Stashbuster Adventures 2013 - The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief

In a search to create another lovely stash buster, I turned to always handy Ravelry to find my next mission

This project has been on my radarr for some time. My best friend has done one and said it was quite easy but the idea of the garter tab definitely caused me to shy away. But alas, I knew I had a skein of Berroco Vintage in a bold deep red waiting to be used.  Perfect yardage for this amazing project. So I started off.

The garter tab was definitely the biggest learning curve for me but the rest was fairly simple.

It was quite the easy knit and knitted up very quickly at first. 

Around this point I started slowing down.

But still the project took me not too long to complete it. Approximately 4 evenings as they were all days I worked. But I loved how it turned out.

The blocking took some time though. It took about 2 days because of the heavier yarn and the poor circulation in my house. I tried using my first fancy soak and it smell delicious!

Loved it so much here's how the finish product looks wore:

Couldn't be happier! Please check out the ravelry page for this pattern! Age of Brass and Steam Let me know what you think! :D

Stashbuster: The Last Minute Slouch

I love hats! I always end up spending $30 on a cute hat at the local sports store but not this winter! I plan on knitting myself a whole bunch so I have NO excuse to buy them and look amazingly cool this year! :D Ok so I hope I will look amazingly cool.

What better way to start of my stashbuster journey by starting my new hat collection!

This hat pattern was super easy to do. Took me a total of 2 days to knit it and no blocking involved! I think this might be on the holiday knitting list of this year's Christmas gifts.

I have never really experimented with colour changing before. I had 2 partial skeins of Cascade 220 kicking around left over from other presents I knitted for Christmas. I decided to combine the two and see what they would look like together. The first skein is a gorgeous deep turquoise colour. It is so rich and nice all on it's own. I had gone to the lys in Guelph one day in search of something to knit a scarf with. Being completely unsuspecting, the ladies there convince me to buy 2 skeins of yarn insisting that it would require both to make a scarf. Yup, wrong! I only needed one so I decided to make a cute beret with it which only required a bit more than half a skein since Cascade 220 is so much yardage. Great bang for the buck. The next one was a black that I used to do the black borders for 2 scarves I made which resulted in some leftovers still. Black is awesome because it can go with pretty much anything.

The result? You let me know what you thinks! :D Second hat ever is not too shabby!

Yup, winter is coming.... in like 5 months but still winter is coming and dammit I will be ready for you! :D

For the link to the actual pattern, check this out: http://madelinetosh.com/last-minute-slouch/

Onto the next project! :D

Stashbuster Intro

I know I haven't written on here in a while. I apologize for it. It has been beyond hectic lately for me. Work has been insane with staff leaving, coming, blah! Working tons of hours and coming home exhausted. The up side to being that busy? The big paychecks! :D I have had the chance to go out and get myself some neat things and lately those "things" have been yarn! I love the lusciousness of yarn. I love how comforting it is and how soft and smooth and fluffy it is. I love the colours and how they brighten up my mood. I love walking into a lys and just being in awe of the walls and rows of gorgeous yarns and tools for me to drool over.

I have had the pleasure of going to Portland two months ago and the amount of lys in just a 1 block radius is unreal! I got to check out so many different types of shops and lay outs. There were so many different companies I never even got a chance to consider because I have never seen any of their products up close and personal.

I also found 2 amazing LYS here in the Lower Mainland. About a 5 minute drive from my house is the always lovely Black Sheep Yarns here in Port Moody. What a great little spot! If you didn't know it was there it would've just been another hidden gem tucked away from the main road. Then there's the gorgeous little fishing village of Steveston out in Richmond. I love it there because of the sweet village feel and the amazing fish and chips but now I have a great little yarn shop to browse through when I'm there by the name of Wool and Wicker. The ladies at this shop was super helpful and there were just so many brands I never considered sitting on their shelves that I just had to snap up some!

Now with the discovery of these little gems and more to come it's hard to not buy yarn. Except now that we are on the verge of moving to a more permanent area for us here in the Lower Mainland my boyfriend is not happy with having to move it all. Now I can't exactly blame him, I should be more controlled and knit what I have before getting more but darn it, they are so pretty and soft and I just wanted to HAVE them. So now he puts his foot down for me (Thank God!) and says I am not allowed to purchase any more yarn until I knit up at least half of what I already have or at least what I have wound up.

Good thing my needle set came last week! I got a set of Addiclicks. These needles are a dream! I will go more into detail in another post. But since I have have been dying to knit with them, this gives me a chance to play with them!

So please join me in my stash buster journey. I will post each item as I finish with how I felt about it and a link to the pattern I used! :D