stash, knit, repeat

The destashing felt so great. The bulk of my stash is once again stuff I’m excited to knit with and dream about, it eased our finances enough to splurge on a couple of things, and hopefully it made some other folks happy too.

Meanwhile, knitting continues on at a maddeningly slow pace:

Yeah, that would be the very beginning of the front of a worsted-weight sweater in a 3-year-old size. In two weeks. SIGH. I ultimately decided to finish the back to see how it looked, and I think that many of you are right in that the muted color allows for a more complicated stitch pattern without looking too busy. Jacob pronounced it “gorgeous” and is harping on me to finish it. Maybe I’ll try to get the thing done by the time his school starts next week?

Of course, his feet are cold, too.

I had plenty of the emergency-acquired Bronzed Forest left over from Tomten, and I was stuck without appropriate needles at knit night one week, found a pair of dpns in my purse (just in case, you know, I ever had a sock emergency), and cast on. These are just basic 52-stitch socks (I get 8 stitches to the inch) in a 3×1 rib pattern.

I’m anxious to finish all of the Jacob knitting, though. One of the splurges I made with the destashing cash was to get some sturdy, less-spendy yarn for a more casual sweater for me. I feel badly wearing my really nice sweaters with the baby, who is still unpredictable in the spit-up department. The solution?

I can’t wait to cast on! Happy New Year, everyone!

Thank you all so much! I’ve knit most of the back of the aran, now, and as many of you said the muted color of the yarn is really balancing out the cables. I think it looks fine, after all.

I can’t believe I’m really going to make a pictureless post, but I wanted to mention something here. My stash has really been stressing me out lately, and the Sundara Seasons fingering silky merino that arrived yesterday made it worse (I’m not that into two of the colors). So! It’s time to do something about that, and that means destashing.

I’ve never destashed before, so I’m not really sure how this goes, but I’ve listed things that I’m happy to part with here in Ravelry. (The Sundara FSM will be up there once I get good pictures of it.) Some of the yarn is stuff one can buy in stores, some has been discontinued, some is festival-only. All is available for roughly 10% off of retail. All has been stored in ziploc bags in a pet-free, smoke-free home.

Hi! Can we just pretend that it hasn’t been nearly a month since I last posted? That my knitting time hasn’t actually been eaten up by two adorable, variably-drooly little boys? Because I need your advice.

The knitting on tomten is finally finished, and it just needs a zipper to be truly jaunty. Photoshoot to come soon, I’m sure. With the knitting done, though, it was time for something else on the needles.

Enter the Chunky Cabled Sweater by Zoe Mellor, from “Adorable Knits for Tots”. It looks cute as pie in the book, and I had some Sublime Cashmerino Silk Aran in the stash that was suitable. Here’s the progress so far:

I like it, but here’s my question: Sometimes when I look at this sweater, it seems sort of busy. The back, front, and sleeves are all done in this cable and moss stitch motif. Is it too much? Should I make the back and/or sleeves simpler? If so, how? Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?