As of late, I have become a Sweater Knitter. Not sure how that happened, but I only really want to make sweaters. I just love the process. I like the finger weight ones as much as the Aran weight ones, makes no difference to me!
Over the past 6 months, I have started 3 colorwork sweaters and a 4th is ready and waiting. Elevate by Kate Salomon and MerryMint by Natalie Sheldon have been completed.
I finished the body of the one I am currently knitting - The Sisipho Pullover by Bigger Than Life Knits last night.
The 4th one waiting in the wings is the Maja Cardigan.
I heard about this one from Jana of Purl Together Podcast. She has a KAL for the cardigan and after seeing it, I knew that would have to be on my needles next! The construction is different than I have done before so I am looking forward to learning a new way of making a sweater.
The crazy thing is that all the yarn has come out of my stash! I normally do not buy a sweater quantity of yarn, unless I am buying it for a specific project. Many times that sweater quantity of yarn will not get used for the planned project because something else grabs my attention and needs to be made with a portion of it.
I buy yarn that I am drawn to and over the years I have found that I it is good to have at least 2 skeins of each one I purchase.
So I have organized my stash in a way that lets me have some flexibility when choosing yarn for my projects.
The yarn is divided into different weights and then any multiple skeins of the same colorway are put into ziplock bags. When I am ready to pull yarn for a colorwork sweater, I can go to my weight section for the pattern I want to make and see what I have. Sometimes I will use a different weight if I like the colors better and then adjust the pattern. (I love that we can do those sort of things as knitters! )
It is really fun to lay out the yarn and mix the colors to get the perfect combination. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with too many choices but since these are colorways I am already drawn to, it makes it a fun experience.
The great thing about using all this stash yarn is that now, I can buy more yarn!!!