A Little Yarn On The Side

I am just finishing up the last rows of the 48-row set on the Pi shawl, so I'm about to start the what-would-be-96-row-set-if-it-didn't-make-a-monster-sized-shawl part.  I'm trying really hard to NOT have to take it all off the needles, so with the aid of some stuffing, here's where I'm at Everything so far has been sort of V-shaped, though the center part looks more like a flower than anything else.  I'm thinking of using this for the next part, or is it a little too much "V" happening?  I could do something in more of an over-all pattern like cat's paw, or even something really open like faggotting.  Thoughts?

Just minutes ago, the beaded ostrich plume was finished! Blocking will come later, but I am quite pleased with it.  I pressed a bit with the iron as I was working just to be able to see how it looked, but I have been promising myself I could get back to the Pi shawl as soon as this was done, so if you'll excuse me.....I have a hot Friday night date with some merino!

I called the dealership yesterday, and the part still hadn't arrived yet.  I believe he said it was coming from Tennessee.  According to Google Maps, it would take 1 day and 8 hours to drive from Boise, Idaho to Tennessee.  Throwing in a night to sleep and a few stops for eating & peeing, that still doesn't explain how it could take longer than 16 days for a part to come ONE DIRECTION ONLY.  I realize they probably shipped it via the cheapest rate possible because it is warranty work & they can't stick me with the bill, but it does make me wonder about shipping companies.  If you give them insane amounts of money, your stuff arrives pretty darn quickly--like in that 1 day, 8 hour time frame.  If you give them a slightly less insane amount of money, they'll deliver it less speedily--like someone taking breaks to stop, eat, and occasionally pee.  If you give them the least amount of money possible, how do they stretch it out for longer than 2 wee...

I have 53 finished projects and 11 days left in July........I think I'm going to fall behind.  For someone who doesn't have "knitterly optimism" (a.k.a. a complete lack of reality), falling behind would be a certainty, but I'm still holding out hope.  Of WHAT is anyone's guess, but on the off chance that Jeeves is ready this week (and the even slighter chance that the dealership actually calls to TELL me he's ready), there could be some manic sewing on Friday, and I do have 2 new projects cut out........and I swear that the beaded ostrich plume scarf really has gotten a lot of attention......even if the darn thing is almost the same size it was 4 days ago.  NOTE TO SELF:  Lace may be too frustrating for "I-need-to-see-some-dang-progress" sorts of days..... 5 projects in 11 days.........I think I see a potential problem here..............

Andy was gone this weekend, and since I couldn't spend the weekend sewing, I decided to sort through my sewing pattern stash and match up a few with fabric--you know, like I actually remembered what I bought material for in the first place........ And, after only about an hour of rummaging around in the closet, I found................ THE MISSING PAJAMA TOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You know--the one that has been missing for two and a half years.  Of course, now I don't know where the rest of the material is, but as Andy pointed out, if all else fails, I could just bind the edges of the armholes & he'd have perhaps the first EVER wife-beater flannel PJ top.  It was underneath several yards of green suiting, which has now been "assigned" to Andy's next Halloween Costume...... A Zoot Suit!  I told him not to hope for the costume to be done by this Halloween, but since he's been waiting for a PJ top for 2 1/2 years, I doubt he was really ...

Or thereabouts. Someone asked me how many skeins I have left in my stash after removing 220.  I'm using Ravelry, and don't actually mark off yarn that I've used on an unfinished project, so their spreadsheet shows 705 skeins left in my stash, but I know that at least 7 of those have been used up, so I'm under 700 skeins.  If I use them up at the 2008 speed, I'd be totally without yarn in about 6 years--in the strictly hypothetical sense, of course, because if I ever got down to having enough yarn to fit in ONE tub, I'd be buying up yarn so quickly that my credit card numbers would probably melt completely off my little card.  So getting down to no yarn is just completely out of the question.  BUT, if I continue Cold Sheeping until the end of 2011, I could be down to under 600 skeins, which sounds like a nice number.  Maybe that will be my stopping point?  I admit, 500 is a nice number as well--heck, I have nothing against 100 to be honest--I just don't th...

I started "cold sheeping" on January 1, 2008.  Since then--aside from some year-end reward yarn purchases--I have been knitting exclusively from stash.  I admit, I was starting to feel like I haven't even made a dent in my stash, but on a whim I recently tallied up my stash-busting to date: Today I used up my 200th ball of stash yarn. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No matter how you look at it, 200 skeins of yarn is a lot of yarn.  Want to know how much 200 skeins of yarn actually is?  It would look something like this: From a how-much-closet-space-it-took-up point of view, this would be quite a conservative picture as I have knit up all my really bulky-weight yarns, and a good chunk of this pile is laceweight because it is the easiest bin to get to, but it is STILL an amazing amount of yarn.  No wonder the stash didn't all fit into the sewing room! I believe the planned/allowed purchases would come to no more than 35 skeins, so even with that, for the last two and ...