Last year when I wrote out my project list for the coming year, it had an ambitious 23 items on it, and over the year it grew to a truly crazy 32 items -- this despite the fact that there were eight deletions. The list for 2016 is a little more modest and realistic at nineteen items. I should be able to get through it, and I hope, not add many items to it, during the coming year. These days, I'm trying to make sure I think long and hard about what I really need and will use before I decide to make anything. Yes, I derive a lot of pleasure out of making things, but if an item isn't going to get a reasonable amount of use than the time and money and materials I'm going to invest in making it should go elsewhere.
I did something new this year by keeping track of how much each project added or detracted from my stash. To do this, I weighed finished items and/or the leftover yarn in order to determine how much stash yarn was used and how much newly purchased yarn was left over. It was a way of keeping myself accountable and making sure my overall stash size decreased rather than grew. When I wrote this post, I added the amount of each project's net stash loss or gain to its description and then included the total figure in my concluding words
Now let's get down to the business of looking at the things I've made during the past year.
My grandnephew Bug turned two this year. I'm being very frugal just now (out of dire necessity, not out of virtue, alas), so when I planned his birthday sweater, I looked specifically for a free pattern that could be made with yarn I already had. I selected this one, the Everyday Pullover Sweater, designed by Raya Budrevich. It's simple yet eye catching and manages to avoid being a "stripe across the chest" style that is so cliché in men and boys' wear.
And here's my version of the Everyday Pullover Sweater, size two, in dark blue and lime green acrylic worsted. Since I was sure Bug would be unimpressed with a sweater as a gift (toddler boys would just as soon not wear any clothes at all), I also bought him a bag of blocks.
This project used up 180 grams of stash yarn.
In 2015, two of my nieces had babies in April, which meant that as 2015 dawned I realized I had some serious gift preparation to do because I wanted to give each niece a baby blanket, a pair of matching booties, and a stuffed toy that I had made (and I added a book as well, but I could just buy those). This photo is of the first gift set.
The elder of my nieces told me she was decorating her nursery in purple and going with a "zoo garden" theme. I looked specifically for a baby blanket pattern that would suit this theme, and found the Dahlia Blanket, designed by Daniel Yuhas. This pattern was published in Knitting from the Center Out: An Introduction to Revolutionary Knitting with 28 Modern Projects
. 
This is my version of the Dahlia Blanket. It's knitted in Loops and Threads Impeccable, in Lavender, which I bought at Michaels. It's an acrylic, which will make it indestructible and easy care. I'll definitely be using this baby blanket pattern again. It's lovely and the "centre out" construction is cool.
With the baby blanket finished, I moved on to making the booties. I looked for a worsted weight slipper pattern with a floral theme, to go with the blanket, and found the Leaf Lace Booties, designed by Jacqueline van Dillen. This pattern was published in 60 Quick Baby Knits: Blankets, Booties, Sweaters & More
..
Here's my version of the Leaf Lace slippers, knitted in the same lavender worsted as the blanket.
I bought a new lot of yarn for this project, and I had 75 grams of lilac worsted left, so that's a credit of +75 grams to my stash.
Because the two expectant mothers were sisters, I wanted to give each equal yet different gifts, so I turned out another baby blanket, pair of booties, and sewn bunny for my younger niece.
This is the Enchanted Castle Afghan, designed by Nicky Epstein. It's available for $9.00(USD). There are a number of comments on this pattern's Ravelry page complaining about the printing issues with this pattern, and I have to agree that, especially given that this was such an expensive single pattern, it was exasperating that I had to spend so much time figuring out how to print off the chart for this afghan, hand correct the pattern (some elements of it didn't show up in the print out), tape the pages together, and then deal with an unwieldy multi-page chart while I was knitting the baby blanket. Sure, this is a cute pattern, but in the end it wasn't really worth it.
However, what's done is done, and this is my version of the Enchanted Castle Afghan. I had some of this winter white Bernat Super Value acrylic worsted on hand and was able to buy another skein (that whole "no dye lot" thing can be awesome sometimes), so that is what I used.
With the blanket done, I began on the booties. I selected the Criss Cross Booties pattern, designed by Angela Juergens. This pattern was published in 60 Quick Baby Knits: Blankets, Booties, Sweaters & More
. 
This is my version of the Criss Cross Booties pattern. I used the winter white Bernat Super Value yarn for them as well. With both baby gifts done, I hoped that no one I knew had any more babies for at least six months. I got my wish... but just as those six months expired, I found out a friend of mine is expecting in 2016. I suppose I can't complain about the never-failing baby crop. After all, the alternative is to live in a world like that depicted in P.D. James's Children of Men.
This baby blanket and booties project subtracted 130 grams of yarn from my stash.
This is the Mirry-Dancers Yoked Pullover, designed by Cheryl Burke, and published in Fair Isle Style: 20 Fresh Designs for a Classic Technique
. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it. The design, which is a modern take on the fair isle classic, is excellent and well-shaped, but it's the masterful colourwork which makes this design truly special. I just had to make it.
I actually had the yarn for the body of the Mirry-Dancers sweater in my stash already, in the form of this fair isle cardigan I had made maybe ten years ago before I had clued in as to how to shape a sweater for my figure. It was too narrow and straight through the body and too tight around the neck, and I had worn it very little. It was time to take it apart and get some real use out of the yarn. The yarn in this sweater, Naturally Loyal DK, was a warm dark plum, while the Port Wine shade used is a cooler, more grayish purple than it looks in this sample shot, but that was fine with me as the plum would suit my warm skin tone better. And there was plenty of it and it was the right weight and it was free. Who could ask for better?
I ordered the rest of the yarn online as I wanted to make my version of the Mirry-Dancers sweater in the same colourway as the design sample, and Jamieson's Shetland wool isn't stocked by any of Toronto's yarn stores. But I ran into a snag when the Canadian supplier of Jamieson's Shetland wool didn't carry three of the shades I needed. I also wanted to make one other substitution: to nix the purple Gentian shade that appears at the neckline, replacing it with the warmer Nighthawk shade that appears below it, then replacing the Nighthawk in turn with a warmer teal/turquoise shade. I spent hours trying to put together an alternate colourway, while one half of my brain consumed itself with ire that I couldn't get the Tangerine, Prairie, or Mermaid shades I wanted, and the other half asked, "Is this the ultimate first world problem, or what?" Finally I picked out some colours I thought would work and submitted the order.
Alas, when the order came and I started knitting with the colourway I'd put together, I wasn't happy with it at all. I wanted my sweater to look like the original and my version just didn't. Finally I gave in and took the book and the yarn I had down to Romni Wools, where I selected four skeins of DK yarn: one in a very similar colour to the Tangerine (Naturally Loyal in shade 949), another in a very similar colour to the Prairie (Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in colour 208), and finally a teal (Earth Collection Alpaca Peru Heather in shade 520) and a turquoise (SandnesGaarn Smart Superwash in 6733) that worked with the other colours and replaced the Nighthawk and Mermaid shades.
And this is my completed version, which I made in a size 38. It's very similar to the original and I am very happy with it, if more than a little disgruntled by how unnecessarily expensive it wound up being and by the amount of yarn I had left over. Oh well, as I keep reminding myself, that yarn isn't really wasted as it will wind up going into something else.
Even though the body of this yarn was stash yarn, because I bought quite a bit of yarn that I didn't end up using, this project added a net 70 grams of yarn to my stash.
After what I think of as the "hat epiphany" I had last year, when I realized I'd been knitting hats willy-nilly without thinking about what I'd wear them with (with the result that I had hats that matched none of my coats and coats for which I had no coordinating hat), I added four new hat sets to my "to knit" list for this year. This post is about the first set. The project plan began when I came across Lion Brand's Amazing yarn at Michaels, in the Acadia colourway. I fell in love with it at first sight and decided it would be the perfect colour to wear with my spring green parka. I then selected a pattern to suit it: the Vrida Cabled Slouch Hat, designed by Jenifer Spock-Rank and shown above. I also decided I would knit a scarf to match.
I thought the Amazing yarn too expensive at full price, so for some months I dropped into Michaels once a week or so to see if it had gone on sale. Finally it was priced for clearance. I felt exactly like the woman in yellow depicted above. I promptly bought all four of the 50g skeins that the store had left. But 200 grams wasn't enough to make both the hat and scarf, so I called all the other Michaels stores in Toronto to ask if they had any skeins left. When none of them did, I ordered two more skeins from Amazon. They proved to be of a different colour lot, but in such a variable colourway that hardly mattered. When the Amazon skeins arrived, I began work on the hat, and once that was done I made the scarf. It soon became clear I had bought too much yarn and would have nearly two skeins left over. Oh well. I decided I would make a pair of slippers with the leftover yarn.
Then one day I lost a skein on the bus. I relieved my feelings by creating the above photo meme, then I went down to the TTC lost and found (twice!) in the hopes that whoever found it had turned the lost skein in. No one had. I curse the person who found and kept my yarn. MAY THEIR STASH GET MOTHS.
The loss of a skein not withstanding, I'm really very pleased by the way this project turned out. The lovely glowing colours of the yarn are such a pleasure to look at, and the set looks very nice with my spring green parka as well as an olive velvet jacket I have. The parka was bought at a thrift store about 14 years ago and is looking the worse for the wear, so will probably be replaced soon, but the plan is to replace it with a turquoise or teal parka, and this set will also go with that. As you can see, I have definitely learned my lesson about planning my hat-making projects more carefully. The new photo meme aspect to the process just happened.
The leftover yarn from this project added 70 grams of yarn to my stash.
This project began with a need, or rather a want, as I wanted to make my grandniece a dress and matching purse for her sixth birthday and she needed another dress about as much as Princess Charlotte probably does. I decided that I could use some cream Naturally Loyal 8ply DK that I had lying around after having taken apart the sweater it had originally been knitted into. This pattern from my library, which is pattern #18 from Family Circle Knitting's Fall 1997 issue, seemed like a good fit for the yarn. I've made it before. Years ago I made it in a lilac colour and embellished it with with purple and green beads for a niece of mine. This time it would be made in cream, and I bought some iridescent blue and green beads to go with it.
And here's the finished dress. I changed the shaping of the dress slightly by adding armhole shaping in order to raise the dropped shoulder. I used beads instead of buttons, as I think the decorative buttons have a kitschy effect and the beads look much prettier and dressier. I do wish I'd bought one set of beads in a different shape to add to the visual interest.
Once the dress was done, I thought about the all-important matching purse. I wanted to do something different from the usual drawstring purse I usually do, so I selected the Teeny Bag pattern, designed by by Pierrot (Gosyo Co., Ltd), decided to knit it in a plain stockinette pattern to match the dress, and to decorate it with knitted flowers and leaves in blue and green, with some of the leftover beads for further embellishment.
I selected this Knitted Flower pattern, designed by Ravelry user Miss Crafty Fingers, and this Small Leaf pattern, by Lesley Stanfield.
Here's the finished purse. I altered the flower pattern slightly, making it a few inches smaller. I could have done better with the arrangement of the leaves, but oh well. I sewed a snap just inside the opening to keep Cauliflower's little treasures secure. I meant to line it with some pale blue satin I have lying around, but I kept putting off finishing the bag and then ran out of time.
The dress and purse together. I'm pretty sure Miss Cauliflower won't have to be made to wear it. This project was an excellent stash buster and subtracted 555 grams of yarn from my stash.
I came across this old pattern, the Smart of Course design (which originally appeared in The Australian Women's Weekly in 1934), during some research for a post on 1930s knitwear for my knitting blog. I was immediately taken by its ingenuity. This design has tabs around the neck to allow for the addition of a scarf, which seemed like a terrific way to both freshen up a basic sweater and pull one's entire outfit together. Thirties and forties fashion documentation is a veritable goldmine of ideas on how to put together a good wardrobe for very little outlay.
Here's the finished item. I used 4 skeins of Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk fingering in a dark brown, as I wanted a neutral sweater. I did have to do some reshaping. At 19" long and with a 36" chest, it was far too small for me. I made it in a size 38, lengthened it to 23", added waist shaping, decreased the height of the waistband considerably, and also reshaped the neckline, making it wider and lower. I crocheted around the tabs to make them larger and more finished-looking. I very much liked the basic stitch used, which is a kind of broken rib, as it is incredibly elastic.
Here's an outfit I threw together so as to get the whole effect, and it's not a bad look. This sweater and skirt don't look all that good together on their own, but add the scarf and it's suddenly an integrated and polished outfit. I'm going to be keeping an eye out for some long narrow scarves that will work with my skirts and trousers when I'm at thrift shops so as to maximize the potential of this versatile sweater.
The leftover yarn from this project added 40 grams of yarn to my stash.
Now we're heading into a run of slippers. The project plan for this first pair was a very straightforward one: I decided to make my mother some slippers for her birthday in December, I selected a pattern, bought a skein of yarn, and knitted them up. The pattern I chose was the one pictured above: the Peach Basket Slippers, designed by Wendy Gaal, and priced at $5(USD). My mother is allergic to wool (I can't be thankful enough that I didn't inherit that allergy!), which meant that I had to go with an acrylic yarn. I bought a single skein of Caron Simply Soft, in Ocean, which is a sort of teal.
And here's the result. I am pretty sure that this was the first time I had ever done any double knitting. It proved quite easy and practical and I'm not adverse to doing more some time. The construction was interesting. The body of the slipper is knitted in one piece, and then one picks up stitches around the slipper and works the cabled band in a continuous strip. The pattern is sized in narrow, medium, and wide, and the length is set by the knitter, which makes it easy to get a perfect fit. My mother has wide Irish feet (which again fortunately I did not inherit, yay genetic lottery!) so I went with wide, and knitted them to be approximately a size 7. The result is a comfortable, sturdy, well-fitted, attractive slipper that should be fairly hard wearing. I'll be making these again even if it should turn out that my mother doesn't think these fit right and/or feel right and/or look right, and takes them apart in order to make herself something else with the yarn. This is, unfortunately, not at all unlikely. When she opened them in December, she did seem pleased and said that they fit perfectly, which is something.
I had 60 grams of yarn left over from this project.
This is the 2015 version of the slippers I make for my father every year. I believe this is the tenth pair. He has a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis, and his knees and feet are especially affected. These slippers, with their specially cushioned soles, give my father some comfort. The pattern is a Vogue Knitting pattern from 1996. I modify it by knitting two soles for each slipper (one in the yarn used for the upper and one in craft yarn), slipping two felt insoles between them, crocheting around the edge, and then knitting the upper up from the crocheted edge. I also elasticize the heels with thread elastic. Dad wears each pair of slippers to shreds within a year, so I go with an inexpensive yarn, or even better, with whatever bulky weight yarn I happen to have on hand. The yarn used here is from a small lot I got at a thrift shop several years back for three dollars. It's an acrylic/wool/mohair blend labelled as Infitex "Stop Cumbre", was made in Spain, and judging from the graphics and font on the ball band, was probably spun in the seventies. It's not in the Ravelry database, at any rate. There was enough to make last year's pair, this year's pair, and next year's pair. Happily, green is my father's favourite colour.
This project used up 130 grams of stash yarn.
This year my foster sister Gayle flipped me the link to these slippers and asked me to make her a pair in the colours shown here. I agreed to do so, and tracked down the Ravelry page for them. They proved to be the Non-felted Slippers, designed by Yuko Nakamura, which is a free pattern.
I couldn't have easily tracked down the yarn used in the sample shot above, so I went with Bernat Softee Chunky in Grey Ragg and Grey Heather. The slippers took just two evenings to make and though I don't like the yarn I used as well as the sample yarn, they turned out pretty cute. I tried them on once for size and found them snug, which was ideal, as Gayle's feet are a full size smaller than mine. I also found that they would definitely stay securely on the feet, which should make them quite wearable. Then I wrapped them up and mailed them off to my sister, whose Facebook response was all delight and emoticons.
The leftover yarn from this project swelled my stash by 130 grams.
This is the Bartók Tunik, designed by Julia Farwell-Clay. I've had my eye on this one since I reviewed the Interweave Knits Spring 2013 issue that it appeared in over two years ago, and finally got it done after I happened to find the yarn I liked for it on sale at Michaels one day. This pattern looked like a good pick for a sweater intended for wear around home: warm, casual yet attractive, and suitable for wear with the jeans, khakis, and yoga pants I wear around the house in winter.
And here's my version. For this sweater, I used Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Olive for the main colour, and Lion Brand Lion's Pride Woolspun in Moss Mix for the accent colour. I used metal clasps to fasten the neckline rather than string ties, added waist shaping, neatened up the fit, and nixed the longer back hem. I made the sleeves more fitted at the cuff as the loose fitting sleeves of the original would have driven me crazy. I hadn't a circular needle in the right size, so I knitted the body in two pieces on straight needles rather than on circulars as the pattern instructed. Looking on the finished item now, my regrets (I always have a few) are that I didn't choose a better quality yarn for the main colour, as well as one that was a lighter green so as to be more of a contrast with the accent colour. I also wish I'd made it in a slightly more relaxed fit. Oh well, worsted acrylic does stretch out somewhat over time, and the sweater's warm, machine washable and dryable, and presentable enough, so I'm not too displeased with my efforts.
The unused yarn from this stash amounted to a stash growth of 105 grams.
Earlier this year I decided I would like to have a plain cream pullover in my wardrobe. They're such a staple for me that I've been through a number of them over the years, as I wear them so often they tend to either become ratty or get something spilled on them before too long. I did technically have one already, but it was one I made back before I clued in to the importance of waist shaping, and it was knitted in an intricate rib pattern and in a DK weight, which made it too bulky. Nice as the sweater was in itself, it did not look good on me and I consequently had only worn it two or three times in the ten or so years I'd had it. So my existing cream pullover got taken apart, I washed the yarn, and I knitted it into the little dress and purse for my grandniece that I've already written about in this post.
Then I got to select a pattern and yarn for my new cream pullover. Turtlenecks don't look good on me, so I looked for something with a cowl neck. I also wanted a pattern that was relatively plain and knitted to a fine gauge. After some searching on Ravelry, I decided that the design pictured above, Echoes of Winter, by Ruth Garcia-Alcantud, would suit. I bought 500 grams of Schachenmayr Merino Extrafine 170 and some little pearlized buttons for the project.
And here's my version of the sweater. I made quite a few mods. I knitted it on 3.5 mm needles rather than the suggested 4.5 mm needles. I found the heart motifs in the lace pattern too young and twee for my liking, so I went with the Rowan's Leaves Lace Pattern, as reproduced from Kathleen Kinder's book The Technique of Lace. I didn't use the shaping given in the pattern as I didn't want such a fitted look, but instead shaped it as most of my sweaters are shaped. I wish I'd added another repeat of the lace pattern to the waistband and cuffs. I also wasn't thrilled with the way the collar turned out. I shaped the neckline as the pattern indicated and calculated the number of collar stitches so that my collar would be the same length as the one in the pattern, but I must have gotten the latter calculation wrong as it is bigger in my version. The collar doesn't look too bad in the photo because I arranged it to my liking before taking the photo, but I doubt it can be relied upon to sit exactly that way through a day's wear. However, I am going to try test wearing it a few times, and just see how I like it before I fiddle with it any more.
I paired this sweater with a little tartan skirt I made earlier this year, but looking at them together I'm thinking I probably won't go with this combination, as it's a little too schoolgirlish, and I'm more than two decades too old for that look.
I finished this project with just 5 grams of yarn to spare, so my stash barely felt the gain.
My sister has taken to messaging me links to the things she wants me to make via Pinterest, usually with the words, "Dude. I want this." This pattern, which is the Nae shawl, designed by Anat Rodan, was one of the things my sister wants, and she wanted it, specifically, in "blue, mauve, or taupe, in a soft grayish shade".
I bought 150 grams of Sandnes Mini Alpakka in a soft mauve for the project, which was supposed to take 140 grams of yarn. But then I ran short by approximately 10 grams. I promptly went down to Romni Wool to get another. They didn't have another in the same shade, but ordered some in for me. Excellent! Except that when it came, it was in a different dye lot and looked like it was a completely different colour. Yes, the woman depicted above is more or less a good representation of me, squatting on the floor of Romni Wools and on the verge of a meltdown. There was no way I could salvage this project without that 10 extra grams of yarn. I'd have had to rip the whole thing out and knit it again on a slightly smaller needle. Store manager Jonathon Leonard suggested I try looking on Ravelry to see if anyone had some of the right yarn in their stash, and offered to call around to some other yarn stores to see if they had any. I did check Ravelry, but it proved a dead end.
Jonathon, bless him, had more luck. He tracked down a skein for me at a yarn store in Aurora, Ontario. I called the store and had the skein shipped to me. Just as in the photo above, butterflies landed on my face and the small varmints who live in (I've got a mouse problem) and around (I've got a raccoon and squirrel problem) my house sang to me. It was just like in Cinderella, except that they told me to make my own damn dress if I wanted a new one, and to not bet on any princes.
I was able to finish the shawl after all. Except for the running short of yarn issue, it really was a lovely project. The yarn was a pleasure to work with and the shawl knitted up in a snap. The pattern told me to use circulars but I soon switched to straights as the circulars weren't necessary, and were in fact a hindrance as the yarn kept wrapping itself around it.
My sister got this shawl as part of her Christmas present. And then she informed me that the yarn I had chosen was a lilac, not a mauve.
The leftover yarn from this project added 40 grams of yarn to my stash.
Back in 2012, I bought 250 grams of teal blue mohair (Nuvoletta by Filatura Di Crosa, which is 70% mohair and 30% acrylic and according to Google has been discontinued since the early nineties) from Value Village for $4. In 2014 I made a pullover from the Nuvoletta and still had nearly a whole 50 gram skein left. This was enough for a hat, so I looked for a suitable tam pattern, and found one in the very attractive Tuscan Leaves Hat, designed by Nina Machlin Dayton and pictured above.
And here's the finished hat. It'll go with several of my jackets and coats -- I'm thinking it will look especially nice with my olive green velvet jacket. The yarn was a pleasure to work with just as it was when I made the pullover, and I was pleased with how well the pattern was written. I'm quite happy with the result, and it makes me even happier to think that I got a sweater and a hat that I love from $4 of thrift shop yarn. There was perhaps 5 grams of yarn left when I finished the hat, which I've put away with my other odds and ends of mohair yarn. Who knows... I might be able to make that $4 go even further!
This project used up 40 grams of stash yarn.
This pattern, the Peacock Tam, designed by Celeste Young and published in Knits of a Feather: 20 Stylish Knits Inspired by Birds in Nature,
is one of those patterns that, like the Mirry Dancer sweater pattern above, I fell in love with the minute I saw it and just had to make. As a piece of design, it succeeds by all my metrics: it's beautifully detailed, visually striking, has an Art Nouveau-esque feel, and is also quite flattering and wearable. I had a false start with this project when I first bought yarn for it. I found Madelinetosh Tosh sock in Fjord for the feathers, and I was thrilled with it. But then I picked out a cream yarn for the main colour, and as I should know perfectly well by now, a dark second yarn shows terribly through a yarn as light as a cream or white. I ripped out what I had done, reassigned the cream yarn to another project (specifically, the cowl-neck cream sweater I've already written about), and bought some Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply in turquoise for the main colour.
Here's the finished hat. I was quite pleased with how it turned out. I love the colourway. Most of the Ravelry users who have made this hat have gone with the navy and green colourway used in the sample, or something very close to it, and while that is a lovely option, I preferred this one, which suits me and my coats better, and moreover is more peacock-y.
I inadvertently used a slightly larger size needle than called for, which meant the hat turned out a bit bigger than it was supposed to. This wasn't really a problem, as it was still an appropriate size for me. I have a wide face and need to be careful not to wear too small-scale a hat. However, while the hat fit me fine it was too big to stay on the foam head I usually use as a photography model for my hats, so I had to model it myself. My fervent apologies for that.
This project added 100 grams of yarn to my stash.
This knitting project plan had its origins in a reupholstering project. I was reupholstering the rocking chair you see pictured above for one of the bedrooms in my house. The chair had an accompanying cushion that was upholstered in the "wrong side" of the old upholstery fabric, which had made for a nice contrasting look with the "right side" upholstery that covered the chair. However, the new upholstery fabric did not have an attractive "wrong side", and I thought reupholstering the cushion in the same fabric as the chair wouldn't look right. After some time spent trying to figure out if I could use the cushion as it was elsewhere in my house (and concluding I couldn't), the obvious solution hit me: I should leave the cushion as it was and simply knit it a new cushion cover.
I immediately realized I had a suitable lot of yarn on hand for the project. Several years ago my mother had given me 300 grams of a cream-coloured acrylic DK that someone else had given her. The origins of this yarn are hazy in every sense. An anonymous someone found it when cleaning out the house of an equally unknown elderly woman who had died, and gave it to someone else (my mother has forgotten who), who had in her turn passed it along to my mother, who then offered it to me. I don't know what brand or fibre content this yarn was as it had only unmarked yellow paper bands on it. My best guess is that the yarn is an acrylic produced in the 1980s, as it has a rather coarse texture that today's much improved acrylics don't usually have. The yarn then sat in my box of DK yarn for several years as I tried to figure out what to do with it. The rough texture made it unsuitable for clothing, which meant it should be used for a decorating project, but I never seemed to have a need for it. That yarn's time had finally arrived, as it was perfect for making this cushion cover. I wasn't quite sure I'd have enough yarn to cover what was a fairly large cushion, but decided that 300 grams would surely make at least one side of the cushion cover, and the cover could be made with a coordinating fabric backing if need be.
The next step in the process was to find a suitable cushion cover pattern. After a Ravelry search for a cabled pattern, I decided I liked the idea of a strip of Celtic knot cable running across an otherwise plain stockinette cushion, as shown above in the Celtic Knot Pillow cover, designed by Jennifer Wilby. After all, isn't a yarn that was passed along a chain of knitters before it reached the one who would eventually use it the perfect yarn to be used for a Celtic chain effect? The Celtic knot technique is a traditional knitting pattern of such long-standing that it's in the public domain, so I used the Celtic cable pattern from the Celtic Cable Scarf pattern, written by Vanessa Lewis, to get the look, and did the math to write my own pattern to fit my specific cushion.
Here's the completed cushion cover, sitting on the chenille-covered rocking chair I upholstered, and against the backdrop of the wall I painted and the chintz curtains I've made. It turned out that I did have just enough yarn to make an entire cushion cover -- I finished this project with less than 40 inches of yarn to spare. I knitted the cover in one long piece, then seamed it on two sides, and inserted an 18" ivory zipper into one long side using the method described in this Frog Knitting tutorial. It's worth going the extra mile to put a zipper in a cushion cover as it means the cover can easily be taken off the cushion and washed.
To recap, I had the cushion and the yarn and even the zipper on hand, and the pattern was free. I did have to buy a crochet hook for the zipper insertion as I had none of a size big enough to grip the yarn but small enough to pierce the zipper, but the crochet hook was only $2.15, so this was still quite a frugal project. And the chain of custody for this yarn is finally at an end.... though who knows? The cushion might have a checkered life as well. We never know where our stuff will wind up.
This cushion project used up 300 grams of stash yarn.
And, when I tot up all the pluses and minuses, I find my stash slimmed down by a total net loss of 660 grams in 2015, which isn't too bad. I am cheating a little bit here because I haven't factored in the two lots of yarn I bought in 2015 and didn't use up (though one of those lots of yarn was for one of the three projects currently in my work basket). I will account for them in next year's round up and will consider them new yarn, not stash yarn in my calculations, so they won't go unreckoned for.
And I'm looking forward to knitting my way through my 2016 project list. Hell, I'm looking forward to working on my 2017 project list. For me, being a knitter is all about looking forward to the wonderful things I'm going to make.
