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I promised to post a summary of my first month with the amazing Stash Down A to Z group on Ravelry.

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Projects: I finished a total of 9 projects this month (not necessary started this month!). 5 of them fit into the month, 4 there Non-A-projects. I used up 3 skeins from my stash and skeins for projects already started, but not finished (WIP). I bought 8 skeins of new yarn for the projects of this month, but used up 7 of them. I bought no skein without a project in mind, the leftover skein was just from miscalculation (but is already asign to a not yet started project).

Grüne Nebel von Avalon - WIP, Ravelry A-pattern, used up project yarn Mama Acacia Scarf DC - Ravelry A-pattern, used stashed yarn + new yarn A Gambling Cowl - personal A-pattern, new yarn A Gambling Headband - personal A-pattern, new yarn Andina Neck warmer - personal A-pattern, used stashed yarn

A star is born - Baby blanket - WIP, new yarn Spring water frill - new yarn Birthday Cowl - new yarn Tempo, Tempo - new yarn (leftover from Gambling Headband)

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Queue: I also checked my queue. I had 16 pattern with an A left and I tossed 8 of them. So my Queue went down from 166 to 157 patterns (tossed an extra pattern, which need a knitting loom I don't have. I didn't realise that, then I queued it). I started with 111 pattern in the queue into the group, but I added a lot of patterns, I had purchase (but not in the queue), to make sure, I won't miss them once their letter come up.

Keeping: Aragorn (socks) Anastasia (socks) A Cardigan for Arwen (Cardigan) Alcyone (shawl) Argonath (shawl) A little Something (Cardigan) Annis (shawl) Asterope (shwal)

Good bye: Aran Weight Top Down Raglan Shawl Adamas Shawl Alhambratuch Aoife Aline A Red Scarf A Scarf Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet

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Summary:

projects 7 new projects started and finished 2 WIPs finished

9 projects finished / 9 WIPs remaining

Stash:

• 8 new skeins

• 7 used skeins (new)
• 3 stash skeins

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• 2 skeins in stash

pattern: Start: 111 pattern

• 55 pattern added during the month *

• 09 pattern tossed
• 02 pattern worked

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157 pattern in queue

*including 43 already purchased pattern

Stash Down A to Z Each month, we will be selecting a letter and consulting our queues to knit or crochet a pattern that begins with that letter. Join us on our alphabetical journey as we whittle down our stashes and our queues!

Alpha Bravo Charlie- Monday Meeting is my weekly blog feature about my progress in this group.

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Okay, I am too late, but yesterday evening I was busy knitting up a skein of Andina (Lang Yarns) and couldn't blog about it. It's the last days of November and I wanted to try to finish another A-project

But today, you will see, what I achieved during the last week. I could finished two more "A"s and worked on my Strider Cowl (which I cast on at 01.01.2011 00:10! as my first project of the year). The Cowl is now done to about 80% - so I might manage it to finish it this year. Yeah!

Now to the A-finsher:

#1 Avalon-Top I am very pleased how it turned out. I bought that yarn over a year ago, but didn't get beyond the first motiv of the yoke for a very long time. But now it is finished!

#2 A Gambling Cowl I posted the recipe pattern yesterday. So I am a proud Ravelry Designer now :-). The yarn is very cosy. My jacket has a wider gap in front, so the cowl is to short to cover everything and I need still an additional scarf. I think I will prefer to wear it at home to keep my neck warm and cosy.

#3 Andina Neck warmer (buttons missing) I found a pic from a gray hat (which I knitted last year for a friend). Then I remember that I still have a skein of Andina (a 100% Alpaka yarn from Lang). So I played around a little bit, till I finally made this neck warmer. I must get buttons today! I might add this pattern to Ravelry as well.

I am planning to do another Gambling Cowl as a gift tonight. So a real producitve month. I will post a summery of what I achieved on 1st December.

I wanted to make a cowl and bought one skein of Zitron Nimbus yarn and just started to crochet. It was fun for me to make the cowl and I want to share the "pattern" (or let's call it an instruction, it is not much design work in it) with you.

The cowl is very simple and can be even done in one evening. I am very pleased how it turned out:

Side note: I learned crochet at school, but forget most of it. I re-teached myself with videos from youtube. They were from the US, so I learned the US crochet terms. It was just later that I found out, that Americans and British people use different terms. So sorry to all the British out there: I am using US terms here.

If you want to do the “A Gambling Cowl” for yourself, follow these instructions:

Are you a role player? In this case you know the importance of dice. The dice will deceiced, if you will restore a lot of live points or few, if you hit the enemy with all your might or if you will fail, if you will climb over the fence or if you make a fool of yourself and trip over it…

Here the dice will deceiced what kind of stitch you will use for the next row of your cowl. You crochet till the cowl is the desired length - or you run out off yarn.

First you have to deceiced what the consequence of you throwing the dice will be.

My consequence were: 1,2 = sc 3,4 = hdc 5,6 = dc

Now you are set to start. I recommended to start the cowl with a foundation row (you can look up at photo tutorial here. (That’s the place there I learned to forget about base chains). That way you can estimate easily the fitting length. Join with a sl st to the round. Throw the dice and off you go!

I started this cowl with a hdc foundation row (the tutorial shows it with dc) land joined to the round as soon it was long enough to fit over my head (first try was 68 stitches, but that was too big. I frogged and started over with 64 stitches, which turned out to be fine!). Consider, that some yarn tend to stretch.

I grabed a dice and started crocheting. I come up with the following pattern:

01.row: Foundation row (hdc)
02.row: hdc
03.row: sc
04.row: dc
05.row: sc
06.row: dc
07.row: dc
08.row: sc
09.row: hdc
10.row: sc
11.row: hdc
12.row: sc
13.row: sc
14.row: hdc
15.row: dc

During the process I had the idea, that I could add some stitches, so that it will flare out a little bit at the end. That way it will cover the shoulder a little bit. That also means, that you wear it upside down (the begining is at the top, the flare-out end at your shoulders).

This part involved for me some weighting the yarn to make sure, that I will have enough yarn to finish the last round. It was still some yarn left so I made another row of sc. In the end I had 80 cm of yarn left.

16.row: #dc, 2dc in next dc# repeat till end of round 17.row: sc

Weave in ends - and stay warm with your new cowl!

By the way: Feel free to cheat with your rows, if you have the feeling, that you have too many/too few rows of a stitch - another stitch is more fitting - you are tired of a particular stitch - or whatever reason you can think of. Gambling includes cheating! Just don’t let your role game master catch you!

Finally I could pick up my new bike at the store. It is a Contoura porto in metallic light green with a Shimano 8-Gear Alfine gear change, B+M Cyo R LED 40 Lux for the light and 28" Marathon tyres. (okay a lot of technical details, which nobody is interested anyway...)

I really, really like the colour and I already use it yesterday to move around. I drove to a friend for a gamers afternoon (DSA - Role playing) and moved on to a birthday party. Besides, that I missed my way and come 20 minutes too late it was fun!

Today I took pics of it:

I also bought two bags, which can be attached left and right from the luggage rack. Each contains up to 20 l.

I never locked up my old bike, but for this I bought also a new lock. I guess this one might attract more interest than my old one!

I also got a basket for free (but on the other hand I also spent quite some money).

During making my pics, I also found the air-pump:

A last shot:

I hope the weather will allow me to use it a little bit before it gots too bad!

Some might be missing my organizing stuff. Yesterday I did an extra and deceiced, that my little table besides my living room chair must be cleaned. Theoretical it should be used, that I can have a cup of tea nearby or to lay down the book I am reading or the pattern I am using...pratical - it was just full with everything:

auf Flickr.

I also cleaned out underneath (I won't mention, that somehow I found needles from last years Christmas tree) and I sorted through my little red magazin rack (there only the newested edition should be - ready for reading. Of course there was a lot of other stuff!)

You think I was quick at this? No, because I rearrange the area (if you look close to the picks you can see, that the table moved). It took me a while, till I find a solution, which me pleased. It just come to my mind during cleaning, so there is no before pic.

So still no "real"progress at my challenge and still photos and fridge left.