A Little Yarn On The Side

THE QUILT IS DONE!!!!! THE QUILT IS DONE!!!!!!! THE QUILT IS DONE!!!!!!!!!!! If I knew how to make it do it, my blog would be playing the theme from "Rocky" right now.......

I have 5 days, so after dropping Andy off at the airport and running a few errands to make sure I actually had some food this week, my sidekick and I settled down to some serious crafting. First, we flattened out the cool home-decorating material though getting the pattern cut out proved a bit more difficult than I had planned.... I did manage to work around Theo without cutting his tail, but a small amount of fur was lost.... though as his winter coat is truly in now, it's pretty hard to tell.  Mercifully, Theo decided to leave the room while I spray-basted the pieces and the batting together but he was back for the sewing Honestly, if he could ever learn to operate the sewing machine without me, I think my status as Most Favorite Human would be in jeopardy. What are we making, you might ask? Cornucopias! I still want to add braid or trim to the openings of each one, and I'm pretty pleased with the small braid here but I'm thinking some sort of black de...

Tomorrow Andy leaves for a week for business, and I will be embarking on a crafting marathon (and obviously a week of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches as cooking is no part of my plan).  I have some gifts to finish, but I am really, really, REALLY hoping to finish both the quilt AND the kimono shawl while he's gone.  And, of course, I'm also hoping that the cats don't think I have been abandoned and feel the need to shower me with vermin gifts as they usually do when Andy is gone.  It's really cold here now, so even if they have the intention to do so, I'm hoping all the potential "gifts" have either flown south for the winter or are hibernating.  We haven't decided exactly what this says about the cats' interpretation of what Andy does around here.  Do they think he normally keeps me supplied with mice & birds, or are they trying to bribe me to let him come back or to keep him away?  Theo sulks if I'm gone for any length of time, but h...

After much debate and hoping everyone else would think the same way, I decided that the yarn for Andy's sweater is actually overdue from my allotted purchases from January 1, 2009 and had already been "allowed" so it wouldn't be cheating.  So.......THERE IS YARN ON ITS WAY TO MY HOUSE!!!! Being no fool--or at least not one right at that moment, I was flying through Elann's ordering process before I could be seduced by any other yarns so quickly that I didn't double-check the address and had to email them after I placed the order to explain that the address they had on file was no longer correct.  (And having a post office box where yarn can be sent so your husband won't see is a bad, bad idea....that isn't why I had one, but it's a bad idea nonetheless) I did allow a set of blocking wires, but I had been looking for a set so that was a little less of an impulse buy than one might think.  AND THERE IS YARN ON ITS WAY TO MY HOUSE!!!! Since I am 4...

So, remember last January 1 when the yarn Andy had picked out for his next sweater and which I was going to order on that day, had sold out?  Remember yesterday when I said I had resolved not to buy any yarn until January 1, 2011? Guess what? For the first time ALL YEAR Elann has their Highland Donegal in Licorice --the color Andy wants. THE VERY NEXT DAY!!!!!  Guess this proves those knitting gods DO have a sense of humor--albeit a very sadistic one.

After time, mature reflection, and a white chocolate martini, I have decided that checking the size of my stash was a GOOD thing (so you guys are totally off the hook).  If I buy NO MORE YARN and knit furiously for the next 13 months, I could perhaps be below 100,000 yards of yarn in my stash by 2011. This is exciting. Granted, 28,000 yards of yarn would be a lot to knit in one year, but my Ravelry account doesn't reflect yarn as being "used up" until the project is actually finished.  So, if I finish up a couple more WIPS by the end of the year--and several more next year--I may knock 4,000 yards off that total pretty quickly.  So.... I am NOT buying yarn at the end of the year.  I will, however, be picking out some sort of reward/bribe for myself, though I haven't decided what exactly.  It needs to be something good--maybe something I wouldn't normally buy for myself..... In the meantime, the kimono shawl is "zipping" along as much as lace eve...

So, in deciding whether or not to buy yarn at the end of the year or do another year of Cold Sheeping OR do both, some helpful person--whom I will eventually be forgiving--suggested I reexamine my stash to see where I was at.  According to Ravelry, I have 674 balls of yarn and 128,777 or 73 MILES of yarn in my stash. Oh my.... Granted, some of that yarn is involved in my 14 wips, and Ravelry really doesn't account for yarn used until a project is finished....but there is also still some yarn that isn't on Ravelry, so they probably even out.  Part of me, of course, would argue that as it's my hobby and something I enjoy, why not just go ahead and have a really large stash and to heck with the cold sheeping.  Generally, I would be of that opinion, but the fabric and yarn stash has become a bit of a space problem.  I have it all crammed INTO the sewing room, but sometime I'd like to be able to put the doors back onto the closet and perhaps be able to walk around...