baby cardigan

A new little cardigan enters the world and I am rather pleased with it.
It is made from sock wool I bought when in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Earmarked for a scarf, it is part of my travel-stash that will my source of yarn during our renovation-exile period.
My self-imposed rule is that all knitting/crochet projects must utilise existing resources over this time. It is part of a wider project to de-clutter, reduce, recycle and induce greater serenity. I find that the constant drive to consume, to buy, to search for new projects, new yarns is unhelpful in so many ways - it increases my 'too much to do' feeling, it is wasteful of resources and money and leaves us all feeling uncomfortable in our own home. Added to this, whilst cleaning up before the move, I found that much of my stash was contaminated by moths. This little cardigan was interrupted multiple times by having to re-attach my yarn due to presumably moth driven faults in the yarn.

I have now distributed moth-proofing through all my yarn and have had to discard quite a lot of valuable but irretrievably contaminated yarns. Very sad. So. No. More. Yarn. Purchases. Until this lot is used up.

Returning to this little garment - hopefully for my cousin Rowan and his wife Emma's baby due soon - though I don't know the gender. May need to make another more neutral version though I don't see why a little girl can't wear a navy cardy. The pattern is: Baby Tea Leaves. It is a simple and rather delightful pattern. Purchasable on Ravelry and available in a variety of sizes from tiny to adult. I like its rather modern feel and it will be easy to wear, put on and off and is machine washable.

Sewing so so

This is my year of stash busting. Having downsized housewise we are all appalled by the amount of stuff we have.  I packed up a lot of my craft supplies and left out a rather generous supply of projects and materials for the 18 months or so we will be here before moving back to our renovated house. The same applies to books. The much smaller collection of (unread) books seems much more manageable and does not leave me with the overwhelming feeling of  hopeless desire that my usual burgeoning book shelves incites - a mixture of excitement and despair that I will never find time to read them all (which is clearly true).

I am taking a salami principal approach to unpacking and stashbusting amongst other things - slice by slice. Everything I remove from the house is space liberated.

So far this week I have liberated two pieces of fabric  - one for a skirt for my niece made with a make it up as you go along circular skirt pattern which took about 30 minutes from start to finish; and a second skirt for E who reminded me of Harmony Day this Friday when they are required to wear ORANGE. ORANGE !!!!. To my surprise, the wardrobe revealed an orange-ish jacket, orange cords that were too small, a long sleeved orange and white t shirt that I have no memory of buying and voila - an orange t-shirt. Only the T-shirt was viable for a warm Autumn day. A scramble through the stash revealed a half metre piece of orange cotton bought for a now forgotten patchwork quilt. 20 minutes later we had a skirt - of the most simple and uncomplicated variety - long ends joined, bottom hemmed, top folded over into a casing and elastic inserted. It is very plain. And very orange. May decorate it. Or maybe not. Problem solved. Stash busting for the day done. tick. And another piece of clothing (orange cords) into the give-to-niece pile.

I found this plan on pinterest for a little dress which might consume another piece of two. Frills and Flares: Pinafore or Jumper Dress Pattern . The site has quite a few basic patterns and demonstrates how to adapt them for different sizes. I see more stash busting coming on.