Stash down challenge 2012: Day 1

Today, in between errands (and there were a bunch of them), I made progress on my granny square sampler fat bag.

I had recently completed a second border round:

A sampler of crochet squares for a granny square fat bag
A sampler of crochet squares for a granny square fat bag

which (to my mind) only served to highlight the fact that the body of the bag was not as rectangular or square as it needed to be.

But I did some strategic frogging, removed the single row of gold double crochet stitches that bordered Square A-2, and then put everything back together again:

joined granny squares
The body of the granny square crochet bag reworked

The result was a squarer/more rectangular shape that was ready to be lined. Needle and thread at the ready, I got to work:

granny square bag lined
Granny square crochet fat bag wtih fabric lining

While I was running one of the day’s errands (picking my son up after school after a band commitment was rescheduled) I realized that it was the day after Halloween which reminded me of Halloween last year, shortly before which I made a yarn purchase from my son’s trumpet teacher and came into possession of this munificent stash:

yarn stash
I take inventory of my recently acquired yarn stash

As a direct result of that purchase, I spent all of November 2011 working on projects that used the yarn from that stash.

I started by using the Purl bee’s crocheted stash basket pattern to make this stash bag to house some of the stash:

crochet stash basket
I complete the (sub)Line crochet bag for my yarn stash

I made this Queen Anne’s lace scarf (here is a link to the pattern) for my mom:

crochet lace scarf
The long view of the hot red Queen Anne’s Lace crochet scarf

As well as this Starling Bag designed by Alice Merlino (aka Future Girl) which as it happens, still needs to be lined:

crochet handbag
The medium Starling crochet handbag

I made all kinds of cool things that I would not have made without the challenge of using what I had purchased

Once I have my amazingly fun granny square sampler fat bag finished, this year’s stash down challenge will be to finish all of the projects I started during my 2011 stash down challenge but did not finish and any other UFOs (Unfinished Objects) that I have accumulated along the way.

That just might keep me busy until December.