A Little Yarn On The Side

Dem fischer sin fru: no progress Birthday poncho: no progress "Cheap Thrills" sweater: no progress MS3: no progress Work: 2 breakfast meetings, 2 lunch meetings, 3 demos, 50 phone calls, 2 proposals. What happened to my priorities in life?????

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 ...

This is probably a good illustration of my tendency to ignore all realistic expectations when it comes to knitting or sewing....

I am not the person I thought I was. My cheap thrills fling has distracted me from all other knitting. It's a chunky weight yarn called Gedifra Living, which I would link to if I could find it on the internet, and the pattern, which also can't be located, was free with the purchase of the yarn. Yes, I know it sounds like I made this all up, but it was out there somewhere at some time--I promise. This was even Deep Stash yarn--the stuff that has been in stash for more than a year and has very little chance by now of ever getting used, which makes me more than a little proud of myself--and explains how I have somehow inexplicably shifted the lace pattern over by one stitch--proving that old knitting adage, "pride goeth before a frog." (rip-it, rip-it) This time, however, I have left well enough alone. I can't find the error and have decided that searching down an invisible, unnoticeable mistake cannot be part of a "cheap thrills" knitting experience....

The plan was to knit a yellow cotton cardigan this month since spring is coming and a nice cotton cardigan would be very useful. What I am actually doing is dividing my time between the cheap thrills knitting: which will be a pullover, and will take all of this out of my stash, and dem fischer sin fru which has progressed but is still on clue 1. I think number 6 comes out this week--or perhaps the fashion show where the speed-knitters model their shawls made from handspun wool from sheep they have sheared themselves. I'm honestly not that competitive--I just want to know their secret. Do they knit in their sleep?

So far this year, I've used up approximately this much of my stash: While progress is progress, I was hoping it would amount to a much bigger pile--like overflowing the table bigger. Granted, it's only 2 months, but I admit that I had visions of using up so much yarn this year that the closet would no longer be overflowing with yarn, that there would not longer be bags of yarn teetering on the top shelf of the closet just waiting to fall on my head while I rummaged through the yarn on lower shelves. I might have to become a bit more realistic about my expectations. Maybe it isn't so much about getting the stash under control this year....maybe it's about finding the floor......

I'm on track!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Two months down and 2 knitting projects & 2 sewing projects done! For those who have known me for any length of time, you'll know that my project optimism runs WAY ahead of my project reality, so this is a very exciting moment for me--and, frankly, one that may never come again. The Pi shawl is done, blocked and furred: I ended up making up an edging for it as all the edgings I kept trying didn't work with the color striping of the yarn. Variegated yarn looks wonderful in a ball, but it's a bit challenging as a real garment. Thankfully, I sew, so when I figure out what on earth one wears with a tie-dye lace shawl, I can make it. Unfortunately--I don't know what that is yet. This is all that's left of the 1760 yards & 4 balls I started with: (my center-pull yarn ball sort of threw-up) It didn't physically take a lot out of the stash, but using up 1500 yards of yarn did a lot for the stash mentally. Well, I do...