Audrey and Updates

I'm afraid there's no daily outfit for today, as I can't find a photographer. I have ordered a tripod, though, so will soon be able to capture my own vanity!

In the meantime, here are a couple of shots of my latest cardigan project, Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnston. I had been searching for a while for a pattern that would look good in black, and this definitely does. Incidentally, the yarn I am using is a rich, full-bodied black (called 'Liquorice'), as opposed to the half-arsed charcoal suggested by the photo above - closer to this:

This will be the first of the six sweaters I pledged to knit before buying more yarn. So far I have been surprised at my success in this vow. Not only have I stopped stashing like a yarn squirrel preparing for an especially harsh winter, but I have also really enjoyed thinking of creative ways to use all the yarn I already own.

On the subject of pledges, I have been woefully inadequate at mentioning my Year of Selfish Knits, but here too I have been doing rather well. I have not made a single thing for anyone else, and have been revelling in all the lovely knits I get to keep. This project was born out of a question I get asked a lot: 'Oh, you knit? Did you knit that?'; I am very happy that now my answer is almost always a resounding 'Yes!'

Stash pledge

My stash spends most of its time as a large vacuum-packed yarn asteroid  - a yasteroid, if you will. This helps assuage my morbid fear of moth attack, and also serves as a handy space-saving 'solution'. It does, however, make it all too easy to ignore the size of the beast growing within. I had to rootle inside the yasteroid today, and have been shaken out of my denial by what I found. The six sweaters'-worth of yarn shown above do not represent the whole story; if anything, I am more irritated by the tangle of partial and single skeins. I think I should feel substantial better, though, once I had converted the above collection into garments. Therefore I do hereby solemnly pledge that I will buy NO MORE YARN until I have knitted up ALL SIX jumpers. Yikes!

ETA: I got a little sick of my violent pink colour-scheme - hope you like the new minimalist look.