Thankyou to everyone who left compliments about the cashmere gloves in the comments of my last post. I’m pleased to report the gloves behaved themselves during the blocking process, which took the curl out of the cabled cuffs so they lie flat and neat now. (You couldn’t see that in the photos. Which was sneaky of me.)

I’ve been mitre-ing away on the vest, watching it grow square by square. A bit of test felting has happened for a Bag Lady Swap bag. I’m heartened to read that other bag makers are thinking of making more than one bag just in case their first attempt doesn’t work. Though whether I do will depend on how much time the first takes.

Last night I also started a gauge square of the grey Cleckheaton Country Silk I bought at the ACS mill shop. I can’t help thinking the Jo Sharp ‘Ribbed Wrap Jacket’ would look lovely in this, with a black collar. The yarn is an 8ply and the bodice of the jacket is knit in aran weight yarn, so I’ll have to do a bit of recalculation. And possibly dye up some of the country silk for the collar, as it doesn’t come in black.

Today the beau and I tackled the issue of knitwear storage in the wir. This is how I was storing my jumpers, vests and cardigans:

Basically in blanket bags, which protected them from moths, but made it hard to find and get to a garment. Inevitably I was leaving a small number out, exposed to greeblies, and wearing just that small selection because I couldn’t be bothered hunting for anything else. This wasn’t a big problem yet, since I don’t often wear knitwear in summer anyway. But come autumn this arrangement was going to drive me nuts.

This is my new knitwear storage solution:

Open shelving from Bunnings, and cloth storage boxes with ‘windows’ from Howards Storage World. The open shelving and cloth boxes will allow the knitwear to still ‘breathe’, and allow in the smell of the camphor I’ve got hanging under the shelves, but not moths. (Unless, of course, they decide to eat the cloth.) The ‘windows’ allow me to see what’s inside the boxes, and having lots of smaller boxes makes it easier to get to what I want.

I’ve never had an issue with moths, and for years I’ve had my knitwear stacked on shelves in wardrobes, uncovered. I reckon the camphor does deter the moths (real camphor – mothballs give me headaches and nausea) and washing all my knitwear once a year, in early spring, probably helps too.

As the beau pointed out, there’s plenty of space between the shelves. We could get another shelf in there. So there’s lots of room for more FOs. No need to stop knitting any time soon. Not that I would. But it’s nice to know there’s no need to do a cull of knitwear just yet.