May UFO/Stashbusting progress

Most of my knitting from the end of April and during May has been on a non-stashbusting, non-UFO project - I am knitting a present for Mum's birthday (sshhh don't tell her). My sister picked the pattern and I didn't have yarn that was right for both the pattern and Mum in my stash, so I bought some for that, but consider it an acceptable exception.

I have finished off a few UFOs though. Please excuse the squinting - we've had some lovely sunny weather!

I knitted this during March (pattern is Tamarind from Rowan and it's knitted in Savannah and Purelife Revive) but it had been sitting around for about 6 weeks waiting for ends to be woven in and the sides sewn up.

This shrug was starrted as a stashbuster last autumn. I had three bright pink balls of Debbie Bliss Prima, so I searched on Ravelry for patterns for that amount of yarn. This easy peasy shrug took my fancy so I cast on. As I got towards the end of the first ball I thought three balls wouldn't be enough, so hunted through my stash and found a single ball of Prima in pale pink, leftover from a cardigan I knitted last year and knit half of it before the next ball of bright pink and half after.

Finally, I finished this off. I was given six skeins of this yarn (Arucania Tolhuaca Multy) for Christmas and the pattern (sophie) said seven were needed, so I bought the extra one. Every scrap of yarn was used for this - the last cast off (a row early because I could see I was running out of yarn) was cobbled together at the end with some of the bits that tied the skeins! Incidentally, the size large also said it would take seven skeins - I don't think so!

It is entirely coincidence and not planned at all that all three of these a) are pink and b) involve wrapping yarn three times around the needle and dropping the extra loops.

I also grabbed a skein of chunky yarn from my stash last week and knitted a close-fitting cowl with it. No photo of that - it's far too hot to be modelling it!

I'm going on holiday next week. I have decided on a new project for my holiday knitting (after all that finishing off, I think it's ok to cast on something new). It will be a mongrel - part stash, part new yarn project. I hope to have it finished to show you next month. It is not pink.

This shrug is coming on holiday with me.