i heart you.

voila!



the scrappy heart blankie is complete!



even though i did the majority of the work on it last year, i'm counting it towards my stash busting total for THIS year. which i've decided i'm weighing out...

2014 stash busting tally - 646g.



let's pretend i didn't buy most of the grey for this blankie ok? it'll be our little secret sshhhhhhhhh!

raveled.

are you stash busting this year? how do you keep tally? what have you finished lately?

making plans.

earlier in the year, i made some stash-busting plans.
being 10 (!) months down the track, i thought i'd review a little, and make some more plans too!

not going to lie, there have probably been more balls coming IN to my stash than OUT. i'd best get to work on some of it!

i've still got the same plans for this blankie, but i've got the grey sorted out now too!



the grey is leftover from my granny stripe, so not technically anything new coming in to the stash there...

this ball on the other hand...



i'm thinking i might knit it into this scarf... should make a nice new scarf for bb. his current one is starting to look a bit too loved.

this ball is also a newbie, from my bendigo woolen mills trip earlier in the year.



this one will become socks too! a pair for bb, and a pair for me, and a pair for anyone else who will have them. i've got two balls and i have a feeling it might make a heap of socks!

i picked up this bunch of scraps from the aforementioned trip...



they're all a LOT shorter than i realised, each colour bundle there, is made up of shorter pieces...
i'm thinking i might put together some knitted chains. like the paper chains you used to make in primary schools, but instead of paper strips, i'll use knitted strips!
they should look nice around the tree at christmas time ;D

these couple of balls were gifted to me by my brother when he got back from overseas earlier in the year.



they're acrylic, but super soft! i think i might crochet them up into a ripple scarf... the colours should stripe up nicely!

embarrassingly, this is only a teeny tiny portion of my stash! there's still so much potential in there ha ha!
these projects should keep me going for a little while though...

do you have plans for all the supplies that you buy? or do you have a stash to make plans with too?

september.

heck yeah! it's september and that means it's SPRING!
i've been looking forward to spring since about 2 weeks into winter, the cold, short days and lack of sunshine really got me down this year.

the weather today (and yesterday to be honest) was AMAZING! total spring weather! the clear crisp sunshine had me ridiculously energised and i bounced around all day today. i did 29430932184 loads of washing and the house is looking super tidy!

anywho, let's recap on august for a second...
i made plenty of meal plans (though not this week past, i well and truly fell off the home-cooking wagon, we had take-away/ate out every night!), knitted up some weenie socks, finished the granny stripe as well as milo #2 (though i just realised i never blogged it, lots of things like that at the moment!). oh and i fixed up my frames too! well technically, i finished them today... i'll share them a little later in the week :D
i missed a couple of things though, no bread got baked, the suitcase sat stagnant, i barely hand-wrote a word and my craft supplies are still ridiculously disorganised... so guess what's on my list this month?




finish socks? i may have cast on some new socks... for me this time! i'll share a bit more about them later in the week... while i'm on holidays! bb and i are jetting off to spend some time in the sun with some friends. i think it'll be the perfect thing to boost our energy levels but also get us nice and relaxed. i've found the last couple of months at work quite stressful so hopefully i come back a bit more like myself :D

hopefully i get lots of stuff done off the list! particularly the study part, i've got an end date now, i just have to get everything done before it! wish me luck!

what are your plans for the month? did you get some sunshine today too?

ps. happy father's day! i keep forgetting because my parents set off on a big adventure early this morning! i don't even know how to get in contact with my dad ha ha!

an interstate finish.

last night, i cast off the cowl i've been working on over the last couple of weeks!



i've got some ends to sew in but i LOVE it! so nice!!

of the 5 and a bit balls i started with, i've only got this much left...



there's another 5 balls from the stash ;)

have you finished anything recently? are you busting your stash?


oh, and it's an interstate visit because i'm in SYDNEY! yay!

it's growiiiiiing!

i've been working like a woman possessed on my cowl.
i'm two balls in now... and another ball is going on between typing sentences!



it's coming along nicely don't you think?

what are you working on at the moment? are you stash busting too?

bustin' out.

last night, i found myself with a nice quiet night at home, and nothing to work on!

i'd run out of threads for the woodland sampler, sewn the ends in on bb's jumper and wasn't in the mood to work on this...



another beanie that i got to casting on the other day.

i pulled some wool out of my stash and cast on a honey cowl!



this is a ball into the cowl, and i'm pretty happy with the 'waffly' look of the texture. loving it :D

so that's one ball out of my stash so far for the cowl, and there's also another for that beanie up there too! another two balls down!


are you stash-busting too? what are you working on at the moment?

the weekend beanie.

last saturday night, i cast on a beanie.
i'd had a day in bed after feeling super bleurgh and i needed something mindless to keep my hands busy.
a beanie was the answer.



by monday evening, after work, i was casting it off and sewing in the ends.

it was exactly what i needed last weekend, the perfect medicine to what ailed me.

do you use making as therapy? does crafting make you feel better?


EDIT: i forgot to mention, this beanie used 5 little scrappy balls from my stash! yeow!

spoilt.

my brother just got back from a trip overseas, and he bought me back a special gift!

by the looks of it, he spent a bit of time looking for me!



how spoilt am i?

my brother travels across the world and brings me back yarn! he knows me TOO well!

anyone know of anything i can do with pompom or that webbed yarn that's not a scarf though?
i need suggestions!

he also brought me a calendar from this talented lady!



a year of colourful yarny projects! sure to keep me inspired for the stash busting challenge!

woollies for tassie.

the lovely folks behind the craft hive have organised a drive for some wooly squares, to be joined up into blankies and gifted to tassie peeps in need after the recent bushfires.
i decided to contribute, joining up the baby squares i found op-shopping wayyyy back here to make up 8" squares.



i joined them as i went, hooking a single row of single crochet as the basis, and then finishing them up with a row of single crochet around the finished square.



i finished up with 13 squares...
there were enough squares to make 12, with 2 squares left over, oh and one i'd hooked up and stored with them at some point.
a quick scrounge through the stash yielded up some bits and pieces in the colours i'd used to make that square, so i quickly hooked up another and brought the total to 13!



i'll be popping these in the post tomorrow. hopefully they don't take long to get where they need to be.

big props to the the craft hive folks. they're doing a fantastic thing!

are you joining in with #woolliesfortassie?
do you have lots of squares in your stash too?


ps. joining the squares together burnt through 4 and a bit balls of wool from my stash. yay stash busting challenge!

stash busting - plans.

yesterday, i shared the stash busting challenge, and today, i'm sharing the plans i've made for some of my stash!

first up, the beanies!



this is how i plan out my beanies, grouping some yarns of similar colours together :D
then, i cast one on, and use the rest as i see fit, making sure that there's plenty of variety within the beanie.
they tend to look like this when they're done!

i also started this little project over the christmas period (read: car craft) inspired by tracie.



my idea was to make something big enough to fit all of the cat's toys in, i'm sick of them not having a home :|
however, i'd run out of wool, luckily i found some more in my stash :D
i'm not sure that i've used the right size hook though as it's a little floppy... might need to restart this one...

the other stash plan i've come up with is to use some of the mountains of pink yarn i seem to have...



this pattern has been in my ravelry queue for a loooooong time. wouldn't it look great all in pinks? with a nice light grey background?
i would need to buy wool for the background, to ensure i had enough... but it would be totally worth it for such a cute little blankie!
rest assured, with my granny stripe still on the go, another blankie is a little ways off...

and there's also this wool...



to make a couple of pairs of slippers, one pair for me and one for bb.
i don't have a pattern in mind yet, but it needs to be something cozy :D we have horrid tiled floors that are BITTERLY cold in winter!

i feel like all of these plans should've used up a sizable portion of my stash, but it's honestly barely made a dent!

the little bundles of wool i posted about yesterday have been assigned projects too!
the teal yarn, is destined to become a cowl, this one in fact!
and the pink, i'll knit into a shawl! i've got this pattern earmarked.

i've got plenty to work on for the next little while, and when these projects are all done, i might have another little sort through to see what other inspirations the stash can yield :D

the next couple of days though, i'm going to work on turning these into 8" squares for the tasmanian bush fire appeal... you can join in here if you've got some spare time and yarn :D

how's your stash looking?
do you have lots of plans for yours too?
are you joining in with the stash busting challenge?

stash busting!

the other day, i was dreaming about my wool stash... thinking of how i should go through and sort my stash, and decide on some projects to use some of it up!

then as i was browsing through my blog reader, i came across this post from tammy.
turns out, linda and ana are hosting a stash busting challenge!

perfect!

this morning, i found myself with some unexpected time at home (last minute re-schedule of the work roster), so i dug into the stash...



and this guy helped...



i've now got more than a few plans made (which i'll share here tomorrow) but first, i need some help!
i realised as i was pulling all of my balls of wool out, that there was some that i had fairly sizable amounts of...



these, which are a dusky pink crepe aaaaaaaand



this teal moda vera pure wool.

i have no idea what to do with it!!!
most of the projects i make, are either quite small, like a beanie, which only need one or two balls, or massive, like a blanket, which need close to a million balls.

5-6 balls just throws up question marks to me!

any ideas on the sort of project i could use this amount for?
are you joining in with the stash busting challenge?
is your stash getting out of control too?