Potato chip knitting

For the last couple days, my newest knitting project, a modular knit afghan, has taken over. I call it potato chip knitting because I can't seem to stop with one diamond. Which is a good thing, since I plan to give it to a family member for Christmas.

For a while now, I've had about 8 skeins of one variegated color (pebble) and 6 skeins of another (sand) of vintage dazzleaire which were given to me because family members think I must run a yarn orphanage. It's like the Island of Misfit yarns or something in my attic. This yarn was a prime candidate for stash reduction. Anyway, this is enough yarn for a large afghan, and while I really like working with wool, there is a lot to be said for making an afghan from yarn tough enough to survive a nuclear war. (Cockroaches and Dazzleaire, that's all that will be left). So I tried various ways to work around the variegation, but nothing really clicked. But when I was re-reading my Spin-Off magazine from Spring of 2006, the article on a modular afghan by Carol Huebscher Rhodes gave me an idea about how I could use this yarn. I changed the color pattern, because I only had two colors, not three, so my afghan has four variegated diamonds making up a larger diamond in a alternating pattern.

I really like the way this pattern is working up. The diamonds are making the variegation much more interesting. To me, it looks like a wood grain or I don't know, pebbles and sand. Whatever. Anyway I think if you keep your old fiber magazines , and leave yarn in your stash long enough, you just might get a serendipitous moment which leads to a christmas present and a cleared out box in the attic. That's why I find it very hard to throw out my Spin-off magazines, because you just never know when an idea might pop out at you!

You have to start somewhere

So having thrilled my techno child and started my own blog, the first question is always "Why? The answer is "because I want to". I've enjoyed reading other peoples' blogs, (mostly knitting ones) but I want to add my own opinions. I want to talk about my projects, show pictures of works in progress and works that are done, maybe with the hope of getting more knitting done.

This blog will be mostly about fiber--knitting spinning crocheting. But since this is my blog, anything I feel like saying will be said. (Let's face it, it's probably just going to be me and my kids reading this anyway.) Oh and the reason for the name of the blog? Let's just say that I have a high fiber attic. I tell my husband that yarn is just good insulation. Maybe I'll show pictures of the attic in later posts. Ohhh scary, it's a scary stash. It actually includes some very old yarn, vintage even, like the 100% nylon dazzleaire. Now that's vintage. Most of the stash is now wool, since I've become a spinner, but some of the old stuff still haunts the attic. Actually one of my many projects in progress is an afghan for a family member (names are withheld because of Christmas presents) from some vintage dazzleaire from another persons stash. It's nostalgic, knitting with dazzleaire with short aluminum needles. It's actually a really fun project, and as soon as I take some pictures I post them.