A Little Yarn On The Side

The brioche scarf is now done: and with it's 440 yards of yarn, I have now achieved my second-highest yardage in a year with two and a half months to go!  And--even more encouraging in many ways, this yarn is all used up from my stash!  In a fit of madness obsession with variegated yarns, I ordered 4 HANKS of this yarn in either 2006 or 2007.  Call it a "youthful indiscretion," or, if you'd like to include the other 18 hanks of variegated yarns I also acquired around that time, call it "complete idiocy."  I am happy to say that even I came to my senses and realized that variegated lace yarns have never work out for shawls as I hope they will, and it might have taken me about 10,000 yards of lace to learn this, but with my stash, it could have been worse.  Much, MUCH worse.  Rather than starting another scarf for portable knitting, I opted for: a new sweater!  I might be obsessed with yardage, but I haven't yet given up on finishing those 12 ...

I have deleted an earlier post today because an anonymous commenter quite rightly took me to task for it.  I had been really ticked off about a comment on one of my posts that had nothing to do with knitting or my post, but was just a promotion for the commenter's own blog, which is irritating enough, but the blog had nothing whatsoever to do with knitting.  What very understandably chapped my anonymous commenter is that I complained that it was a religious blog.  I can SO understand why that would offend someone, and I would like to apologize to her directly, but that's the problem with anonymous comments--I can't.  So, here I am.  I am apologizing to the knitting internet at large--she was right, I was absolutely wrong, and I wish I could set it straight if I could.  She correctly asked me if I would have been so angry if it would have been a blog about writing, knitting, another type of religion, or by a liberal, and I would say knitting, no.  A...

Sometimes I find myself wishing for a weekend where all I did was knit.  I need to stop wishing for these things, as thanks to the re-aggravated back problem, that is almost all I have done this weekend. I knew my back was doing badly, but with all the issues with my father's health, put it on the "back burner" to get seen to.  Monday I was feeling quite proud of myself, having called the spine clinic to set an appointment for Thursday just to see if they could help me get back on track--no pun intended.   Tuesday I walked down to our library (only 3 miles and no hills at all) and ended up hardly able to walk by the time I got home.  The heating pad and I had an affair all day Wednesday, then Thursday I went to my appointment knowing that I would probably get evaluated then referred to physical therapy--which is exactly what happened.  That's all good, except the back problem exists because my hip turns, and it has been turned for a couple months now and...

It's October 11 and I have knit (or removed) 15,058.85 yards of yarn this year.  This is my fifth year of tracking yardage, and I'm already at my third-highest yardage with just over two and a half months to go.  Finally crossing that 20,000 yard mark might finally be doable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know--this obsession makes me a complete maniac and most people knit to actually get a knitted object.  But THIS knitter lives with a crazy stash, and in order to not look at the size of my stash and get totally nauseous, I keep track of how much yarn I use in a year.  Thus far, I have not achieved S.A.B.L.E. ( s tash a ccumulation b eyond l ife e xpectancy), and if I can knit 20,000 yards each year, I'd have about a 5-year yarn accumulation, which doesn't sound nearly as bad as a 10-15 year supply, which might be slightly more realistic if I ever chose to try realism in my knitting world, which seems unlikely.  So, I am on a mad quest for yardage, and what am I working ...

Vacation is over, but it was wonderful.  For someone who doesn't always even sleep 8 hours, I slept so much the cats thought they'd finally converted me.  I had thought I'd be a crafting machine, but I really wasn't.  I did a lot of exercises for my hip/back, soaks in the hot tub, and just generally didn't bother about getting anything done.  For ME, that was huge.  Not that there aren't a few new things.  A new knitting project bag made from scrap material: which was intended to have pockets and a loop for running the yarn through, but became very simple when I realized how rusty I was at sewing.  One side of a buttonhole is actually 2 inches long, so obviously the buttonhole sensor foot and I need to spend a bit of time together.... There are some new Christmas ornaments: though the roses are (A) smaller than I thought they would be, and (B) without actual loops for hangers, but a little thread should take care of that.  I thought I mi...

Dad was released from the hospital Monday, so my mother's part-time residence with us has also ended.  Andy left this morning for a long-planned motorcycle trip, so I have the weekend to myself!!!!!!  I don't think I've ever needed a vacation more.  I flirted briefly with the idea of staying in flannel PJs all day, but that would make getting the mail slightly embarrassing, so I might save that for Sunday... I have finished the first chemo cap with the new yarn: have started a new brioche scarf as portable knitting, and am taking advantage of my free weekend by firing up Jeeves and working on the embroidered napkins again.    Since I'm counting each one as a "decoration," I just finished another 12, and more importantly, I only have 4 more napkins to do and a project will be done and I can quit moving a stack of ironed napkins around the sewing room.  I ironed all of them about 6 weeks ago, and will do close to ANYTHING to not have to iron mor...

Guess what????  After all the scary back-and-forth and ups and downs of the last 5 weeks, they think Dad might get to go home tomorrow!!!!!!!!! He's been in the hospital with good days and bad days ever since we readmitted him through the ER last Friday.  It's probable that all this could have been avoided had Blue Cross not decided to override a doctor's orders and move him out 2 weeks ago, but why should a little thing like patient health get in the way of the profits of the American health "care" system?  But, since he picked up a SECOND infection, they decided to change antibiotics, and the new one will allow him to be home and just have home health come in.  I'm still furious with the money-grubbing bastards of Blue Cross as this has been a very hard week on all of us, and in some ways has been the worst Dad has felt since the first week of this, but at least their despicable  behavior didn't cause any permanent damage--I think we're very lucky ...