Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Sorry Tale of SABLE


A friend of mine from our knitting group died this week quite suddenly which obviously upset us all but it did much more than that. This loss has made us all start to really think about our stashes and how SABLE (Stash Aquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) comes into the picture.
You see our friend 'L' left behind her a house full of wool. Now I know lots of us say we've a house full of wool but with 'L' I really mean it. Now I'm not directly involved with helping to clear this stash our but my close friend is and I can see how hard a job she's faced with. How best to dispose of bag upon bag of knitting needles; hank upon hank of cross-stitch threads (we're talking huge full carrier bags worth) before you even get round to the yarn itself which seems to have virtually filled rooms.
All in all it's left me feeling sad for the loss of a friend and the realisation that we barely knew her in some ways - we only ever saw her knit with acrylic yarns and yet her house was full of lovely yarns such as Rowan, Yaeger and Debbie Bliss which will probably have been there for years untouched. It's so sad to think of her sat all alone surrounded by all that wool. We will never know what drove her to gather all this wool together but I'm sure we've all been left with the huge lesson of knitting what we've got.


My stash seems to have changed over night from a growing thing to something to be used and enjoyed but with the emphasis on Used. The thought of buying new yarn is strangely unappealing as I know I've certainly enough yarn for a dozen or so socks (not including stash busting left over socks!), probably a dozen jumpers or cardigans in varying weights and half a dozen shawls. Surely that will be enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future? And of course I'm spinning new yarns as well so the stash does grow...

So I ask you - How do we know when we've reached SABLE or at least when to stop feeding the stash? For me I think I'm there and have no intentions of adding to the pile. Now I'm sure I will fall of the wagon at times, don't we all!! But I'm certainly going to make a definate effort to knit what I've got and try to ignore the siren call of unpurchased yarns.


And on a lighter note I will leave you with the first of the great stashbusting projects - a stashbusting memorial flower garden for 'L' which we will keep in 'Made' in Wallasey, where the New Brighton Knitters meet so that 'L' will always be there with us for our knitting evenings. And quite probably some of her stash will also make it into the garden as well.

I will post again soon about our lovely holiday and try and remember to take photos of the flowers (which are really fun to knit!) but I'm not really feeling up to jollyness right now. The photos in this post were taken in 'The National Botanic Gardens of Wales' which are lovely and well worth a visit and will be the only holiday photos for now.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz...

... Busy little Bee!! Apologies for the photo heavy post that follows!



Well my spinning wheel has been keeping me busy lately and the garden has been calling too. Poor neglected knitting - Yeah playing with fibres!!

Been busy chucking various fibres and bits at the drum carder and then having fun with the results, plying with whatever was to hand (namely sewing thread) and 'boufant boucle'ing the yarn - definitely fun after spinning 75g of Merino silk blend and producing 256m!


Primula Vialii

Aquilegia 'Norah Barlow'


Look at those yummy swirls of snipped silk threads!


Octopus and Jellyfish boucle tendrils!



More Jellyfish tendrils of boucle coils - full of sparkle and glitz!




Finest yarn I've ever spun - 256m approx from 75g of Merino/Silk blend!