A Little Yarn On The Side

HALLELUJAH! IT'S DONE! IT'S DONE!!! IT'S DONE!!! And a quick shot while wearing it, which won't be seen again until late fall or early winter, as mohair is much warmer than it looks. IT'S DONE! IT'S DONE!!! IT'S DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6 months and 1475 yards of yarn. I am now going to find something to do with the largest needles I own. Anyone tried knitting with broomsticks?

Thanks largely to all the moral support and insane amounts of caffeine, I have finished the very last swoopy and have finished most of the remaining edge. All that remains now is the rest of the front edge, the last corner, and half of the neck edge--all of which requires less knitting than one of those dang swoopies. Finally the thought of being done with the Great Mohair Abyss is enough to motivate me to work on it. It has taken 6 months to get this far! Granted, I can't seem to manage project monogamy, but I have managed sporadic monogamy and it has still taken 6 months . I'm not sure when I'll be able to face lace again without shuddering, but that might be another 6 months. And some therapy--I wonder if there are counselors who specialize in mohair?

OK. I have endured 1362 yards of mohair--500+ of it contained in the mind-numbing, soul-sucking edging that has gone on forever. It is down to the final swoopy and the final ball of yarn. After 4 cups of coffee, and a promise that I could work on the floral dress & skirt when I stopped shaking, I joined the final ball of mohair and..... I'm halfway through the final swoopy. There is still a front and half a neck edge left to do, but there will be no more balls of yarn after this one!!! That thought is keeping me going. And sheer, absolute bribery:

Tomorrow is the end of June and the halfway point of The Year of the Stash (nevermind that I've decided it might be a 2-year endeavor--I try not to think about that). To be able to say I've used up 59 balls by June 30 drove me to this: See where we're at? Only one more swoopy, then the side and back edging. This also marks the end of the first additional ball of yarn I bought for this shawl, making me extremely glad I didn't just buy one. That I bought three was perhaps a little overkill, but put "discontinued" with "mind-numbing never-ending rows of edging" and it's amazing I didn't orchestrate a hostile takeover of Rowan to get their remaining stock of Kidsilk Haze Night. Once I used up the 59th ball of yarn, I shoved the mohair episode into a bag and spent a little quality time at the sewing machine. I finished Andy's flannel pajama top today, which is extremely fortunate as it was a nippy 104 degrees today. The house is so warm t...

Through tenacity, dedication, and bribery, I have finished 9 1/2 swoopies: 2 1/2 swoopies left. This was on my list as the knitting project to finish for June, but that would be a lot of swoopies in 2 days. I'm just not sure even a box full of merino would be sufficient bribery for that sort of torture.... Hibiscus for Hope progressed all the way to the short-row heel, which looks fabulous until Unstretched, it's about an inch too long for my insanely-pale foot. Some frogging will be occurring this evening. Luckily, it's so far off that I think I can eliminate an entire pattern repeat, which would mean the least amount of frogging and pattern editing. Or I can find a woman with feet 2 inches longer than mine.....

4 more swoopies to go!!! And then of course, two corners, the side, and the back of the neck, but it will FEEL like it's done after the mind-numbing-bottomless-pit charmingly consistent edging on the bottom of the lovely shawl. (soothing herbal teas are doing so much for my outlook....) The true love of my life lately is Sitcom Chic This lovely work of art is knit on size 8 needles and worsted weight yarn that comes in skeins of a delightful 82 yards . I have now used up my third skein and will be joining the fourth after some, er, " quality time" with the Fluff Monster--formerly known as the Lady's Circular Cape.

See this? It's an entire ball of yarn. Completely used up & out of the stash. Bringing me to 53 balls used this year. That was SO rejuvenating! Rejuvenating enough to spend some time with this: We've reached 7 swoopies now, which would be REALLY exciting if there were 10 swoopies. With 12, it's just one past the halfway mark. But at least it is PAST the halfway mark. Slowly, slowly, slowly......

Last night it was just me, the Lady's Circular Cape, a REALLY strange movie called Lord Love a Duck that I rented in honor of the passing of Harvey Korman and which I still don't understand, and the last of the original yarn for the cape: I was truly planning on not blogging until I could say I had used up my 52nd ball of yarn, but that last little bit of yarn is much bigger than it looks. I just crossed over the halfway mark on the edging (YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and still have enough yarn left for another swoopy. Not that I wouldn't have run out of yarn, as I'm only halfway around the edging and it's a LOT of edging: Jane Sowerby, I'm so glad I doubted you! Not that she isn't a perfectly lovely person--I'm sure she is. But I think we can all agree that it's a good thing she didn't decide to become an accountant. Knitters might forgive you for being off by 20%, but the IRS is pretty touchy about stuff like that. 4 1/2 left to go!

Today I finished the Fruity Pebbles socks which brings me to 50 balls of yarn used this year!!!!!!!! HAPPY DANCE (in some sporty new socks even)!!!! Just think how exciting that would be if I hadn't bought 75 balls of yarn in December....that would actually be a net stash decrease....but I'm still hopeful for a net decrease overall. I do still have 7 more months. In a fit of resolution, madness, or total rebellion because I really did have other projects I needed to work on, I even finished a fall table runner that I started about 3 years ago: which means I average about one square a year. Truly a scary concept if I ever decide to make a king-size quilt--does cotton rot in 50 years????? And the latest obsession-- the Lady's Circular Cape, which is now at the border stage. I love the cleverness of knitted-on borders--it's such a great way to finish lace. Even if it does take FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's May and this weekend it was over 90 degrees!!! I had not even turned the heat off yet. I guess we're skipping spring this year & going straight to nasty-hot. So, even the most devoted/obsessed knitter can't be too excited about wool in times like these, so today I finished this: It's actually a red & white patterned cotton--not pinky-orange as it looks in the picture. Chalk up another 3 3/8 yards used up from the fabric stash--which even I have the sense to not tally up. Let's just say that I'm not going to run out of fabric anytime during the "aught" decade... Speaking of stash, if you follow my main blog you are aware that I ordered 3 balls of yarn yesterday. :( I had always told myself that the only yarn I would be allowed to buy this year was IF and only IF it was to finish a project that I had started in good faith (no starting a shawl with 200 yards of sock yarn or something like that), but it's still depressing. I have d...

The good news : I just finished the third ball of yarn on the Lady's Circular Cape, which brings me to 6,432 yards of yarn, or just over 3 and a half miles of yarn used so far this year. YAY! The bad news : I'm not quite to the edging, and it seems that a lot of knitters are running out of yarn on this project--even ones who made it farther than I did with that third ball of yarn. The ones who had purchased clearance or discontinued yarns for this project have resulted to weeping, bartering, and knitting voodoo dolls of the designer, which they pierce repeatedly with size one knitting needles. I don't think my yarn is out of stock, but buying more yarn would be breaking the rules of The Year of the Stash, and having made it 4 months already..... I don't know for certain that I will run out of yarn, but if I do, it will result in putting this away until 2009, which would be really, REALLY irritating as I am totally enamored of this project. It's soft, it's g...

Not for crafting. This week I finished the "stop light sock," so named because it spent its formative days on the passenger seat in my car waiting for long stoplights and slow traffic to get attention. I don't exactly know when these were begun--the mate has been sitting on my desk for a few months now, so besides the sheer joy of adding 459 yards and 1 ball of yarn to the Year of Stash tally, I can quit having to explain why there is one sock on my desk. This weekend we took a quick trip to Las Vegas, and the Lady's Circular Cape from Victorian Lace Today, started back in January, was the lucky traveling project. I made great progress, and in fact, I was quite nervous on the way home--I almost ran out of yarn!!! This from the woman who took 5 extra balls of yarn along on her honeymoon !!! You can imagine my stress when we were sitting in the Las Vegas airport & heard the news talking about snowstorms in Ohio causing flight delays. Flight delays could mean ...

Well, monogamy lasted 10 days. That's something. I think it's all a matter of perspective--I joined the Victorian Lace Today Yahoo group several months ago, and had yet to start one of the shawls, so in one sense I'm just getting caught up and NOT being fickle and being too much of a child to commit to one project for more than 10 measly days. Side note: I have not gone colorblind--the green stripe will be removed when I put the border on. The January cardigan is progressing--the back, both fronts, and part of one sleeve are done. And the Pi shawl greatly enjoyed the trip to Disneyland and may actually be finished by its February target date. If so, that would probably be a knitting first for me.