Did Anyone Say Playtime With Yarn?

 Another day of preparing the yarn for projects and organizing the yarn by colors.  Since I was hungry and had breakfast at 5 am., I  managed to get 3 hours of organizing done while the house was still quiet.  I got to play with a lots of colors.  I also found a very large basket with kits already made for charity scarfs. 

I am pulling all my shelf yarn out and organizing it. So the shelves are looking pretty empty and my floors are covered with baskets of yarn.  

After lunch out and a walk in the park I managed to do another hour before my body decided it was nap time.  

After dinner which I managed to cook 2 days in a row. I got to test a new prototype.  I can’t say what it is yet.  I can say that I absolutely love it.  It is one of the best designs that John has come up with.  I was not gentle with my testing.  I used yarn that required a U.S. size 6 knitting needle and it did not disappoint me.  I might just request an extra one just for Tunisian crochet.  

Prep Work

 Today was all about winding yarn into cakes to be used for my favorite 6 foot 2 inch scarfs for charity.  I combined colors and textures to make a 2 strand cake to be combined with a one strand single.  The resulting 3 strand yarn is just shy of bulky.  When knit in the round it provides excellent warmth for the young person who will receive it.  

Today I managed to cake enough yarn to fill a 2 gallon Ziplock bag.  I still have more yarn to wind.  I was also thinking that in order to make the knitting bags and baskets more portable, I would find a place to stack the full 2 gallon Ziplock bags. Then I would only need to carry a 1 gallon Ziplock bag with an assortment of yarn cakes to make it easier to transport.  Of course this would only work with the blue / green and  red/ purple and pink bag.  The black bag would never need this.  Yes, I do have more than one charity scarf going at a time.  Currently it is 3 different color ways of the 6 foot 2 inch scarfs, 2 other knit scarfs for warmer climates and 2 Tunisian crochet scarfs.  I also have at least 1 hat and 2 blankets in progress.  I really do finish projects, however some like long scarfs and blankets can take weeks to finish.  Sometimes I just need a quickie project to make me feel more productive.  Did a mention that I have 2 shawls in progress too?

As I tear the knitting room down, it’s looking messier than ever. I have Yarn scattered all over the place, but I am organizing it and when I’m finished, it will look wonderful. Also the bags that I like for the project have been discontinued so I have ordered at least six more so I have enough to complete the task. I initially thought it was a supply chain issue until I went to the companies website to see where I could locate some. They no longer show the bags I’m using on their website. I wish it was reflected on Google Search. Based on the search results I went to 2 different Walmarts and various other stores.  That took time and energy away from my project. I guess I will make a useful feedback comment.  

I feel like winding more yarn now, but will call it a day instead.  

Binge Organizing

 Today I meant to spend 30 minutes working on organizing the knitting room.  Somehow, 3 hours later I only stopped working when I ran out of the Ziplock XL Flexible Totes*. I checked out Target, Walmart and Ace Hardware to buy a couple more tote bags.  Even places where Google shopping said they were in stock there were none.  I am not sure if it is a supply chain issue or that they just don’t carry as many sku’s in the stores.  So I ordered them on line and they will be here Wednesday.  

I did manage to empty one basket and 2 canvas tote bags today.  Tomorrow I will work on winding yarn and putting odd skeins away.  The knitting room now looks worse than this morning, but I swear parts of the room are more organized.  Like skeins are gathered together.  I had more of some yarn than I thought I had.  John was not surprised like I was.  

I will have to prune a few more knitting books to get the books I found tucked in odd places put away. That will wait until I can get back to my knitting / spinning table.  

All the organizing and waking to find the Ziplock XL Flexible Totes gave me over 10,000 steps today. So all in all it was a good day.

*I like storing some of my yarn in the flexible totes.  I purchased them myself.  I am not receiving any compensation from the makers of the Ziplock XL Totes.  

Catching Up

 I honestly did not realize that getting rid of 60% of my yarn and about 30 % of my spinning fiber with cause so much backend work. Now all my spaces need to be re-organized. I am doing it in 15 minute increments. I still have not gotten back all my energy from earlier in the year. But I can definitely see progress.

This is also leading to more knitting and Tunisian crochet projects getting completed. I have finished more projects in the past month than I have finished in the previous four months.

Lemonade Anyone?

 My day is off to a rather disappointing start.  First after staying up way too late last night I found answers that made a lot of sense but were not the ones that I wanted to read.  Yesterday, I tried to teach myself how to crochet left handed. Try as hard as I could, I could not make my hand do the subtle movements necessary to move the crochet hook.  This is not to be.  Monster inflected damage 63 years ago means that my left hand is still damaged in a way to make the movements necessary to crochet are still impossible with my left hand.  My dream of being able to do everything with either hand is just not going to happen with this one thing.  

I woke up to muscles that felt like 2 x 4’s.  I spent an hour working on my muscles before getting out of bed.  I started off by stretching and kneading the muscles. That was not very successful.  Then it was trying to create muscle spasms to ease the stiffness. A little progress.  Then it was pressure points. A little more progress.  What I am left with are tired, sore and stiff muscles in my legs and hands.  My personal thoughts on this are that I am going to have the best day possible In spite of my muscles.  

After breakfast it will be time to conquer my day.  Make today the best possible day.  Get as much done from my aspiration list done.  The enjoy some couple time.  

I wish everyone a peaceful and productive day.  

Five

 Yes, I have finally finished 5 projects.  Need I say more? Well yes   Four charity scarfs and a washcloth for myself. The great thing about teaching people new fiber arts skills is that I always get a new washcloth out of it.  

The Word of the Day is….

 I spent a lot of time doing the very hard work of what I call organizing/cleaning.  This means that while I am throwing away old magazines and papers ( 3 recycling bags full today ), I am also putting things away and filling bags for Bookman’s ( 2 bags today ).  I also dusted some shelves.  Put books away in the bookcases to fill up the space created by books going to Bookman’s.  Also organizing the current space to make better use of the space at hand.  

I have more empty space in some areas and more clutter in other areas. I matched up newly found patterns with the yarn for knitting.  I wish it was in my nature to be more organized, that way I would not have found duplicate books in different areas of the house.  

Honestly I can only do so much of this type of cleaning before I want to cry from exhaustion.  I do know that a lot of progress was made today, but enough is enough cleaning in one day.  I am too tired to spin any new yarn.  I an also to tired to read.  I may find a quiet place to knit. 

The word of the day is exhaustion.  

A Recovery Day

 Today we did a recovery day.  Yesterday afternoon we got our annual Covid19 vaccination. My arm did not hurt until this morning.  Yesterday I caked 5 skeins of yarn which helped with the soreness. It was a lot of work considering 1 skein had to be done twice.  

My body has almost recovered from my big yarn de stash. Now I am going to be taking smaller steps with the reorganization of the knitting room.  Also I am no longer going to be making mass quantities of dog pillows. I have other things that I would like to spend my energy on.  So if you have been saving scrap wool for me consider using your scraps to make your own dog pillows to drop off at the animal shelter. I can share my pattern with you. 

If you would consider getting your Covid19 shot and about 3 weeks later the flu vaccine it would help make us all healthier this winter.  

Zenning and More

 Even before breakfast I started cleaning and decluttering.   My goal was to add 5 books to the Bookman’s bag, I add 6.  Not on the agenda was gathering all my art yarn thread in one place.  That was sort of an organic happening. Now from three different places all my art yarn thread is in two boxes below my knitting table. I even have some empty cupboard space which is a bonus. My next goal was to get my sewing machine out. To do that I had to clean off first one table and organize and put everything away. Then I had to move stuff from my sewing table to my other sewing table or put it away. My sewing machine is now on the table, but not set up. That will wait until after lunch. Not bad for a cleaning spree with a pain level of eight out of 10.

I am very hyper this week.

 I am on a roll today. I managed to finish 2 scarfs and 1 washcloth today. 5 total projects this week.  I also cast on 2 new charity scarfs and a pair of mittens for myself.  

For some unknown reason just getting rid of 60% of my yarn and fiber stash made me more excited to start knitting again.  It has also set off a reorganizing the house binge too.  John is doing the very smart thing and staying out of my way unless I ask for help.  I am excited to see where this takes me beyond sore muscles and extreme fatigue.  

My pile so far this week.  Once the pictures are taken of each individual hand knit items with the exception of the washcloth, they are going into the charity bag for the drop off before Thanksgiving.  The earrings that are in the back of the picture are my own designs.