns Autumn Sunset 2ply - 193m

Total so far: 4638.5m 

There's just under a month left of Stash Dash 2015 and as I only have another 361.5m to go, I think there's a good chance I'll meet my 5km target! I have a second sock on the needles and I have the first of another pair finished. I think there is a week left of the Tour De Fleece and I'm hoping to finish the 3ply sock yarn I've been working on, in time to include it. 

Right, back to my plying I think… 

♥

Tour De Fleece 2015 and a Stash Dash recap

 It's that time of year again - if you're a spinner, or you follow a spinner on instagram, you've probably stumbled across Tour De Fleece - the spinning event / spin-along that runs in tandem with the Tour De France. This is my second TDF and I don't take it as seriously as some - my goals are pretty loose. Lots of people use the time limit to spin for a sweater, or to spin a whole fleece, but my goal for this year is to spin every day. A straightforward goal, but I've got out of the habit of spinning recently and I miss it, so this is the perfect excuse to get back to it! I'm also looking at trying some new techniques too - I tend to stick to a short forward draw to create a worsted spun yarn and I think I'll pull out my copy of the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson and see what I can come up with.

Fibre wise, I'm going to be working out of my stash, starting with the selection pictured above. Working clockwise from the top - Some Chilean Corriedale that was a gift from my dear friend Nina, a 'Wild Wood' batt from Nunoco, a braid of Merino in 'Autumn Rainbow' by Taylor Made Yarns, some Faux Cashmere by Spin City UK and a Polwarth / Baby Alpaca / Nylon blend from Play Sweet Music.


 On to Stash Dash - which is separate from TDF purely because we're only one day into the tour and I haven't had a chance to ply anything yet! However, I have finished a few things in the past couple of weeks and I'm inching closer to my 5km goal.

Old Romance cardigan - 1360m
Lime Green Jelly BFL Cashmere Nylon 3ply - 370m (currently a work in progress pair of socks, not pictured above)
Tic-Tac-Toe-Up socks - 355.5m
Easy Peasy Newborn Hats x6 - 336m
Jaffa Cake socks - 310.5m
Katy's Birthday socks - 310.25m (a gift, not pictured above)
Rainbow Trekking socks - 284.75m
Mixed Lilacs hand-dyed merino 2ply - 237m
Simple Skyp socks - 220.5m

Total so far: 3745.5m

I'm currently working on two second socks and I have some singles that need plying, so I should hopefully cross the 4km mark in the next week or so. Are you taking part in the Tour De Fleece or Stash Dash? Or d'you prefer not to get involved in arbitrary challenges!? You know me, I love an arbitrary goal. Haha.

 ♥

Stash Dash Progress Report

It's been a couple of weeks since I shared my Stash Dash progress - and I've finished a few things since then. But first of all, I want to talk about how my wonky scales nearly sabotaged my metre count.

Last summer, when I finally decided that my cute little vintage scales weren't going to cut it anymore, and I needed a digital kitchen scale for yarn weighing. I bought the most expensive scales that Clas Ohlson had to offer - and they never really worked very well. After being surprised at how little yarn my socks were using in comparison to other people's projects, I weighed them on my mum's kitchen scale and the results were completely different! So I've recalculated my yardage for my finished objects.  Luckily, it worked in my favour and I used more than I'd previously thought!

Old Romance cardigan - 1360m
Tic-Tac-Toe-Up Socks - 355.5m
Mixed Lilacs hand-dyed merino 2ply - 237m
Rainbow Trekking socks - 284.75m
Jaffa Cake socks - 310.5m
Easy Peasy Newborn hat - 71m
Lime Green Jelly BFL Cashmere Nylon 3ply - 370m (This is currently in use as a work in progress sock).

Current total: 2988.75m

I have a couple of first socks finished - but I'm not counting the metres on those until their mates are finished (even though you can count single socks as finished objects according to the Stash Dash rules), and I've spun half a braid of fibre, so I should hit 3km soon. Not bad for less than a month's work!

♥

Stash Dash 2015... and we're off!

I thought I'd document my Stash Dash progress here on the blog, as well as on ravelry. It's not quite two weeks since the beginning of the 2015 Dash and I think I've made a pretty good start on my goal of 5km. I've finished four things (actually, five - but that's blocking and I'll talk about it another time), two of which were WIPs prior to the start of Stash Dash and the other two have been cast on since.

Trekking Rainbow Socks - 242m (started prior)
Easy Peasy Newborn Hat - 71m
3ply BFL Cashmere Nylon yarn - 370m (started prior)
Hermione's Everyday Socks - 229m

That's a total of 912m so far - and I'm pretty pleased with that! I'm especially glad to have got that BFL/C/N off the wheel - it's a shame I can't count the singles towards my goal as that would've been way over 1km right there! But hey ho - onwards and upwards. I have another braid on the wheel and another sock on the needles. Must keep knitting... Have I ever mentioned that I thrive on arbitrary goals and deadlines? It probably goes without saying ;) Anyway. I'm off to sit at my wheel, fill up a bobbin and rewatch the second series of Silk on Netflix (and pretend I'm Martha Costello, but that really does go without saying!).

♥