The Five Month Stashalong

First off, a piccie of some bargain Rowan 4 ply Soft that I bought from Get Knitted and which arrived on Thursday, along with the new Louisa Harding books and the books in the Sublime range:






and two lots of Patons 100% Cotton DK which arrived this morning, complete with piccies of what I hope to knit with the yarns. I want to knit this cover-up in the black cotton DK, from the new Jaeger booklet and the ribbed collar cardigan from Debbie Bliss' "Simple Living"





I can't wait to get started on some of those glorious designs! Although it was a bit daft of me to buy scrumptious new pattern books and then announce that I was starting a five month long Stashalong exercise.

Yep, you heard right. Or you heard correctly, as we'd say in the UK. I've announced it elsewhere on a knitting forum that I belong to, and I'm officially announcing it here too.

From Sunday 1st October 2006 I'm Stashalonging until the end of February 2007.

There, I've said it here too.

No more yarn purchases for me until 28th February 2007. That's five months in total.
"But why Deb?" I hear you all shout. Well, let me tell ya....

I was wearing my Tickled Pink T shirt yesterday that I bought recently in aid of the charity Breast Cancer Awareness, and I said in a fit of madness that I would join Stashalong until the end of February and ‘sponsor' myself a tenner per month if I didn't buy yarn. So every month that I don't buy yarn, I put a tenner in the kitty. More if I've been good and haven't bought myself any clothes either that month (wow, this is gonna be TOUGH!!) At the end of February I should have at least fifty quid (which converts to around $100 for friends across the Pond) to donate to Breast Cancer Awareness - a very worthwhile charity.

My own rules for this are that I can still buy needles, books and patterns, but absolutely No Yarn Whatsoever unless it is purchased on a day off from Stashalonging, which I plan to have once per calendar month. I don't have to buy yarn on the day off though, it's not compulsory. No bargains, no reductions, no sale items on any other day except days off.

Of course, I'll still be reducing my yarn stash through other sources too, and knitting up what I have to aid the Stashalong cause.

If you'd like to sponsor me, then the more the merrier! I manged to raise £40 by selling off some of my unwanted knitting books earlier this year and I donated the cash to the NSPCC, so I know that it can be done. I'll be posting my success (but hopefully no failures!) on my blog at regular intervals, so you can keep a track on what I've been doing too. I promise that I won't cheat! *hand on heart*

Off now to buy some yarn for a couple of projects before midnight on Saturday..... *wink* I'll show you piccies of yarn as it arrives next week Chez Melody. Put it this way, you won't be seeing any new arrivals for a while.....