Stash

SABLE is an acronym for Stash Beyond Life Expectancy - with something for A which I can't remember now.

The last time I counted, I had ten years' worth of yarn if I counted one sweater per month and 800 g of yarn per sweater. The last time I counted was a long time ago and meantime, things got ripped and restashed, gifted, bought, spun, knitted up or generally shuffled around so at this point, I totally don't know. Which means:

Inventory time

Two hours later, I emerged from the attic covered in cobwebs and nothing much is accomplished. I threw away a few balls of yarn that sustained carpet beetle damage - attics contain dead insects and things that eat dead insects and other keratin so this is just inevitable. I'm keeping the bastards at bay by airing and bug sprays but they just happen.

Not finished doesn't mean that there are no results. I fished out several balls of lace yarns - I decided that I need to learn new things and since I got the book of Estonian lace patterns, I have a starting point. There are few bags meant for future sweaters. And a heap of stuff to spin.

Thinking of it, I hardly ever throw anything away, worn sweaters are ripped and recycled as long as it's possible so I might actually have stash beyond life expectancy.


This is not the whole stash, it's 10 percent at maximum. The storage method is however pretty characteristic.

I think I promised some actual knitting content the other day. Or not. But, I'm a knitter and this is my playground for displaying idiosyncrazies so, finished stuff. There you go.
I started the sweater back in 2012.

Sometime back in 2012 I scored one of my best buys on fleabay EVAH. 20 hanks of Japanese cashmere for the total of $50. The downside was the colours, mustard puke and weird hunter green. Two overdyes later, it's mostly black but there's still a way to go. And yes, it's black, not dirty grey, with mustard puke specks where the yarn was knotted and faintly green where the dye caught badly. The rest is dust and my lack of mood to play with camera and Photoshop


One of the points of digging in the depths of the stash was to kill some dermestids better known as carpet beetles or the fucking vermin that eats my cashmeres. Fucking vermin feeds on keratin, where there are dead flies, there are other thing that eat them, flies are made from keratin, animal hair of all sorts is made from keratin, attic is one big buffet table waiting for the feast. Well, I threw away one ball of organic fairtrade wool gathered by vegan maidens at full moon (or wtf. I just needed grey wool that would certainly felt) and some mohair of suspicious origin, other damaged stuff was kept in open air and full sun because dermestids prefer dark and calm places for their snacking. This mission was accomplished as much as it was possible.
The more important point was to go through the stash, bag the yarns by by type and to find out how much actually I have. This failed spectacularly but I at least bagged some of the yarns for the future projects.


Yes, self-imposed sweater club. This year's goal is to knit one sweater per month, as every year, and this year, I'm actually on time, it's March and three are already finished. Regarding that it takes me around two years to actually knit a sweater, which may or may not include ripping half of it five times, and that I seem to be running out of half-finished sweater, I guess I'll stall soon.