taking stock (an attempt to)

Late at night Friday I had to smash a flying bug against the wall of my bedroom. No need to depict in details the behavior that immediately ensued : busy in the storage room until wee hours  -- staying up and awake as I couldn't do at the wildest party -- playing around with the zipping plastic bags, lavender oil and cotton wool. The reek of lavender that now exudes from this room is strong enough to keep all kind of bugs, snakes and wolves at bay for a pretty long time.

Long enough I have been the one to say with an innocent look 'Me? Oh, I don't have a big stash. Nearly nothing at all.' . Well, nowadays I'm not so sure. This is how the stock now looks like (come closer to the monitor to get a good dose of Lavande de l'Abbaye de Senanques)

This is not taking into account the sock yarn stash (two small cardboard boxes in the living room) and, of course, the fiber stash (no yardage, no skeins, who could ever have pretence of control over that ?!??). Also missing is a cotton sweater undergoing frogging and for which calculations are not done yet, and the usual itty-bitty leftovers here and there.
But what the picture fails to show is the main feature of my stash : lots and lots of fine gauge yarns. Up to very fine gauge. What means, yeah, crazy yardage.

Well, dear readers, I am not in the least worried by this all.
Because there has recently been a major shift in my relationship to stash, since I looked at some beautifully arranged ones on Ravelry. I had a kind of epiphany. Stash is beautiful. Stash is good value. There is nothing wrong with Stash. There is dignity and beauty and promises in Stash. I love Stash. I want more Stash. I'm now officially a Stasher (At the same time still belonging to both destashing groups but hey, you have to live up to your own contradictions. Besides, there is little doubt that in a couple of weeks, you will have me back here digressing at length on the necessity to get rid of all that ridiculous stash. We have a saying in french : 'Only the idiot never changes his/her mind', an excellent aphorism for it clearly qualifies yours truly as a being of superb intelligence).

But for the moment, I am very worried that I just made a good dent in the Stash. Curses !

Let me introduce May's stashbuster, the Lead or Follow stole.

By Jove, this thing turns out to be HUGE. A bit embarrassing since this is a birthday gift for a friend of mine, and said friend is rather on the petite side of the scale. I am worried that she may catch her feet in the bloody thing. Ah, well. A fair amount of ridiculousness makes all the beauty of hand knitted gifts, I guess. Any way I don't know that she wears stoles at all, so this piece of knitting was more intended to serve as a kind of afghan for her to cuddle in while sipping her evening herbal tea. At least the stole will make a lovely MarthaStewardesque piece in the decor when carelessly draped on the garden lounger...

Specs : Main lace pattern : Lead or Follow scarve, 9 patterns wide, 19 repeats
Yarn : Rowan Yorkshire tweed 4ply, Barley - 10,5 skeins (1155m/1268 yds)
Dimensions : 52x182 cm (21" x 73")

Will post more pics when the ginormous thing is dry. I've read somewhere that you should weave in loose ends after blocking, so that little chore is still ahead of me...

Happy stashing evreybody ! ;-)

Comments

[=Tamar]

"Flying insects"? Put the wool in the freezer for 3 days, then microwave for 10 seconds per skein. Then put in hermetically sealed bag.

[ma dalton]

Stash or not stash ?
mais bravo pour l'étole... de toute beauté...

[Claude]

Cette étole est magnifique.
Vendredi passé tu m'as manqué. J'avais apporté des aiguilles circulaires (Lang) pour que tu me montres.
Bon ,j'ai été avec Jacqueline chez Ecolana. Les fils devraient te plaire. Un peu trop rêche pour moi !
A bientôt ?
Claude

[Véronique]

Tu as bien raison de ne pas t'inquiéter et surtout d'en profiter ! Je hais les bestioles volantes dont il est question et je viens aussi de me farcir un contrôle en règle et une odorisation en règle au cas où... on n'est jamais trop prudente. Et si elles s'attaquaient à notre trésor ???
Ton étole est magnifique et fait très envie. J'aime beaucoup l'association motifs + taille + fil + coloris et je te salue bien bas pour ce magnifique ouvrage. Un chef-d'oeuvre, bravo !

[webdouwap]

vraiment très belle cette étole, heu, c'est vrai qu'elle fait très bien, mais alors très bien hein, au pied d'un lit, comme ça! Et pour le stash, après avoir lu tous les commentaires au-dessus, je ne peux que confirmer, tu n'as pas encore atteint le nirvana, non, non. Même le mien que je croyais petit, et bien il est plus gros ! (mais j'en VEUX ENCORE!!! -ouh là...)