On The Stash

Ta-DAH!  The coral warp is woven and I started beaming the turqouise warp tonight.

Yesterday I had a short conversation with a quilter who mentioned that she was on a serious mission to reduce her stash.  She felt that the sheer volume of her stash was weighing her down.  I agreed and offered that the reward of getting rid of our old stash meant that we could buy new stash.  :)

I have been on a serious de-stashing program for about 5 years.  It can come as no surprise that even after all the weaving I've done during that time that I still have serious stash!  But at least I've used up enough of it that I am beginning to feel lighter in terms of having it weigh me down.  Not to mention that I discovered that there really is a floor in my storage area.  :^)

It has been enormously satisfying to empty boxes full of yarn.  It has been even more satisfying to finally use up some of the very fine yarns that I have collected over the years, usually without a real plan for it, just because it has always been so hard to find fine yarns - so that when I came across them, I grabbed them.

These shawls are also enormously satisfying to get woven up.  I'm weaving with a yarn that isn't the best yarn for weaving (as mentioned in a previous post), combining it with some of my very fine yarns for weft and making cloth that is rather nice.   At least I'm hoping that people will find it so.  One just does the best one can and then it's in the hands of others as to whether they like it well enough to buy it.

Each of the shawl warps uses up 16 four ounce skeins for warp.  On the coral warp I used up 2 small cones of brown alpaca, and one large cone of merino/angora for weft.

I still have another 7 of these shawl warps including the turqouise one I'm currently beaming, which means that I ought to put a serious dent into my fine threads for weft.

And then I get to buy more yarn!  Hmm - maybe a trip to Convergence next year will be required after all, in order to hunt down new yarns for my stash????

Currently reading Total Eclipse by Rachel Caine (finished The Murder Stone by Louise Perry in a reading binge this afternoon)