Cast aside...

I should clarify here that I haven't been cast aside 😏 Nope, what's actually been chucked to one side in disgust is the Christmas gift blanket *sigh*  You have no idea, my lovelies, how much the bloody thing was getting on my nerves.  I have done half the envelope border but just got so fed up with it that I couldn't be bothered to continue.  I've decided that the intended recipient will have to have something different for Christmas this year, and I will make a fresh start on a new blanket for next Christmas.

I will finish the blanket at some point, because I have decided that it will be useful after all as a lap blanket when I am sitting at the computer in our rather draughty hallway 😊 

Once I'd made the decision to put the gift blanket to one side for the time being, I got stuck into the baby blanket that I'm making for Beverly.  Well, not for her personally ~ it's a gift for her friend 😄 I've finished the body of the blanket now and have just made a start on the ruffles.  It is lovely yarn (King Cole Cottonsoft DK) to work with, very soft, and would make a lovely jumper or cardigan.  As I predicted I ordered way too much yarn, so I shall have a look through my little collection of crochet baby clothes books to see if there is anything in them that I fancy making.  I shall probably leave it until the baby has arrived, though, so that I know if I'm making something for a girl or a boy ~ and will also make it in at least the next size up as I'm sure the new parents will have lots of first-sized  baby clothes!

And whilst I have been very good and not added any more to my yarn stash, I'm afraid I did succumb to temptation and bought myself another tapestry kit 😳  This one really caught my eye but it was out of stock at the time I bought the cactus one.  I filled in the "notify me when back in stock" option and just couldn't resist when Wool Warehouse let me know that they had it in again.  I know, I'm very naughty 😏 

Turning a UFO into a WIP!

I've mentioned previously that one of my (many 😄) bad habits is to start a project and make no accompanying notes whatsoever.  Then, of course, something new calls to me and whatever I was working on is put to one side to "finish later".  Trouble is when "later" finally turns up, nine times out of ten I can't remember who I was making the UFO for, what size hook I was using, how big I was going to make it, etc, etc 😏 So in an effort to get myself organised I have ordered some items from an Etsy seller that will hopefully keep me in order ~ they have apparently been dispatched so when they get here I'll take some photos of my new organisational helpers!

One of the UFOs languishing in the yarn stash was this granny stripe blanket.  It's folded in half here so I could fit it in the photo more easily.  I actually remembered who I was making this blanket for, but when I fished it out to get it finished it dawned on me that I really wasn't that keen on the design with these colours.....so I frogged it 🐸

I can't remember how long ago I actually bought this yarn but I suspect it may well have been prior to us moving up here ~ and we've lived here getting on for five years now!  Only one of the skeins had a label ~ goodness knows why I didn't keep any of the others! ~ so of course I don't know what the shades are now.  It's Cascade 220, an Aran-weight 100% wool yarn, which no doubt I would have bought from Wool Warehouse 😉

When I looked at the colours together it made me think of the sea, more specifically the Orkney seascape.  This is the order in which I'm using the yarn, starting from the grey on the right and simply repeating the colour sequence as I work through the pattern.....

.....which, of course, just had to be my favourite chevron design from The Gentle Art of Knitting by Jane Brocket ~ a book I've had for over 10 years now and I still haven't tired of that blanket pattern!

And this is where I'm at thus far.  It's a lovely yarn to work with and feels very much softer than the West Yorkshire Spinners yarn I used for Beverly's recent blanket.  As I've got such a sensitive skin, I still don't think I could wear a garment or scarf made with it though, but it's lovely in this blanket.

As an added bonus it's working up quite quickly too so hopefully it'll be done in time for Christmas and that will be another WIP finished 😄

Reminder to self.....

.....making notes on a project would be really useful!

 When I was cramming neatly storing my yarn stash in the base of the bed in the guest bedroom, along with said yarn I came across a few WIPs.  Needless to say, none had any pointers as to who they were being made for, how large they were going to be,  size of hook, etc 😒  In my head, you see, I live in this little fairy tale world where each time I start a new project I will gaily work away until it's finished.  In the real world, of course, I am all too easily distracted by other projects to make, lovely new yarn begging to be purchased, etc, etc 😏

And so it was with this little bundle of yarn and an already-started project.  I must have previously begun to make something and changed my mind, judging by the little balls in the organza bag.  I hardly need tell you that once again, the yarn is my favourite Stylecraft Special double knit, no doubt purchased from my equally favourite online store Wool Warehouse ~ and no, just in case you are wondering, I don't get anything for mentioning either the yarn or the store 😄

The yarn is a very pretty combination of pink, green and white called Spring Marl which seems to be discontinued now, so goodness knows how long I've had it stashed away!

I think my original intention had been to make a corner-to-corner blanket.....oh, a blanket ~ what a surprise, eh 😉 I could see that I had reached the width of what I was making as I'd started to decrease on one side whilst continuing with the increases on the other.  Now, to be perfectly honest, I really don't think that this was going to work very satisfactorily as it didn't seem quite wide enough to me.  I wonder if that's why I abandoned the project ~ perhaps I'd realised that I just didn't have enough yarn to make a suitably-sized blanket?  And, of course, I also have absolutely no idea who the blanket was originally intended for 😄

Anyhoo, rather than frog the whole bloody thing I've decided to turn it into a shawl instead.  I've been planning to make one as a Christmas gift for my Mum and as she loves pretty, pastel colours this will be perfect.  It's okay, by the way, she doesn't use a computer so I'm not spoiling the surprise LOL

I frogged back to where I'd previously started to decrease, so that I can continue making the shawl wider.  It looked very much like I'd been using a 4mm hook and when I restarted working on the shawl, I was very happy to find that was indeed the case!  I'm alternating work on the shawl with the granny square blanket but I don't think it will take too long to finish 😊

Use it up!

Yes, well, we all know this most definitely applies to moi LOL So I'm still being a good girl by diligently working my way through that stash 😉

This is the "oddments bag", filled with balls of varying sizes leftover from the most recent stash-busting blankets I made for Beverly, Ellie and Arthur.  So it's mostly a mix of Stylecraft Special and Scheepjes Colour Crafter; I'm also throwing in the leftover West Yorkshire Spinners Bluefaced Leicester and Ayre Valley.  It's therefore a mix of acrylic and wool/nylon yarns but is all double knit.  Hopefully so long as the blanket is washed on no more than a 30C wool wash, fingers crossed all will be fine!

I decided to make this blanket out of solid colour granny squares.....well, I say "solid colour" but some squares will have to be mixed (as you can already see!) depending on how much I have left of any one particular ball LOL  I'm using the join-as-you-go method and it's working up more quickly than I thought it would, which is very pleasing as I have an ever-increasing list of other things I want to get made 😄

It will be interesting to see how much is left in that pillow-sized oddments bag when this blanket is finally finished.....

Eight down.....124 to go!

As I mentioned in my post last week, in the end I decided to use only nine different colours for the guest bedroom blanket squares: eight spread out over the six rounds of the squares, with the ninth used as the last round of each one.  I chose to go down the route of making the final round in each square the same colour (parchment) as I wanted a more cohesive look to the blanket, rather than a totally eclectic patchwork effect.   

Rather than randomly mixing the colours, I also chose to use them in the same order throughout: duck egg, pale rose, meadow, cream, raspberry, stone, pistachio and camel.  I'm not working exclusively on the blanket so it will take some time to complete, but it's a nice easy little "production line" exercise to work on whilst watching TV in the evening.  I'm using one colour at a time, to produce six squares at various stages of completion.  I'm aware that it must be an illusion, but it really does seem as if the squares are completed more quickly this way than if I were to make all seven rounds of each individual square before moving on to the next one! 

 And here are the first eight completed squares, using all the colours in sequence.  As I'm using the colours in a set order I think I will end up making 16 identical squares from each of the eight colours, plus an extra four to bring the total to 132 (11 squares wide by 12 squares long).  Of course, since my maths is pretty rubbish I could well be wrong in my calculations here, so I'll just keep going until I have the total number of squares I need 😉  

Oh look, I changed my mind again!

I have mentioned a couple of times that I had started crocheting a blanket for the guest bedroom but was getting distracted by other things to make.  Well, even though I had made a good start, I came to the conclusion that actually I wasn't keen on how said blanket was turning out.  I had decided to follow Lucy's (Attic 24) Cosy Stripe Blanket pattern and headed over to Wool Warehouse, my favourite online yarn store, to immerse myself in all their yarny goodies.  Even though I was pretty sure I'd end up with Stylecraft Special DK, my favourite go-to yarn for blankets, there's no harm in having a look at all the other yummy stuff available, eh 😉

Lucy's pattern calls for 15 different colours and I'm quite partial to a strongly multi-coloured design as the above stash-busting chevron blanket shows, but I wanted softer colours for the guest bedroom..... 

....so these are the shades I selected: raspberry, pistachio, duck egg, camel, apricot, violet, cloud blue, cream, wisteria, silver, pale rose, meadow, stone, spring green and parchment.

I duly set to and started working on the blanket but by the time I'd completed 7 or 8 rows, it was starting to dawn on me that I really wasn't happy with either my choice of pattern or the number of different colours.  I think what I wasn't keen on were the rows of plain trebles between the granny stitch rows, so with the benefit of hindsight perhaps Lucy's straightforward Granny Stripe Blanket might have been a better choice.

In the end, though, I decided to make the blanket using basic granny squares ~ something I haven't done in a very long time.  I suspect that, like me, this is most folks first introduction to crochet.  I was taught by my paternal Grandma when I was a child, during one of our annual summer holidays at her house, and appropriately enough the granny square was the first thing she taught me 😊

The only "problem" with granny squares is that when you are designing off-the-cuff there is a little bit of mathematics involved in deciding how many will be needed ~ so thank goodness for calculators as maths definitely isn't one of my strong points 😉

The photo above is my test square, which came out at about 12.5cm, using the Stylecraft yarn and a 4.5mm hook.  The blanket only needs to be large enough to lay over the top of the duvet if our guests need a little extra warmth, so I am planning to make it 11 squares wide by 12 squares long.  This should come out at approximately 137.5cm wide by 150cm long; I will then add a border all around the blanket, most likely to about the same depth as the size of an individual square.  So in theory I should end up with a blanket approximately 162.5cm wide by 175cm long, which should be fine for the double (4'6") bed in the room.  

 I also decided to just use 9 different colours in the blanket: duck egg, pale rose, meadow, cream, raspberry, stone, pistachio, camel and parchment. Every square will have six different colours, with the final round of each one in parchment.  I will also be using parchment for joining the squares at the end, and for the border.  I'll use the leftover colours in due course as I have a number of blankets that I'd like to make as gifts. 

Then I had to decide how to mix up the colours in the squares, i.e. whether to go totally random or somewhat more organised.  In the end I chose the "more organised" route and once I've got a nice little pile of squares done, I'll show you what I mean!

A new WIP

No, I haven't finished the elephant but you should know by now that I like to have more than one project on the go ~ and in my defence, at least I'm whittling down the stash of shame  😉

I don't think I've mentioned that a couple of months or so ago we decided to switch back from a duvet to sheets and blankets.  You may be thinking that we must have lost our minds, but to be honest I was tired of wrestling with the duvet cover each time I changed our bed ~ it's bloody exhausting!  And for some reason our duvet would never stay in the cover properly, so one of us always ended up with a bunched-up section of duvet and the other with an empty bit of cover 😒  So the decision was made and I have to say that I love how cosy the bed feels with sheets and blankets.  I bought a pair of cellular blankets and a lovely old-fashioned candlewick bedspread from Ebay but the last couple of weeks have been pretty cold at night, so I added another (pre-loved) cellular blanket that I already had.  It's really meant for a double-bed so is a little small for our king-size but will do the job until I get this latest WIP finished. 

So this bundle of yarn from the infamous stash is destined to become a blanket to lay over the top of our plain candlewick bedspread.  It's Deramores Vintage Chunky (which has been discontinued, it seems), a 50/50 mix of merino wool and acrylic yarn.  I thought long and hard about which blanket pattern to use and in the end decided to make one with individual squares, rather than one made as a whole like the chevron blankets I've recently finished.

The pattern I've chosen is the Spring Garden Baby Blanket by Lullaby Lodge ~ obviously I shall be making rather more squares than are in the pattern 😏 I'm also making all my squares using the same colours rather than a mixture as in the pattern.  I thought it would be nice to do something different this time ~ not to mention it being easier to juggle small squares rather than a king-size blanket 😄  I know I shall have the size issue to contend with at some point but at least it won't be all the way through the project!  

I made a sample last night, all in one colour, just to see what size square this chunky yarn works up to.  As you can see it's a simple circle-in-a-square motif, which works up pretty quickly.  The label suggests using a 6mm hook but I preferred the slightly softer effect a 6.5mm hook gave.  I did also try a 7mm hook but wasn't so keen on how that turned out.  The squares are 6.5" and I've decided to make the blanket 10x10 ~ hopefully I will have enough yarn!  That will make the main body of the blanket 65" square.  The whole blanket has a border of three rounds of granny shells in one colour (cream in my project), followed by a fourth round in a different colour and finally finishing with a scalloped edging ~ I shall be using grey for the last two rounds.  Providing I have enough yarn, I can always add an additional round or two of the cream and/or grey to make the blanket a little larger if needs be.

I thought it would be nice to make one complete square to see how it looks.  I like these "dusty" shades, it's a pity the yarn has been discontinued. I'm going to make all the squares one round at a time, not least because I want to make sure I have enough of the beige yarn to make 100 centre circles!  I have the least number of balls of the beige but hopefully 500g will be enough.

I shall alternate between working on this latest project and Mr Elephant.  Needless to say the poor sofa blanket has taken another step back in the queue, but once I've got that first elephant finished I'll add it back into the crochet projects merry-go-round whilst I try to get my brain wrapped round altering said elephant pattern 😉  

How do you make an elephant?

One stitch at a time, of course 😄

Well, I finally girded my loins and got started on the elephant Amanda (my sister) has asked me to make for a charity event.  I did a Google search for crochet elephant patterns and came across quite a few but I found this 1940s Crochet Elephant pattern rewrite very appealing, so decided to give it a whirl.  

This is my progress thus far.  I'm using Aran yarn leftover from the Christmas Gift Blanket, and a 4mm hook instead of the recommended 5mm to make a tighter fabric.  I'm quite pleased, to be honest, with how it's working out ~ as I've mentioned before, my crochet projects are usually very simple affairs!  This is a pretty straightforward pattern but when I read through the instructions before making a start, it did occur to me that I could perhaps make some slight alterations.

As you can see, the elephant's blanket is crocheted after the main part of the body has been worked and I must admit that I found the head-end in particular a tad unwieldy during the process.  I would much prefer to make the whole of the body in one piece, and make a separate, removable, blanket.  I decided to follow the pattern for this first attempt but will see if I can get my head around making those little alterations that have popped up in there.  Methinks I have some brain-scrambling ahead of me, judging by the number of attempts I had to make to get that last tissue-box cover how I had envisioned the bloody thing in my head!

My sister-in-law has asked if I could also make one for her birthday in June and Amanda's charity event isn't until later next year, so at least I have a few months to work it out 😉

Sorting the stash

Do you remember the stash-of-shame in our guest bedroom??

Well, over the last couple of days I've been a good girl and got it all neatly tidied up into bags...

...which are now languishing stacked equally neatly in my craft room instead of the bedroom.  It was a very worthwhile exercise, actually; I now know exactly what yarn and how much of it I have, with appropriate notes in all the bags and crates.

I've set aside four bags filled with various of the yarns to make blankets for our bedroom, the guest bedroom, and another two as gifts for Christmas 2021.  And although I haven't yet decided which yarn to use, I have it in mind to make another couple of blankets as "just because" gifts sometime next year 😊  Also, my Mum would like me to make a cover to spruce up a pouffe she uses a lot, so I sorted out some suitable yarn from the odds 'n' ends bag for that little project today.   

I'm making good progress on the Christmas gift blanket, too.  It's working up into a lovely warm blanket, and I'm really liking these two pretty colours together.  I'm certainly keeping myself out of mischief 😉 

Stash-busting and gifts

I finally made a tissue-box cover for myself!  The pattern is a little different to the previous ones I made for Beverly and I like this incarnation better to be honest.  I had to try a number of times to get the pattern right ~ I certainly couldn't create crochet patterns for a living, it would disintegrate my poor brain 😉  Still, I'm pleased with how this has turned out and if I'm feeling brave, I'll share the pattern with you when I make the next cover.  This one is now on my bedside cabinet and looks so much nicer than a naked box.  I want to make a couple more, one for the living room and one for the tissue box that lives beside the computer ~ oh yes, I have boxes of tissues all over the house...and my craft room...and the garden shed, too 😄

This is the other cover that Beverly wanted, made using the original two patterns that I "married together".  I wasn't too sure about the colours when Beverly picked them out, but now that the cover has been made I think that they sit together very nicely.

I've put making our sofa blanket to one side for the time being and have started on a different one that I'm hoping to have done in good time to be a Christmas gift for a friend.  I had actually gone to rummage through my stash for a completely different reason when I came across these humungous 400g balls of yarn.  I've got two each of Bramble (which I'm not using in this blanket; it's the colour of blackberries ~ surprise, surprise!), Fisher (the blue yarn) and Beach Storm.  I must have had these for quite some time.  When I went on the Wool Warehouse site, where I buy most of my yarn, to double-check the shades they didn't actually have either Bramble or Beach Storm listed, and Fisher is out of stock.  I suspect that I will find this to be the case with rather a lot of my yarn stash!  Anyhoo, this is crocheting up very nicely and will, I hope, end up being a pretty blanket.  It's the same Jane Brocket pattern I used for Beverly's blanket, this time of course simply using two different colours.  As I've said previously the pattern works well with any number of colours really, and could even be made using just a single shade to make a solid-colour blanket.  A few years ago I made a blanket for Beverly's friend using lots of different colours, with black between each one.  It turned out to be one of my favourite colour combinations using this pattern.

Of course, the yarn I was originally hoping to find just doesn't exist in my stash, namely some different shades of green.  It's a funny thing but I have barely any green at all, so when I do come to make this project I will have to actually buy some yarn ~ shock, horror 😲  Still, I have a few months yet before I really need to make a start on it so in the meantime, methinks I'd best get on with other things that I do have appropriate yarn for 😉 

 

Making gifts

Ta daa ~ the first stash-busting blanket is finished!  I love this blanket...and so did Beverly when she spotted it LOL  So, guess who's getting this for Christmas 😉  It does go rather well with that cushion on our sofa, though.....

I made a rod for my own back started a Christmas tradition for Beverly a few years ago: "Christmas-every-day" ~ which is basically a little gift I've chosen for her to open each day in December up to Christmas Day.  I have decided to make a few of the gifts this year, and this tissue-box cover is one of said handmades.  She has been nagging asking me to make her a couple of square covers for a while, as the tissues she now buys come in square rather than oblong boxes.  She chose the colours herself from my humungous yarn stash, and this is the first one.  I have made a few oblong covers from a pattern by The Royal Sisters but they don't have a square pattern.  I was able to find one, though, for a Santa-themed cover which I just tweaked a bit 😊  I have another one to make for Beverly, in a different colourway, and I'm going to make a couple for myself too.

I've started on another blanket in that same colour combination to put on our own sofa.  After all, those colours do go extremely well with that cushion we have 😉  The pattern is a simple granny stripe from Granny Square Crochet by Catherine Hirst.  It's actually for a scarf but the pattern length worked out beautifully as the width for a good-sized lap blanket.  I'm simply going to keep on crocheting the stripes until I reach a length I'm happy with, ending with the same colour I started off with.  The scarf pattern has a nice edging which I shall probably use, too, to give the blanket a neat finish.  I shall use the beginning and end stripe colour, Mocha, for the edging.

Do you like my little cushion, by the way?  I've had it for a few years ~ I got one for Beverly at the same time.  Although I'm not really a fan of Union Jack-themed stuff I really liked the sentiment, it just seems oh so very British doesn't it!  I wonder if I could incorporate the phrase into a cross stitched picture ~ another project to add to my never-ending list methinks 😄

I see a blanket.....

 .....or two in my future 😉

Believe it or not, I downsized my stash of yarn considerably before we moved up here.  We've lived here for over 2 1/2 years now and I still haven't done anything much with the yarn I did bring with me, it's just been languishing in a corner of the guest bedroom!  I must confess that this photo does makes the stash look a tad smaller than it actually is.....way back in the right-hand corner is a pretty large bag full of yarn that's hidden by all the other bags piled in front of it 😮  We're hoping that work can start on the guest bedroom sometime in the early part of next year, so I thought I really ought to start sorting out everything in there.  I've found a few blankets that were already started but for some reason none of them have the crochet hooks I was using still with them, so I've decided to frog them all and start from scratch.  

I would like another lap-blanket for myself (I actually want a couple more in the living room), and I was thinking that I could also crochet two or three as gifts ~ there is more than enough yarn in that stash to make them with. 

So I had a rummage and started the stash-busting exercise by pulling out all this Stylecraft Special double-knit.  They are 100g balls and there is a lot of 'em as you can see ~ I have a very vague recollection that I had planned to use them to make a blanket for our bed.  I really like this acrylic yarn; considering how reasonably priced it is, it's surprisingly soft and hard-wearing.

I decided what order to place the colours and here's the start of my first stash-buster.  It's a pattern I've used several times before from Jane Brocket's book The Gentle Art of Knitting.  The original pattern uses lots of different colours and with the first blanket I made I followed the pattern closely, albeit using the Stylecraft Special double-knit yarn instead of the Cascade Aran-weight, matching the colours as closely as possible.  I really like the pattern, in particular the random nature of the stripes.  It's a very simple pattern and once the foundation rows have been made there is an easy, gentle rhythm to it.  The pattern calls for a 4.5mm hook as it's using an Aran-weight yarn but I like to use the same size even with the double-knit as I prefer the slightly looser feel it gives to the stitches.  I have also increased the starting chain (adding an extra couple of the pattern-making multiples) to make the blanket slightly wider.  I've found that the pattern works no matter how many ~ or few ~ colours are used.  The original pattern has twenty different colours, the one I have just started is using seven: mocha, duck egg, petrol, cream, sage, stone and storm blue.  I love the combination of colours, and to my eye they have a Scandinavian feel to them. 

Of course, I now have the dilemma of whether to make this blanket as a gift to myself or to give to someone else!  Hopefully there will be enough yarn there to make a couple of blankets, then I won't have to make a decision at all 😃 

One WIP finished....

.....plenty more still to be done!

You may remember that back in November I decided to make myself a shawl as part of my stash-busting exercise.  I started making it with granny stripes, but after a few rows decided that I would prefer a pattern that was less "holey".

I finally got the shawl finished last week!  It may not be the prettiest shawl on the 'net but it is snuggly and warm ~ plus I have  whittled away at that stash just a little, which is a good feeling.

Of course, there was still some of the yarn left but not enough to actually make anything with.  So I decided to simply knot the ends of the little leftovers together and wind them into a ball of "crazy yarn".  I will keep doing this with all the little odds 'n' sods of yarn as I work my way through the stash.  Eventually I will have enough crazy yarn to make something useful, and in the process nothing will be going to waste.

Beverly gave me this cute little bag at Christmas.  I am a sucker for the lovely eco-friendly shopping bags that Tesco sell from time-to-time and have collected rather more that I need for actual shopping LOL  This one, though, is really more of a gift bag rather than being suitable for taking shopping, so it's the perfect size for coralling my balls of crazy yarn 😊

Stash busting

My yarn stash is currently residing in the guest bedroom.....and it seems to be taking up a fair amount of space in there!  My mind keeps straying to that big 'ole pile of luscious fibres, all those balls and skeins just sitting in bags patiently waiting for me to actually create something with them.  To be fair to myself, I have been good in that I haven't bought any yarn since September of last year, apart from a few balls from the charity shop to make some kitty blankets.  Oh I have been tempted, of course I have, when those newsletters appear in my inbox with the latest special offers or new yarns but I have stood strong and resisted, my lovlies ~ I know, it's amazing isn't it 😄  Truth is, it's only guilt that's been holding me back if I'm honest LOL

So I had a look though that stash of mine and much to my shame, I actually came across yarns that I don't remember buying ~ not to mention the projects that I've started and abandoned!  The time has come, methinks, to whittle that stash down and make those yarns into lovely things.  I think I have enough yarn in that bedroom to keep me going for a very long while 😉

Since the weather has turned decidedly chilly, I thought I'd rather like a shawl or two to cosy up in.  After a good rummage, I came across this lovely soft and snuggly Berroco Comfort yarn.  Now, I have no idea where I bought it nor what I must have made with it (as all but one of the balls have been used to some degree) but I thought it would definitely make a nice shawl. 

Oh, it's such gorgeous yarn to work with, so soft and smooth on the hook!  It's going to be a colourful shawl, to be sure, but will be nice and cheerful to snuggle up in during these cold winter nights that are stretching out in front of us.  Just got to decide how to use up the rest of the stash now!