My Sordid Knitting Past
I gave my yarn closet (well, not just yarn - it also contains fabric and a large number of unused winter coats) a long-overdue cleaning yesterday, in preparation for some destashing, and I found this:
My little bag of yarn ball ends and swatches! I have plans for the yarn balls - a big scarf with crazy fringe. Someday. But the swatches are what’s really fun.
My first two swatches! I can’t throw away anything, apparently. The one on the left is the same Plymouth Galway as the Sherwood Hat. How cute and non-square the swatch is! Awww! It also has some well-placed holes that you can’t really see.
After knitting the first swatch, I decided to buy some yarn in a lighter color for practice. It worked out pretty well, since I magically could create something much more square. However, you can see a major problem looming…
Ah, the dreaded knit-through-the-back-loop! In my case, I was purling through the back loop. I didn’t realize that I was doing anything wrong for a year, maybe a year and a half. I shudder to think of the gifts that I’ve given with all those twisted stitches! I knit a Bobbi Bear, which was super adorable except for the section on his chest and back between the arms - those parts are knit flat, and they looked really twisty. That’s when I first realized something was up.
The swatch was for a French Market Bag, which was mostly knit in the round, and then any twistiness was promptly felted away.
What else could be in the bag? Oh, I forgot about this! This is the second border of Madli’s Shawl - you graft it to the rest of the shawl at the very end. Imagine the unsavory words that came out of my mouth when I realized that I had knit the wrong number of pattern repeats on this border (only a few days before our wedding, where I wanted to wear the shawl)!
The labels weren’t in the bag, but are still fun. I’ve kept 99% of the ballbands of yarns that I have knit. I throw away duplicates (but keep them if they’re different color numbers or dyelots), and I’ve deliberately tossed a couple of Brown Sheep ones (how many labels of Lamb’s Pride do you need, really?). I need to find a surface to decoupage them onto, or find some other use for them, because they’ve been pretty useless up to this point. The one time I actually needed one of them was for a dyelot number, but it was years after I originally bought the yarn and that dyelot was long gone.
There you have it, all of the dark secrets of my knitting past! I feel so… organized. If you’re interested in buying some yarn, check out my destash photos. These will end up the destash blog as soon as I can scrounge up enough boxes to ship them in - I mistakenly recycled all my amazon and zappos boxes last weekend.
One last photo:
I unravelled my Yarn Pirate swatch to split the ball in half, and it amused me so much that I had to snap a photo!
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Thank you so much for this post - I love knowing that I’m not the only person who hoards swatches and can’t throw away a ballband…
What’s that? Oh. Right. You’re cleaning out and organizing? So, ummm, I guess it is just me again…
:)
Yep, I’m a ballband keeper too. I’m anal enough that I keep two from each project if there’s more than one. One goes into a catch-all ziploc, the other gets stapled to the pattern with a snippet of the yarn for a colour sample. I’m still not sure why I continue to do this when I’m documenting it all online anyway.
Love the yarn pirate unravelled photo.
What about doing a cork board? then you can use it to pin up your little swatches on! :)
that frogged yarn is really neat - it looks like ric-rac!
Hey - I sent you an email earlier explaining how I can help you destash the stuff you don’t want to sell!
And, awww. You kept your first swatch! Look how far you’ve come!
I knit my stitches twisted for *years*. Literally. I only figured it out in ‘05 that I was doing something wrong. So don’t feel bad. :)
I left you a comment over there on Flickr. I think that Regia is calling my name…
I save my labels because I read you were supposed to. I forget where. But I have no system at all. Maybe it’s time to pull out the ziploc baggies.
And yes, I am using exactly the specified yarn for the Venezia pullover. I liked the colors and I could tell by looking at it that changing the colors would mean a LOT of hard work. Two Swans yarn is actually selling kits with all the required yarn.
wow, you save your labels? i always toss mine, but i generally can remember what the leftovers are. it only stinks when other people want to know the color numbers. :-)
and i love the unraveled yarn pic. very fun!
I save my labels too, but not in such an organized manner. I just find them at the bottom of all the bags I use for knitting. :) I’m planning on some stash organization this weekend–woo hoo!
that pulled out yarn looks cool.
i knit through the back loop for over a year. it wasn’t until i tried to knit the clapotis that i figured out something was wrong. i always wondered why my stitches never looked all neat and tidy.
I have started combining different yarns to make hats for Dulaan and scarves for the Red Scarf Project. I am glad I am not the only one!
=:8
Hi! Thanks for visiting my blog. It was nice meeting you. I should get organized too! My yarns are in kitty litter buckets, but I have ball bands scattered all over the house.
What a fun walk down your knitting memory lane. I think it’s the “Alterknits” book that shows a dress form decoupaged with yarn labels.