Stashbusting Rowan Membership Gifts

I've been a Rowan Member for a few years now. Every year, they send you free yarn - which is a good thing but sometimes this leads to buying more yarn in order to use up the free yarn, which is a bad thing.

In the past month, I've been coincidentally working with (almost) all the free yarn I've received:

2006 - 2 skeins of Rowan Hand Knit Cotton - Cannes

Two skeins is not a lot to work with. I doubled it up and bought some Cotton Braid to make Cannes. I don't really swatch and for some reason, Rowan patterns are always on the large-side for me. Unsurprisingly, it came out large and I tossed it aside.
Last month, I made some modifications to the fit. Cotton Braid does not frog well. In fact, it almost disintegrated when unraveling… so I gave up frogging and re-knitting the entire thing. Still, I was able to take out the neckline and reknit it with 10 fewer stitches (5 on each “sleeve”). In addition, because the sweater was knit in the round, I sewed a "seam" on the sides that ultimately took out 2 stitches on each side seam.
It fits much better now!

2007 - 4 skeins of Rowan All Seasons Cotton (2 sets = 8 skeins)

This was the year Rowan opened up an office in the US to service North American accounts. Due to a mix-up, I was sent 2 gifts! With 8 skeins, I hope I have enough to make the Mirabella Cardigan. I just started a few days ago.

2008 - 6 skeins of Rowan Denim - Indigo Ripples Jean Skirt

I just finished the skirt this weekend. I had to buy 2 more skeins to make this and unfortunately, the 2 extra skeins I bought were of different dyelot and the color differences were quite obvious. So, I used the gift denim to knit the main stockinette section, and alternated rows of gift and extra denim in the lace section.

I knit the smallest size using 3.75 needles. I like the pattern… simple but therapeutic (knit all rounds)... until I got to the ruffle. There's a lot of comments on ravelry "the ruffle was a pain to knit/bind-off took hours/but worth it" and all those comments were 100% true. I spent 3 different nights on the ruffle but I LOVE the end result! However, I wouldn't go through it again!

Modifications:
- Used smaller needles - 3.75 instead of 4.0 (tighter fabric so can’t see through it)
- Knit 2.5 more inches of stockinette (I’m conservative).
- Knit 1 less repeat of lace - 50 rows instead of 60 rows (I’m short and worried I would run out of yarn). Phew I cut the lace short. I only have 2 loonie-sized balls left.
- Used twill tape for the waist tie/belt as I ran out of yarn and didn’t even have enough for an i-cord! I hate knitting i-cord anyway.

2009 - 6 skeins of Rowan Pure Wool 4-ply

I have not received the yarn yet but I already have a project planned - Flo or Rosa. I have some KSH in my stash so I don't have to buy any yarn this time!

Woo hoo!