FO: Acorns

Here it is, my first FO of the new year, the Acorns cardigan. The colour would have made it perfect for Christmas, but there you go.

I'm not sure the colour is right in these far from perfect photos. We're saving for a new camera and word is that it won't be long before we'll be the happy owners of that wonderful camera. Can't wait!

Back to the cardigan! I fell in love with the pattern as soon as the Fall 2010 issue of Twist Collective came out in August and started it right away. In fact, I started it 3 times: 1) In the more New Lanark DK which turned out too 'natural' to show off the pattern well; 2) in the current yarn combination (Rowan Pure Wool DK and Holst Garn Supersoft) but thinking I knew how to do increases myself and didn't need to pay attention to the more than 3 different ways of doing increases used in the pattern; and finally 3) the final version, where I actually learned some very clever new ways of doing increases!

The fit is not spot on - the yoke is a bit too high (measurement from underarm to neck edging too long) when combined with this very wide neckline - but the acorns pattern still makes me smile. I'm sure it'll be great for throwing on during cold spring/summer days and nights, even if it'll never be my favourite sweater. The Cabled Spiral Pullover [Rav link] still holds that title. Btw, it's been almost 3 years since I finished that sweater and despite getting loads of wear, it still looks as new. Talk about durable yarn.

Pattern: Acorns [Rav link] by Carol Sunday published in Twist Collective Fall 2010.
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK, colourway Kiss, and one strand of Holst Garn Supersoft, colourway Poppy.
Needles: 5 mm Addi Bamboo.
Mods: None. If I were to knit it again I'd make a less wide neckline (maybe by adding an extra row of acorns like on this beautiful version), shorter yoke, and place the buttonholes myself and not as stated in the pattern (following the guidelines the buttonholes should be evenly spaced even when fewer sts/row are picked up along the acorn pattern than along the rev St st, but it doesn't quite work out... it's alright, though).
Link to my Ravelry project page: here.

Next up: I'm speeding through my Larch cardigan - I think it may be done in less than a month(!).

Stash status

I've only setup two goals for 2011 as far as knitting goes:

1. Have fun and be happy with what I knit
2. Use up more stash than I get in

For the #2 I thus need to know how much stash I have now at the beginning of the year in order to compare once December 31st 2011 arrives. I spent some time with the kitchen scales tonight, finding out exactly that. So, here it is:

12232 g of yarn!

of which ~1.7 kg is already knitted up in the lingering WIPs - this needs to be counted as well as it still qualifies as unknit yarn, seeing as the WIPs are indeed WIPs and not FOs. This means that I have a bit more than 10 kg lovely yarn in my stash! If I recall correctly, that's approx. 2-3 kg more than I had in 2008, my blog's childhood, which was the last time I kept track of stash going in and out as part of Stashalong.

Summing up, my goal is as follows: To have less than 12232 g of yarn on December 31st 2011! 


It's not a yarn diet as such, seeing as yarn purchases are allowed as long as they are balanced out by actual knitting. That's a good thing since I have some more yarn coming from garnudsalg.dk any day now... Oh, and I already added 100 g to the stash today: Rasmilla's Luksusgarn. Mmmm. I'll keep a tally in the sidebar - let's call it Stashdown 2011!


And now off to dream about all those lovely knits that my wonderful stash can be turned into... :)