A Little Yarn On The Side

50-yard balls of yarn. My main motivation in knitting has become to change the stash progress tally . End up with a sweater? Fine. Finish some socks? Whatever. Use up another ball of yarn? Whoo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I realize that bigger balls of yarn are accounted for by the total yards used and that I am still using up stash which was SUPPOSED to be the idea, but it takes SO much longer to knit up 200-400 yards of yarn than say, 80, so I don't get to change the tally as often. And THAT has become my main focus this year. Did you see how close I am to 50 balls??????? This is what happens when "Type A" personalities knit. Now I'm going to go find the project with the least yarn left on the skein......

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...

Today while waiting in the drive-through of my regular coffee place, I worked on the Fling scarf--which is the only scarf I've ever made that I wanted to keep. It's sparkly, it's fun, and there are tons of things it would go with. When I got to the window, the server was a girl I've gotten to know fairly well, and she LOVES the scarf. She even wanted to feel it (I think sparkly things have that effect on people). I'm never going to be able to keep this scarf now, darn it. She's just a great young lady and she's working to put herself through college, and it would TOTALLY make her day. If I don't give it to her, I'd always wish that I had, and I don't like those sorts of regrets. So, let's hear it for Random Acts of Knitterly Kindness! As Alison put it, RAKK 'em up!!!

Last night I was up until 10:30 (which is really late for us since we get up at 5:00AM) working on the "Fling" scarf--not because I was getting close to finishing it or had a deadline looming, but because I wanted to finish up the ball of yarn so I could change my tally on the side. It's obvious--The Year of the Stash has done away with whatever shreds of rationality I had left. At least last year my all-consuming goal was number of projects completed, which is a little easier to understand. Staying up late to finish a SWEATER sounds a whole lot better than staying up late to finish up a ball of YARN! And yet, all I can think about now is finishing up 3 more balls of yarn to hit 50.....and maybe I'll even get a scarf out of it.

Aha!!! The part for the washer has arrived (just under the wire for the 90-day purchase ban), and will be installed tomorrow. BUT, if one checks regularly and moves the dial through the cycles manually, it is possible to wash clothes at Chateau Sutton-Goar. So: complete with buttons AND the stabilizer removed. A close-up of the pocket detail: I'm really pleased with how it turned out--especially since I didn't have to cut out a 3rd pocket because my attempts at embroidery botched one of the original ones. This is great progress for me--and a first. My "fling" is progressing: It's S. Charles's Galaxy, and it has little gold metallic threads woven into the "yarn" (as it's really more fabric than yarn, I'm not positive what to call it), and the only size 9 needles I could locate are metal, and the combination results in a scarf that is sliding around so much it practically leaps off the needles if you look at it crosswise. And mayb...

Mature & lasting relationships are truly wonderful, but sometimes you just need fast & easy.

Andy is out with the boys, so I have an evening to myself. I'll be picking out an old movie and working on this, which is the alpaca cardigan if you can't see it through Theo, who would not stay off of it long enough for me to get a clear picture. The ham. And there is a new hat.... made with a Bernat acrylic that I am almost embarrassed to admit I am completely besotted by. I love these colors! I don't know exactly why I only bought two skeins--showing so little restraint at all other times--but this might be one of those things added to the "when I can buy again" list. I generally avoid acrylics, but I think I could make an exception for this yarn. I haven't quite determined the pattern yet--ribbed cuff, followed by maybe some off-white snowflake color work? Or maybe an all-over duplicate stitch "flecked" pattern? Or maybe a tapering pattern of some sort? Or maybe colorwork in black? We'll see what it looks like when I get there. For n...