Self-Indulgent Stashbusting

Just a quick update on my knitting, at the midpoint of the first quarter of the year. As you know from my 2015 goals post, I want to work on reducing my stash in 2015, and I'm off to a great start. There has been very little yarn purchased—one skein of yarn for my Click for Babies hats, one skein at my January retreat and one skein (Hazel Knits, of course) at Madrona. I had originally planned to only buy yarn while at the retreat, but what I did was to split the budget amount I allocated ($40) in half and  spend the money at two events. Next week is Stitches West, and I know I will have some bigger purchases, but I already have a budget and a plan for what I want to buy, so we will see if that results in more thoughtful spending than what I experienced in the Stitches market last year.

There is also that word "self-indulgent" in the title of this post, and stashbusting can be very self-indulgent, whether you are knitting for yourself or for others. I'm even participating in a self-indulgent knit along in the Yarniacs podcast group, and I finished my first self-indulgent project earlier this month. Here is my Ripples shawl, knit with madelinetosh Twist Light, in the Care colorway, the sales of which benefitted Doctors Without Borders. A long-time friend gave me the yarn for Christmas in 2014, and the skein was barely in my stash before it was gone. I love all the happy colors in this yarn!

Another project that has been around for a while is proving to be very self-indulgent, and I'm knitting with two yarns that have been in my stash since 2013, so it's stashbusting, too. I'm nearing the end on my Light in Shadows shawl, and I'm loving working with Hazel Knits Entice in two beautiful colorways, Spooky Hue and Seattle KAL. Here is a peek, but you will have to wait until it's finished to see the whole shawl.

Finally, I have been doing some charity knitting, and enjoying the process as well as the happiness that knitting for others can bring—certainly self-indulgent, don't you think? Here are a Click for Babies hat and a Mother Bear. The Mother Bear will be donated next week at Stitches West; the hat is the first of several that I plan to knit this year for the local Click for Babies program.

So that's the latest on my knitting. What do you have on the needles?