Knitting sock the stash

 In January I set myself a goal to knit a pair of socks each month throughout the year.  The idea was to fill a box with hand knitted socks for both myself and Mark for Christmas.

We are now in the middle of August and I've just recently finished my eighth pair.  I could choose to miss knitting a pair this month but I decided to cast another pair on this weekend and if life gets too busy towards Christmas I'll still be on track.

These are the latest two pairs finished

A pair for me....

And a pair for Mark.

And all the ones I've knitted so far this year.

It's going to be a tight fit, but I think I should manage to get them all in.

I wanted to try and knit all the socks from stash this year, and I'm happy to say that I have acheived that, so far at least.  I've only purchased one ball of sock yarn this year so I haven't been adding anymore to stash either.

I didn't think to take a photo of my commercial sock yarn stash back in January...But this is how it's looking at the moment.

It makes me happy to be using what I have and seeing less on this shelf.  The shelf is only one ball deep but there is still a fair bit to choose from; and certainly enough to keep me going until the end of the year.  There are also some part balls of solids in there too that I can use for cuffs, heels and toes if I choose to.

I find that the older I'm getting the less I want, of anything, not just yarn, and having a large stash of yarn, or any crafting supplies, is not something that bothers me anymore.  I love to look at yarn and enjoy a browse at yarn festivals and yarn shops, but I think I would much rather be in a position of finding a pattern I would like to knit and then shopping for the yarn, you know, like it used to be before there was so much yarny temptation on social media, lol.

Of course I will still sometimes get tempted along the way, but I would still like to keep to a sensible amount.  

I do have a reasonable amount of hand-dyed yarn - not a huge stash by any means, but enough to have some options.  Most of it is single skeins that I bought because I loved the colourway at the time, while some were gifts.

I could use some of them for socks, and there are definitely a few that I will.  But others are far too pretty to be hidden inside shoes!  So, I've been thinking about pairing some of the skeins together and using them to knit a few Tee's for next Summer - I think that would be a lovely way to make use of those special yarns and getting to enjoy the colours - Watch this space 😉

-x-