Stash Busting with Lawrence

I finally finished Lawrence this week. Lawrence is part of my serious stash-busting plan. When I first learned to knit and crochet a few years ago, I didn't really know what I was getting into. I just knew that I needed to get my hands on yarn. Lots of it. So when a local craft chain offered select colors of Paton's Classic Wool on clearance for only 99 cents a skein, I bought up a whole mess of it.

At the time, I had recently ventured into sock knitting and was whipping up a mess of the wooly beasts for myself and the Sailor. The amount of yarn I had stashed would have made a LOT of socks. And I'm not sure we needed that many in the same color. 

a SMALL sample of the aforementioned stash

I wanted to make a sweater out of it, but I knew my penchant for shrinking pure wool socks, so I figured I needed to make something that wouldn't have to be washed too often. Vests are perfect. You can wear something underneath and somehow, the vest stays cleaner, longer (unless you spill something down the front, which I have been known to do.) Lawrence fit the bill.  

I may have finished this thing sooner, if I had paid more attention to my row count in the car. I got home from the beach and discovered I had seriously messed up about 26 rows back. 

I think it may have happened right about here, as I took this photo. The Sailor gave me a strange look as I snapped the pic. I'm not sure if he looked at me funny because I was taking a photo with my left hand, or because he knows I get a little car sick sometimes if I knit in the car. I had to read a chart with this pattern, so he probably figured I was taking my chances. 

I ripped out the rows of doom, fixed the problem and kept knitting. The only thing is that I wasn't always knitting. Apparently garter stitch done in the round means that you need to knit one row and purl one row (as opposed to stocking stitch in the round, which means you knit every row.) I'm not so sure I would have been so keen to do this pattern if I had known that little gem before starting (note to self: read instructions before proceeding...) I apparently knit a few rows with no purling in between. It wasn't pretty. But I fixed it.

I managed to knit the last few rows just as Sandy approached the east coast. Knitting usually calms my nerves, and it seemed to be more appealing to me at the time than watching the news and waiting for impending disaster.

 

I still have to block the thing and shockingly, I also still have yarn leftover. Maybe I'll make some more socks after all.