Tidying my wool stash

Oh thank you Elegran - I didn't know it was available at a click of a mouse!

Thank You Elegran I've copied it and intend to print it out for my sewing room.

Elegran That tapestry or embroidery or whatever you call it, is lovely. I am very impressed.

I have a good stash but I cant quite compete with some of you.

Gracesgran I do like the concept of SABLE.

Stop press - the second part is now finished. It has taken a year, which is longer than the larger first part did. I hope part three doesn't take two years!

Of the 71 reasons number 9, "I'm participating in a contest--the one who dies with the most fabric wins.", seems to sum up a contest I entered without knowing.

I am trying to be good and to make sure I use fabric from my stash in any new project but then I find I need some new fabric to bring the stashed fabrics together.

... and then there's the fabric I can't bear to cut into.

Yes, the fabric that is too good to use. I bought a length of Liberty lawn years ago, enough for a dress. Whenever I take it out and look at it, I put it away again until I have a pattern to do it justice. I think I now have it - or rather, I have bought a kurta top which would make up in the material very nicely, and not be too fiddly to do. I must cut a newspaper shape from it and use that.

I have a Ph.D which stands for Projects Half Done. I have a lifetime of yarns, material and embroidery thread. It is impossible to have too much yarn.

Even the smallest bits are usable. People in concentration camps made beautiful things out of threads pulled from the fabric of their clothes. I feel wasteful if I throw away any which are long enough for a few stitches - you can bet your boots that sooner or later you will be short of that piece for the last few stitches.

But perhaps I am just a hoarder.

Perhaps you are Elegran - but a happy one

Ros47, will try that with the bar of soap, I too have bags of wool. As much of it is acrylic I don't expect the moths will have touched it but just in case. I too have bed covers made with crotchet squares and a large one with crotchet rounds. However Ive sent a big bag to charity shop as I feel like some new wool, I love the colours and the feel of the wools, I even like to just look at patterns in a knitting book.

Mine are in plastic bags sorted by colours, in a lovely storage box.....I really enjoy my wools. I knit mostly Bergère patterns and use their wools, they are just that little bit different and my Swedish dil loves them.

I like the Bergére colours, but their patterns can be really hard to follow sometimes. I used to love Phildar years ago - some of my rediscovered wool is theirs, along with some Phildar 1980's pattern books.

I have a shop bought cardigan that looks hand made but am unable to find patterns that would enable me to make anything similar.

I belong to a knitting group and we have raised over £1,000 for our local prem baby unit in the last year but even although we share patterns I feel that I would like some more modern ones.

Have a stash of wool in the front-room cupboard. The stash was enormous until I knitted two very large bedspreads from charity shop bought wools. It's building up a bit again now that I'm concentrating on knitting just for me. I always buy too much, thinking I might need to add more inches than I actually do, to accommodate my long body (I don't seem to be as long as I used to be, thankfully . Also in that cupboard, along with my shoes, boots, clothes, etc (maybe this should have been n the 'tidy' thread!) is a length of hessian and a large bag of 3"x1" strips of cut-up scrap material which was all meant to grow into a rag rug. I managed about 4" before I stowed it away out of sight. I blame the Beamish Museum - went there twice and watched a lady pegging away happily at her kitchen table. It took me days and days to cut up all those strips.....

If you have red and green wool knit some poppies. The knitted poppies sell very well and I believe (non -knitter) they are easy to make.

Here's the RBL poppy pattern I posted on another thread.

Thank you Icy, I have printed this off

The soap is a great idea Ros47. Like all knitters I too have a stash which I try really hard not to add to but have just been to the Knitting and Stitching Show !!!
My new resolution is to alternate using yarn from my stash followed by bought yarn. Wish me luck. ��

I have just been sorting mine, so this resurrection is timely. I have a large old pine blanket chest, all of my wool is squuuueeeeeeeeeezed into it so that the lid barely shuts. I have sorted it into separate bags, colourwise, then chunky and thinner separately. Also tapestry wools have been ousted.

All shorter oddments are now being crocheted lengthwise into long stripy scarves. Some have added sparkly stripes in twilley's goldgingering, these will go off to the school's charity xmas fair. I can do one in an evening and they fetch a fair amount of money every year. A lifetime of knitting wool is being used up gradually every year in this way. I have been knitting my own jumpers since I was 12.

I also knit loads of squares every year for the local primary school's blankets they make every year for babies abroad. They are only 3" squares and it is a lovely way to get rid of all the finer wools in paler colours.

Right now I am trying to use up my stash of odds and sods of yarn by knitting for "Knit a square"based in south Africa to create blankets for children.

I will be starting a proper project after Christmas though.
My last proper knit was when I "pulled out" one jumper and re-knitted it in a better style. The trouble is is a lot of the stuff I knitted is too big for me now.

I have two big plastic boxes of stashed yarn which sounds quite modest compared with some of you.

My latest project for myself is lengthening all my jumpers. I need warmer hips now. If I can't find anything that tones I am knitting contrasting bands at the bottom and also adding colourful cuffs to match.