Stash Thinking

I joined this "Race to the Bottom" thing on Ravelry. I was in it last time, but the debacle that was the Henry VII tripped me up. I do find these things motivating, and it challenged me to reevaluate the worsted stash that I still have.

This Ravelry group has me thinking again about choices. I decided years ago that I prefer making sweaters. Socks, hats, scarves, blankets don't do it for me. The idea of hand knitted dish cloths is baffling. The other things I think end up in the back of a drawer for the most part. So far, most of the sweaters I make get worn.

There is a lot of talk about "sweater quantities". Since I decided to concentrate on sweaters that idea frames my thinking, but not in the sense that I have enough of a particular yarn to make a sweater. Instead, I have learned that for a medium adult sweater I use about 750 grams of worsted wool. I use the stitch fiddle application to figure out stitch counts when working out color schemes. Those get moved to a spread sheet where I do the calculations to figure out how many grams of each color I need to work a pattern.

Sure, there is some fudging that goes on.

So, last week I organized most of the remaining stash into sweater quantity groups. Looks like I have the makings for eight sweaters. I may re-arrange a few more times, but what that tells me is that I can see the end of this worsted weight project.

Oh, I also finished this sleeve, and started the second.