Progress, One Hand at a Time

Here's the latest result from my knitting efforts. I finally got tired complaining about cold hands when knitting outside and started (and finished) my first glove! I simply left the thumb and index finger open so that I can more easily manipulate the needles. I can easily see a habit forming. I'm liking this glove thing. Small, yet detailed; quick, yet meaty.

I've only finished one, however, so we'll see how long it takes to finish its mate. I'm not sure about the yarn choice, but free is my favorite kind of yarn. Plus, there's plenty to make matching gloves for the whole family!

And a final picture of a checkerboard scarf I whipped up last week just to have a small travel project. The yarn is a tad scratchy, so it's only good outside a jacket, but I do like the colors.

The End (That's Only The Beginning)

Here's our youngest reading the 100th (last) lesson of his reading book. He is very excited to be at the end of it! He's never had much of a desire to read, but it's sure sneaking up on him now. He's reading cereal boxes, screen shots on his Nintendo DS, even my emails over my shoulder (which I'm torn over - when his sister does the same thing, I go ballistic, but I don't want to put a damper on his reading - big dilema)!

With all the celebrating today, we thought it'd be nice to bring out the first book that our oldest read. Of course she had to pick a book from the library that was out of print, so getting a copy became a ginormous feat! She taught herself to read when she was five years old, so our son is technically the first child I've had to instruct.

In the same memory box was a book from my childhood, so I read that to them as well. Oh, for the love of books, it was an awesome night!

Now if only I could locate the book that my father read to me so often I had the entire thing memorized (I was two or three at the time.) Unfortunately, I don't remember the title, but it was about a ghost and a mouse and all the foods they ate - everything cheese. Cheese crackers, cheese souffle, cheese bread, cheese cake, cheese this and cheese that. It went on forever and I loved it to pieces. If only I could ever find it again . . .

3 Down, 123 to go!

Having cleaned up my yarn stash, my task now becomes to actually work through it all! Here's my latest finished projects.

Here's my latest love's labour - a spiral shawl from Meg Swansen's "A Gathering of Lace". Christened the 'Nautilus', this was for a dear friend with a deep love of the ocean and everything in it. The yarn is a lovely dark brown and teal green which always made me think of tidepools. She'll be wearing it at the ocean soon when she's in Mexico for a family wedding.
I changed the edging used in the book to one that seemed to fit the style of the internal spiral better. Everything about this shawl was wonderful and such fun to knit - the pattern, the edging (where I had to add some beads, just because), the yarn.
And no matter how many lace projects I make - whether shawls, scarves, bookmarks, or curtains - I'm still struck dumb with how transformed the objects become when they're blocked. A little bit of water, a tug here and there, a few pins, and lots of time to dry (making sure to keep the cat out of the bedroom), and W. O. W. Amazing.
This little neckwarming gem was whipped up yesterday during our regular Knit Night Out. A quick crocheted loop on one end, a big bulky button, and voila! One more skein down!!
This project jumped into my Works In Progress pile very unwittingly. I had noticed the stitch in a book earlier in the evening, and just wanted to try it out. Of course, once I had a couple inches completed, and confirmed that the stitch was pretty cool, I couldn't very well frog my work (not without a very good reason). Bing, bang, boom, a new scarf.

A new rule I've added to my promise of no new yarn purchases, is that I'd like to have less than 100 types of yarn by the end of the year. At that rate, I should be able to make our Ten Twenty Twenty Ten final deadline. Somehow, adding more hoops to jump through is making this entire insane project more workable.

Forward Progress

These two bags are the first round of sorting out the dross from my yarn stash. Over 100 skeins of yarns out! It took me a couple days to be in the proper mindset, but once I started, it was surprisingly easy. I did, however, have to knot the bags so that I didn't change my mind and sneak some skeins back into the stash.

And here are some of my newly organized stash shelves. I've even entered all of my stash into Ravelry. Down to 126 different yarns! Now I just have to hold myself back from starting 27 new projects.

My mother and I now have a new deadline for our stash disposal. 10/20/2010, as in October 20, 2010, which gives us exactly one year. A tight deadline, perhaps, but I like the memorable date and it would still allow us time to buy new yarn for holiday projects.

No time to think about new yarn just yet though. Must get back to the stuff I've got. A knitter's work is never done.

Smart, Yet Not Intelligent

While cleaning up the garage today, I made a drastic mistake - the memory of which will forever live in my brain. Now that I replay the outtakes in my head, I realize there may have been more than one mistake. The final count is hazy; I think I blacked out. One moment, I was cheerfully moving things from the Wrong Place (where they were dropped in a scurry of simply getting them out of the house) to the Right Place (where they actually lived on a semi-permanent basis).

Then there was a time warp of some sort because the very next moment, I remember coming to with a large crochet hook and the beginnings of a fleece rug (well, the first foot diameter) in my hands. I had to pause to attempt to recall what led me to this moment and only had a vague memory of thinking that if I could just empty some of the stash yarn cubbyholes along the wall, my stash wouldn't seem such a daunting obstacle. I did notice that one cubbyhole only had four balls of yarn in it which made it the top contender for elimination. These balls of yarn were fortunately very bulky fleece fringe (bought for pennies) I had previously tied into a continuous strand; unfortunately, they were also the size of basketballs.

Here's where I simultaneously learned two things: 1) it would not be reasonably feasible for me to clean the garage by actually working up my entire stash, and 2) I had just created another Current Project which was exactly opposite from my goal of finishing the projects I have started BEFORE beginning any new projects!

Stupid, right? Wait. There's more.

After I had sufficiently kicked myself for the fleece incident, I returned to the garage to continue the stash clean up which mostly consisted of cramming the bags of yarn into the cubbyholes in such a way that they did not fall out. Again, there was a fuzzy moment when a large number of bags fell out and my mind immediately started counting them as they landed. Let's skip the grusome details and focus on the final outcome.

I counted my stash. Each and every bag of yarn. I knew I couldn't count the actual skeins (what to do with partial skeins or oversized balls of yarn recycled from sweaters?) and only counting the bags would, I thought, give me a baseline to rate my progress. This would give me the total number of unique yarns I have in my stash. This must, I thought, be a workable number. After all, our house, and therefore our garage, is pretty small. It just can't hold that much stuff!

Well, including the 11 sweaters bought to be frogged in order to recycle the yarn and the 15 jersey knit tshirts and dresses bought to be spiral cut to make a crocheted rag rug, the final count was 240. It took me a while to fully process that number. At times throughout the day, it has seemed perfectly within the range of Normal. Other times, it seems to prove my insanity. At others, I think I must be woefully lacking in the stash department and will be judged accordingly. Maybe my mother and I were a bit hasty in our mutual pledge to forego any new stash purchases until our current stash was depleted.

When I actually did the math, however, it finally sunk in. At the rate of 10 yarns/projects a month (highly unlikely), it would take me two years to work through my stash. Two years - 730 days - 17,520 hours - with No. New. Yarn.

My first reaction was to cast on some new projects - fast, easy scarves or tiny bookmarks or something - to get a jump on the holiday season. Then I had my best thought all afternoon - something even faster and easier. This season, I could just give the gift of yarn!

So . . . how does your stash rate?

The Swan Has Landed

Today's Lesson: "It doesn't matter how long it takes to accomplish something as long as it's completed prior to the deadline."

I seem to have learned this lesson well, because I just finished a project I began over two years ago, yet I still completed it five weeks before the deadline!

The project was Mystery Stole #3 which was later revealed to be themed after Swan Lake. It's an asymetrical stole where the first half appears 'normal' (aka human) and the last half becomes feathered into a swan's wing. There was an option to add beads to the pattern, which I enjoyed so much I added even more than were called for. This picture is from when it was being blocked this morning.

This was my first major lace project and when I cast on, I thought it would be for me. However, once my niece announced her wedding, I knew I was now making it for her. I just hope she has a happier ending than Odette.