I don’t buy much yarn at the moment. The stash seems to have mostly what I need. It is like a magical purse. No matter how much I seem to use, there is always something left. The projects are changing of course, as the yarn depletes. Cardigans and sweaters have been replaced with hats and socks. Here are three children’s beanies that the stash has given me.

I use a very simple pattern as my basic beanie for children. It has a cast on of 100 sts on 3.5 mm needles in 8ply. Rib 1 x1 then increase by 10% and change up to 4 mm needles, work up to the crown and decrease in intervals every other row. It is a perfect canvas for playing. I knitted one up with stripes, the other with the motifs I used in Colourful Day and another in the Siksak pattern.

You might recognise the fushia handspun and the Zealana Rimu merino and possum from those previous hats.

The Jarob Farm Corriedale was dyed as part of the Waysides project. The Ultrafine Merino was left over from Oakenshield Armoured hat.

I finished these with a pom-pom flourish.

It is a pleasure to make useful things that I hope are also beautiful from the left overs of other projects. It seems to link and embed the knitting into all the other projects that have come before. The stash and the projects that come out of it, have the wonderful layered quality of an archaeological dig but the layers aren’t static, they flow and intertwine through the past and present and future. These are small things I know, barely significant perhaps. They belong to the curious, intimate world of the everyday and in this context, I think they do matter.