Stash Wars: fighting a losing battle?

Well, my attempts to deplete my stash have fallen on rocky ground recently. Not that I haven't been knitting - I've been a busy bee! First I made a tea cozy for my Mum:

The slogan on it isn't very clear but it says 'Coffee, Tea or Me?' I got the pattern from 'Stitch n' Bitch Nation' by Debbie Stoller and hoped that not only would it provide a nice present for my mummy, but that it would up a good chunk of my not-too-pleasant acrylic yarns, which I don't really want to use for clothes. I got through a lot of the pale blue but it barely touched the white or cream. Then I made myself a lace pattern skinny scarf:

I designed this myself using a lace pattern from 'How To Knit' by Debbie Bliss. It was supposed to use up a spare skein of Jaeger Trinity yarn but I don't think I even halved it before the scarf got stupidly long and I got sick of repeating the same four rows over and over, so I have to think of a way of using that yarn up too. My next project was to make a little cozy for hubby's new DAB radio:



I figured out the design myself from the gauge and dimensions, and knitted it up in moss stitch to make it a bit more cushiony to protect hubby's precious new toy. Sadly it used up a puny amount of my aran-weight denim-effect yarn.

Not downhearted, I decided to abandon the little projects for a while and embark on a biggie - a cardigan knitted with the yarn from a frogged old jumper. It's going to take months but currently looks like this:



That's just the start of the back. Hopefully this'll be one big stash-buster! I don't like big projects so may break up the monotony by doing a different project in between pieces.

The biggest blow to my Stash Wars, however, was this:



I mentioned in an earlier post that I went to The Threshing Barn on holiday. Their craft shop had some gorgeous yarn. A non-knitter cannot begin to understand the temptation this poses. So I bought two hanks of this gorgeous, hand-dyed British wool. My excuse is hubby picked it out because he wants a hat. But it's so beautiful I want to just cuddle it and drool over it with glee rather than knitting it. Oh well.

So all in all, I'm not winning the war. But I've learnt a lesson: small projects just don't cut it when it comes to stash-busting. I've also learnt that going into a shop that sells yarn so gorgeous I nearly explode is too much temptation for me.