A Little Yarn On The Side

On Ravelry, several people have been talking about how many miles of yarn they have in their stash.  Though I was born here in America, I still struggle with our completely crazy measuring system.  My first year canning was a nightmare:  2 cups make a pint, 2 pints make a quart............and then WHAMMO! 4 quarts the the gallon.  NO!  If we start out by 2s, we need to STAY with the 2s.  Of course, this is nothing compared with our other measuring standards--12 inches to 1 foot.   Do we jump to 12 feet?  No--we pick the totally daft 3 feet = a yard.  Do we stick with 3s?  Nope.  1760 yards make a mile.  If it was going to be a random number anyway, how about an easier one to remember?   See what I mean?  It's completely insane.  So knowing that I have just under 200,000 yards sounds like a lot, of course--and IS a lot--but I don't really have a mental picture.  Until I did the math: I have 113 m...

In all fairness, I think ALL my yearly challenges sound pretty daft in January.  Some, of course, sound daft the entire year, and I'm thinking this one might be one of those. Technically, I'm actually ahead of schedule and doing well, with 2 mitten ornaments and a blue bell pumped out yesterday: Of course, not every day is a holiday, nor do I need to be resting my back every afternoon.  My back was feeling so good on Monday that I just couldn't STOP doing things.  Nothing disastrous, but extra stretches, extra exercises--it felt so good, in fact, that I had a hard time sleeping.  It's hard to realize how exhausting pain is until it's gone.  Between the Valium and the pain, I've been sleeping a LOT, and I think I'd just reached sleeping capacity.  I had meant to crank out a few more mitten ornaments yesterday, but got distracted by other things.  Today, however, I have powered up Jeeves and am trying out some of the new embroidery designs I g...

It's January 1 and I am starting my SIXTH year of Cold Sheeping.  I swear my stash has gotten smaller, but it would be hard to tell overall because I didn't start out with a very accurate record.  I thought I started out with a pretty clear picture of the stash last year, but packing up the sewing room unearthed some MAJOR amounts of unrecorded yarn.  So, five years later , I think I can honestly say that all yarn has been accounted for because I have no idea where else it could be lurking.   So, I am starting the year with: 949.29 balls of yarn 199,734.1 yards of yarn Totally scary numbers--but in the last 5 years of Cold Sheeping, I have used up: 439.99 balls of yarn 83,483.9 yards of yarn Also rather amazing numbers, really.  I didn't keep a record of "reward" or "whoops" or even "allowed" purchases, but I'm sort of guessing there has still been a substantial stash decrease.  Which means the stash was COMPLETELY insane 5 y...

It's New Year's Eve, just 3 hours away from 2013............and I'm beginning to think that 365 ornaments in one year might be a bit deranged.  Or a lot.  Perhaps completely and totally.  So I thought a bit of prep work might be in order.  If one is going crazy, one should prepare for it. First up, rounding up all my Christmas books for ideas.  When I first dreamed up this daft scheme of mine, I thought I would spend the months leading up to it making a nice list of all the ornaments I wanted to make, which books the pattern or idea was in, and making myself a little index.  Yeah--there were some good drugs involved.  You have probably already guessed how many ornaments are recorded in my handy little index...... Yep--none.  Today I did at least sort through the sewing room looking for Christmas books, and got them all together in one shelf: and the part of me that wasn't relieved that they would all fit in one shelf is dreading that there ...

Okay--I'm delusional most of the time, but even I'm thinking I won't finish four sweaters, 6 placemats, 6 WIPs, or 9 clothing items before Tuesday, but I have finished one last "12!" I have done SO little sewing this year that it felt good to cut out, embroider, and finish a project--even if it was as simple as a few gift bags.  I finished something and there's a bit less fabric in the sewing room.  That feels good.  Shocking, of course, but good.  Now if I can just sew a great deal, knit a great deal, and buy absolutely nothing, next year the sewing room could even look good enough for some pictures...........

 So, the year of the 12 12s is ending, and there's no way I'm going to make all 12.  There is, however,  a slight chance that I could knock off at least one more "12."  These 2 brought me to 6 bags for the year, and I have 5 more red felt bags in progress,  which would frustratingly bring me to 11 bags.  Luckily, I found this: which is a box full of half-finished bags, most of which are waiting for handles.  So if I can locate the white felt, make some handles, I think I can get there.  Of course, what I am dying to do is to get cracking on the 365 ornaments, especially after Andy gave me this for Christmas: 13 ornament designs for my embroidery machine.  The cool colors you see are from doing appliqué with the designs, which I haven't done before but the instructions seem pretty thorough, so you can guess what I'll be doing on January 1! I also started a new baby sweater,  to have a small, non-complicated project to ...

Since we're going to be together a while, Andy and I borrowed an idea from friends of ours to do "themes" for Christmas gifts.  Some years we've done cooking as the theme, but for the last 2-3 years we've made "Hobbies" the theme because it's just so much fun for us.  Andy does woodworking, so every year I make a trip to our local wood working store to pick out interesting wood to give him, which sounds a lot like giving someone coal, but is exciting for wood crafters.  He bought a lathe a few years ago, so since then I've bought him some pen kits and wood for turning.  Because of all my ongoing back issues, we have just taken a slow week, so he finally got the chance to make a couple of the pen kits I gave him two years ago.  The first one (a fountain pen) he was tremendously pleased with.  The second, also a fountain pen, he said had some mistakes.  Being no idiot, I pounced on it.  I don't care at all about the spot on the finish--to m...