Planning Ahead

Over the last few Knitting Notes posts, I have been looking at small take-along projects which would be perfect for Summer Knitting on the road. However, not every day during the summer is spent travelling, and not every day is sunny either! 

So I am going to suggest some great ideas for rainy summer days – and the first of these is for spinners & dyers:

1 – Dust off your spinning wheels & dyepots:

​If you're a spinner and have some brand-new fleeces from this year's shearing, then this would be a great time to set up some dye-pots outside in the summer sun. Then the next rainy day could turn into a productive spinning day! ​

And if you would like to see some information about dyeing, then please click here.

The dyed fleece in the top photo, for example, became the five shades I used for the Ocean Currents Rug you can see here. I actually dyed just three colours but then blended them to give me the five yarns I needed. However, when I finished the rug I still had a lot of yarn left-over. 

2 – Have a Summer Sort Out of your yarns:

So that leads me to my second suggestion – and that is to have a Summer Sort-Out of your yarns. It is remarkable how remnants and yarn ends can gather into quite a sizeable stash when you are not looking. Then there are the "perfect" yarns you purchased while on holiday which somehow never became projects in the end.

So rather than have a large collection of yarn sitting there doing nothing, have a good old rummage through and see what you have. A good idea is to start by sorting them into approximate weights: fine, medium, chunky etc. Then see which ones go with others to make interesting colour groups.

For me, I wanted to add to the tonal blend of blues so looked for more in the same approximate colourway. I actually managed to find quite a few other yarns that co-ordinated really well too and found I had enough for quite a sizeable project!

3 – Start a large project:

And that, in turn, leads to my third suggestion – to start a good-sized project now. This is not instead of your smaller projects which are already in hand, but to run alongside them. 

I actually like having at least one large project on hand at all times. Of course, it's good to have several smaller items on the go too, but there's always one large basket in the corner of my sitting room where I can pick up my needles and add a touch more.

I titled this post, "Planning Ahead" but first, cast your mind back to last winter. ​If you had to ask yourself what was the one item you most missed last winter, what would it be?
   ... a large shawl to wrap around your shoulders while you sat by the fire?
   ... a scarf and hat so you could keep cozy while shovelling snow?
   ... perhaps that gorgeous Norwegian sweater you've been promising yourself for years... 

Well for me, I really wanted a large colourful blanket to snuggle under after a day out in the snow. A cup of tea in bed, a good audiobook, and a super-cozy blanket – the perfect remedy for sore snow-shovelling muscles.

So I started making in-roads into the blue yarns that I had just gathered and quickly realised how important the remnant yarns were – the more I incorporated slightly different weights, textures and shades, the more interesting my sample became. Slight variations in shade between batches just lent a "country" air, and completely different yarns just melded together to give a lovely result. I even incorporated some thinner yarns used double.​​

4 – Try to use as many of your 'stash' yarns as possible!

So that brings me to my last suggestion – see if the large project you are thinking about could also eat into your yarn stash. Look at the results of your Summer Sort-Out and have a think how you could use the remnants and oddments in your new project.
   ... Could you work a Fair-Isle yoke with the colours gradually fading from dark to light?
  ... Or how about shawl in a variety of yarn weights, so it would be a denser by your shoulders but with finer and lighter ends?

For me, my sample swatch was strongly reminding me of an American pieced quilt. I have always loved these – they just have a charm and a character all of their own. When we were first living in North Carolina, I loved going to the old homesteads and seeing quilts from the early settlers, with old shirts, worn-out dresses and left‐over scraps etc incorporated into the designs.

So I started working a King-sized blanket with a range stitches, different yarns, and quite a variety of yarn weights and now I have a knitted version of a pieced quilt! It also made a significant decrease in the yarn stash too. I did need to add some new yarns too – I didn't quite have that number of left-over yarns to hand – but it was still definitely a "win-win" project!

So have a think how you could use your dyepots to extend the range of you yarn colours to hand, sort out what yarns you have to hand and rummage through the local yarn stores for sale yarns to add enough to start a large project of your own! ​If you would like to read more about this blanket, the Ocean Currents Blanket, then please click here.

I am going to finish off this Summer Knitting series next time, with a look at different blankets and what sizes to make them – there are certainly a lot of options! 

​If you would like to read the first Knitting Notes post in the series, then please click here and follow the links at the bottom to get back to this point. 

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