Project Spectrum has been so good for stash reduction. I'm using yarns that would have lingered much longer before being used, and making and finishing things that I'm really enjoying as well. Thank you Lolly for the inspiration again this year. If you haven't seen them yet, go check out the Flickr group pages.
These were all started between over a year ago and just last week and were all finished within the last week or so. There may have been little skiing, but there was a lot of knitting.
Grey socks for my dad: these were specifically requested by him, in "two shades of grey." The solid grey was in stash, either Elann Sock It To Me or KnitPicks Essential? There wasn't another suitable solid grey available locally so I went with Brown Sheep Wildfoote in variegated 'Soft Jazz.' These were intended to be finished on his birthday in late November but they weren't even started until a few days before that and then got sidelined. Seeing him again last month in Seattle, I was able to try one on his foot as I knit the rest of the first one to get a good fit. I finished them while he was here last week. I had thought the variegated yarn might have been a bit too out there for him but he's happy with them and says they're a perfect fit.
Grey socks for C: These are knit from Cascade Fixation, leftover from this tank which has since been frogged, by the way. I started with the number of stitches called for in the Broadripple pattern on #3 US dpns and they ended up fitting C's feet. He likes the cuffs of his socks short so this was a super speedy knit. I like the striping that this yarn does.
Grey fingerless gloves for C: knit according to the Marnie MacLean's Hooray for Me Gloves pattern in a 4-ply Regia sock yarn. The only change was 14 rows knit straight after the thumb gusset shaping rather than the 19 called for in the pattern. These were intended for me for typing at the computer during the winter but ended up fitting C's hands instead. These were first blogged about way back when. I'm not sure why it took so long to finally get back to these. They were fairly painless and satisfying to finish.
Grey razorshell scarf: inspired by Adrian's version here, knit with about 2.5 balls of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK according to these directions, only slightly altered, since Naive Knitting, where the pattern was originally posted, based on a picture in a Marie Claire Idees magazine, appears to no longer be blogging. I wasn't sure about my yarn choice here, thinking a more heathered, fuzzy yarn would have been nicer, but it's soft and cushy and doesn't itch at all, AND has been in stash for a couple of years. Grey scarves are the ones I reach for over and over again. This isn't the first one and it won't be the last.
My version of the pattern, knit on size 6 needles:
Set up row: purl across to last stitch, knit 1.
Row 1: slip 1 knitwise, *knit 1, yarn over, k3, slip 1 knitwise, knit 2 together, pass slipped stitch over, knit 3, yarn over. Repeat a total of 4 times from*, knit 2.
Row 2: Slip 1 knitwise, purl to last stitch, knit 1.
Repeat until desired length. Block and sew on embellishments.
