Frosty Doocot

Kate Davies recently published a super duper top-down jumper pattern called Doocot. I downloaded it immediately and cast on the same evening. The pattern calls for dk yarn and I had some but it's earmarked for another project and I'd bought this Kid-Silk yarn (and sparkle thread), but changed my mind about knitting it into a cardigan. I thought I'd try it out and see if it would work.
3.75mm didn't work, it looked a bit yuck actually! After a little unravelling I got out my favourite size needle, 5mm, and cracked on. The fabric is LOVELY on 5mm needles, all fluffy and drapey. Time will tell if it's going to sag and pill, hopefully not, I find mohair's a good tough fibre.

This oversized trend is something I wasn't at all sure about at first, also the cropping! Turns out they're fab for layering and are generally very nice garments to wear - I definitely like a lighter weight cropped jumper rather than a heavy weight one.
It's strange knitting with such fine yarn at first, but as the fabric develops it becomes such an enjoyable experience (I spent a lot of time squishing the fabric...). The thread was a pain to knit with, it needs tensioning else it supercoils (I've been learning about DNA!). Really, it just twists itself up and can knot really easily.

What else? Oh! The construction. So, I always disliked top-down after a few bad experiences with patterns involving a lot of counting, stitch markers and general faffery which really put me off (contiguous!). This one couldn't be simpler, the back neck is raised with knitting back and forth, no nasty short rows (I also hate those), the sleeve increases were logical and easily memorable.
I did lots of knitting on this one at college and then over half term. Finished it in time to wear to my genetics exam for luck, fuzzy sparkly luck. The exam was a bit of a stiff one, managed to answer all the questions but know I mucked a couple up. Onwards though!

The Big Marl

The Big Marl popped up in my Ravelry pattern highlights the day it was released. Sent me straight to my stash, then to my swift and ball-winder. This project absolutely eats yarn; I can see why Beata designed it, it's fun, simple and great for single skeins of hand-dyed yarn.

I haven't used a single scrap of Hedgehog Fibres in mine. I've used nearly all the yarns I bought at the Wool@J13 knitting/yarn festival earlier this year.

I feel as though I'm getting over hand-dyed yarns right now, so I can appreciate them but I'm becoming less impulsive with buying them (almost). It's funny, they're lovely things to own but they make me feel a bit wrong when I have a LOT of them, it feels so excessive to me. A few years ago I think my stash was pushing 70, it really was getting to the point where it was making me feel greedy, there was yarn stuffed and stacked everywhere and I would still have to buy more for certain pattern releases...
Then there is the small matter of changing taste in yarn, so I found that my taste was changing faster than I could knit my stash.
EBay has been brilliant as I've gradually worked through my stash (selling it), eBay is a great place to sell yarn, unravelled Shetland Spindrift, unravelled Lopi, scraps of this and that, even my own hand-dye experiments - all sold, gone, money recouped.

I have a guilty pleasure on ravelry, I like to look at yarn collectors' stashes, real collectors. I simultaneously marvel at and recoil at the crazy amount some people have.