A Little Yarn On The Side

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.

Last night I just couldn't bring myself to face the mind-numbing-endless-abyss that is the mohair edging, so I spent a little time with Sitcom Chic: And the Top Secret project: which is safe to photograph for a while as it is still in "amorphous blob" stage and could be anything--sort of like knitting in general. I don't want to get distracted from finishing the Lady's Circular Cape after having come this far, but I just couldn't face the mohair again. To put things in perspective, I dug this out: Many of my friends cross-stitch and they absolutely rave about it--how relaxing it is, how enjoyable it is, etc. I can actually see how it can be relaxing--there is something very soothing about doing little thread x's all over a piece of material. What I don't get is how there are ever finished cross stitch projects. It takes forever . I worked on this thing for at least half an hour and do not even have a square inch to show for my efforts. Know who w...

Actually, 8067. Even better. Tomorrow night I'll be ready to face the swoopies again, but for tonight, I'm in it for the yardage!

The never-ending-mohair and I needed a little "apart" time tonight, so I spent tonight's knitting time with a project that I can't show you because it's a surprise. Since I can't show it to you, it would really be better manners to not talk about it as it makes me sound like either a spy or a 5-year-old with a "sharing" problem, but I just had to mention.... 7985 yards of stash used up so far this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is over 4 1/2 miles of yarn used in a productive, knitterly manner, which has been a rule lately added as I don't think it really counts as "using" my stash if I am using it to insulate the walls of the sewing room. In moments of desperation, I am capable of almost anything.

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......

This freak of never-ending-mohair-edging has driven me to lengths no other project has ever done. Yesterday, I cleaned the sewing room. Not clean enough that I'm willing to post pictures of it or anything--let's not get crazy here--but it is cleaner than it has been since the Christmas Gift Blizzard of '07. Bare table has even been glimpsed. Then, in a moment of true weakness, I slipped..... In the corner, looking lost and a little shy, was a lovely worsted weight cotton And I know--I have this great thing going with the mohair, but look at this: 82 yards to the skein and size 8 needles. SIZE 8s! With those I could knock 3-4 balls out of the stash each week! I'm not proud, but.... before I knew what had happened, I had 7 rows of Sitcom Chic on the needles. I was WEAK--beaten down by those unending rows of edging--1368 rows!!!! Can you blame me?

There are 12 swoopies, not 10!!! I'm not quite halfway. Heaven help me, I may have just lost the will to knit. I'm going to go clean the sewing room--that involves NO mohair and very little purple..... And somebody needs a "time out:"