Just Wow

 Despite a very bad body day, I got a tremendous amount of things done today.  I started off the day at 3 am in crying pain with tears running down my cheeks.  Not the way I prefer to wake up any day.  I took aspirin at 3:30 am with a very eclectic breakfast. Followed by my first nap once the aspirin kicked in.  Then it was up again at 6 am, I was really stiff and had to move , so I started 2 loads of laundry. Then took my second nap of the day.  

I managed to put a few things away.  I organized things in 5 minute chunks followed by resting.  It’s amazing how much I can get done in 5 minutes. Hang a load of laundry. Open an Amazon box and put things away.  Bring stuff from one end of the house to the other end. 

I did do quite a bit of craft hopping today. I plyed 2 skeins of yarn. Then put them up in skeins to get the bobbins back.  Spun 1 1/2 bobbins of yarn.  Added a few more inches to a knitted scarf. Also worked on a Tunisian Crochet baby blanket.  Hopefully it will be finished before the baby arrives.  

My biggest accomplishment of the day was cooking and cleaning up dinner with very little help.  I have not been able to do that since mid February when I got sick.  It was wonderful.  

Just so you know that some things don’t change.  I left a load of dry laundry in the dryer to be folded later.  The laundry might just freak out if I fold it too soon.  

Priorities

 It has just occurred to me that when I spend my day shopping, doing laundry and Zenning the house I just don’t have the spoons left to knit, or crochet more than one row or do about 3 inches of weaving on a scarf.  I have really got to finish the Zenning of the house so I can play with yarn most of the day.  I really have to get my priorities straight.  

I have also figured out for the umpteenth time that the greater my pain level the less I want to move.  When the aspirin kicks in I am ready to go again. 

More stuff has to leave the house.  I am currently looking at book shelves thinking I need to go through them while also thinking it’s bed time.  It can wait a day or two.  

Thanksgiving

 We are back home after a brief visit with our daughter and son-in-law for Thanksgiving.  We had a delicious and delightful dinner with my son-in-laws extended family.  Many did not recognize me after a 50 pound weight loss and a few years between seeing them again.  

Speaking of weight loss. I am now in another smaller size. Right now my body is going through a let’s lose inches phase before the next round of weight loss.  I just can’t seem to lose inches and weight at the same time.  

I started unpacking and had had an early breakfast.  Right now I can’t decide whether to take a nap or finish unpacking and start the laundry. I also have to go shopping to restock fruits and vegetables.  Now that my tummy is full a nap seems more prudent right now.  

TTFN

Happy Holidays

 Wishing everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving today a wonderful day.  Just don’t over indulge. Take a break and take a walk to, weather permitting.  

The Amazing Shawl

 As you know, I have been doing a huge deep cleaning all over the house.  Currently I am working on the knitting room. I also store all my shawls in there too. So today’s project is to start going through all my shawls. I am happy to report that one of my favorite traveling shawls has grown over the winter. 

When I first bought this shawl it was just big enough to go around my shoulders. Over the last several years it has grown big enough to be used as a blanket.  I am definitely keeping this shawl. I am also going to have to plan a trip somewhere so that I can use my new traveling blanket/shawl. 

By the way this makes me very happy. Now to choose where to go. 

All Wound Up

 In preparation for my next doodling project, the first in Tunisian Crochet. I caked 24 mini skeins and one full skein from an advent yarn collection that I lost the pattern to.  To supplement the color palette I also caked up 3 more skeins from another yarn set that as you probably have already guessed, I have lost the pattern to.  

I am going to be following the sizing of my Count 1-2-3-4 pattern on Ravelry.  Not necessarily the pattern.  Mostly it’s going to be playing with colors and the Tunisian Simple Stitch. Since there will be 27 different color ways in play with a neutral color for the broader. There will also be only one stitch through out because of all the color changes.  They will alternate light and dark. 

Let the fun begin.  

Sleep

 Hopefully I will sleep well tonight. I got over 10,000 steps today.  Yes, I was very busy today.  

I Won the Trifecta

 No not the one where you win actual prizes.  I won the carrot trifecta.  I bought and ate carrots from 3 stores in my area.  This is before my wonderful daughter let me know about the carrot recall today.  

My body has been really weird the last week.  After I threw out all the carrots that were left.  Yes I ate a little over a pound.  What can I say I love carrots.  I went to look up the symptoms of E. coli.  Yes, it explained all my weird symptoms this week.  Down to the last detail.  

I am in recovery mode, yet again this year.   

Now here is my pitch to get rid of corporate farms.  We need to go back to smaller family run farms.  All I know is the more consolidated the food industry becomes, the more food recalls we have.  Can someone run a test on my hypothesis?  Pretty please with sugar on top.  

An Editorial

 Let’s face it. This has been a very rough election cycle.  A whole lot of us did not get what we were hoping for.  While the inflation numbers are down that does not mean prices are going down.  Unhinged craziness still abounds.  I know that I feel very unsettled.  A lot of people on social media and in my community are feeling the same way. That is why we must go back to some of our countries founding values.  

This country was not founded on 10 multi billionaires or hedge fund’s who own most of the world’s wealth.  It was founded by people like my dad. An immigrant to this country who ran a small family business.  It covered our families expenses and an employee or two. He paid taxes. He gave back to the community.  In essence he was living the American dream.  Don’t get me wrong the hours were very long at times. Money was tight at times and he bartered for his services.  Yes, he paid taxes on those bartered services.  We were like a lot of families in my youth.  Fellow community members supporting each other.  

During this time of uncertainty we must go back to those values.  We must support each other.  I am personally recommending that this holiday season we cut back on creating more personal debt.  That we avoid the crowded malls. We instead go to all our neighbors who run family businesses.  We support them and their families so they can pass the business to their children.  This Black Friday let’s make it about putting small businesses in the black.  Followed by Small Business Saturday where we continue the buying spree so that they have a lot less inventory to count at the end of the year.

  This will also give them more money to add some fresh inventory.  Right now a lot of small businesses are picking and choosing which items to restock. They can’t afford to order everything that they need all at once. This is causing all kinds of stress. 

If all of us that can afford to shop just spend $50.00 a month at our favorite family owned businesses this year and into next year it would go a long way in helping our country right itself.  

You can double your impact in other ways too.  Say for instance that you love to knit, but don’t have anyone to knit for.  Just go to your local family owned yarn store and buy some washable yarn.  Make your favorite hats, scarfs or sweaters. Bring them back to the yarn store next month. They have people and charities that they work with in your community.  Then buy more yarn and repeat this process monthly.  This will help keep this small business afloat.  This will also give much needed warm clothing to people in your community who can’t afford to buy warm clothing.  This will bring you the joy and relaxation of knitting. This is a win on so many levels.  

We are in this together.  We have two choices.  The first choice is to whine and stick our heads in the sand hoping everything will fix itself.  I really don’t recommend this approach. 

 The second is supporting each other. Making life better in our communities.  Doing small things that will add up to bigger things.  Become as active in your communities as you feel comfortable with. No more.  No less. Educated your neighbors on the issues you care about.  Be there for each other. Support the under served and those at high risk in a way you feel comfortable.  Most importantly be kind to each other.  Open doors for moms with strollers.  Say hi to each other.  Be kind to service workers.  As long as we have each other’s backs, we have got this.  

New pattern coming

 I have crocheted the new pattern enough times to feel very comfortable with it.  Now I am moving to the new expensive yarn and will keep copious amounts of notes and pictures.  

Number 10

 I have finally finished my 10th charity scarf for the year.  The picture is below.  

In other news, I think I have accidentally designed my next pattern.  I will make it a couple of more times in different weight yarns and different fibers.  Also in different color schemes.  I know it sounds really weird to accidentally design a pattern. I find it no less weird than waking up and scribbling down a new design.  

TTFN.  It has been a very long day.  I am extremely tired.  

Cleaning Out the Closet for Winter

 I took a break from reorganizing the knitting room to try on winter clothes. Twice a year I tend to see what fits or is too worn out to last another season.  Today 9 shirts were too big. The body length of the shirts were not the problem. The shirts had gotten so big that the sleeves were 2 to 4 inches too long. Apparently folding my sleeves up to mid forearm or elbow is not a fashion thing. So the rule of thumb was if my hands can’t be seen the shirt must go. The were all nice shirts so they will be going to Goodwill on our next charity run.  The funny thing about this was most of the shirts were black.  Usually it’s the lighter colors that have gone in the past.  

Before we headed out to lunch we stopped by J.Jills for their sale.  I replaced a few of the shirts and some of my pants.  The funny thing about it was that except for some pants, nothing was black.  Did I mention that everything I got was on sale. Also everything was smaller. I noticed that an extra large petite is equivalent to a large in the regular size clothing, just shorter. This is just in case you were curious.  

I might not have lost as much weight this year as last year, but the inches seem to be catching up with the weight loss. It seems that in the moment of the weight loss inches do not come off. In the moment of inches lost does not mean that the scale is moving.  I will take the inches lost as part of the process. 

At lunch I found that I really hated the jalapeño pepper hummus.  It was a definite not ever going to eat that awful stuff again.  I am usually a big hummus fan and will try different add ins.  But this being Tucson and snowbird season weird stuff like the jalapeño pepper hummus land on the menu for the snowbirds. You will not find odd combinations on the menu in the middle of summer.  

In the knitting room I matched patterns with bags of yarn to set up more projects that need to be completed.  I also realized that I need to take everything out of the rolling cart and reorganize the entire cart.  That will wait until next week.  

It’s getting late do TTFN.  

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.  

On The Fifth Day

 Today is day 5 in a row of my massive fiber and yarn de stashing binge. Thank goodness it is the last day of going through every single fiber in the house.  Today was spinning fiber of which there is a whole lot less. Just about a closet full.  It took all morning.  I even found some yarn that needed to leave the house with the yarn mixed in with the fluff. 

I managed to fill a massive shipping bag full of roving that I will never spin because I just don’t like the colors.  I am also a better artist than a sales person.  This is why I am sending this huge bag to a person who is an artist and a great sales person.  

In going through all the fluff, I found one storage bag that was falling apart.  So the fluff got moved to other storage bags.  All the remaining fluff has been put away.  There is a lot more room in the closet including a 2 foot wide section on the top shelf.  2 containers were also freed up.  One went for yarn storage and the other went into art yarn supplies.  

I am officially too tired to move. My legs and back hurt.  My Fitbit gave me 59 minutes of in zone exercise.  So instead of mailing the fluff today, I will spend the afternoon resting.  Along with some Tunisian crochet or knitting.  I feel pretty good about all the work I have done in the past 5 days.  By the way the yarn that left the house this morning filled 1/2 of the back of a friend’s pickup truck.  Not a bad effort.  

Now is the hard part organizing my work spaces.  That is definitely for another day. 

This is a picture of the bag of fluff leaving the house.  I double bagged it, just because the bag is so thin. 

25 Years of Yarn

 I have just finished a massive 9 month project. 

I learned to knit when I turned 40. I thought that it was going to be good for 5 years of learning new things.  I am one of those people who need to constantly learn new things and techniques.  Even reading science journal articles. However; knitting turned into a rabbit hole for me.  First I learned to knit.  I was learning new things weekly in the beginning. I met great friends and developed friendships.  

I met Kathy Withers who was a great influence in my fiber art life. Kathy taught me spin on a drop spindle.  That lead to a whole new world.  More things to learn.  I learned all about fiber animals. I also learned that the younger the fiber animals the softer the fiber will be.  I learned the difference between different types of shepherds and the different philosophies about the animals.  What a carder was and how I could make one of a kind batts. That would in turn make one of a kind yarns.  Even though I don’t dye my own fiber I learned that when fiber is being dyed it’s best not to touch it or push the fiber under the dye. This will result in felted fiber which is very hard to spin. Kathy also taught me about weaving and the concept of neuro felting, although I was much too busy with family issues to take the time to learn. 

Another important influence in my knitting and fiber life is Vicky Konecky the Grandma of Grandma’s Spinning Wheel in Tucson. I started going to Grandma’s Spinning Wheel when Kathy moved her farm lock, stock and barrel to the east coast.  I have learned so much from Vicky and the various staff members and customers over the years.  I learned to spin on a spinning wheel and weave on a ridged heddle loom.  I learned about industry standards of yarns.  I was introduced to other fibers. I especially like the BFL, camel, silk and flax. I have determined that there are very few fibers that I dislike. It is always a comfortable place to sit and knit.  New yarn and fiber show up all the time. 

This is where I was at the beginning of the year.  I had yarn problems.  I had yarn beyond my life expectancy.  I had yarn hidden and in plain sight from one end of the house to the other.  In the garage the yarn was stacked in bins from floor to ceiling in big bins.  It was very overwhelming to me.  It was a creative anchor.  In the beginning of the year I gave yarn to friends and people across the country who could not afford to buy yarn. When they became overwhelmed I felt the anchor grip me tighter.  Then at the Old Pueblo Knitting Guild meeting it was suggested that we donate our excess yarn to the guild to raise money to cover expenses.  It was a big aha moment for me.  I started off in the house going through everything and found 4 kitchen size trash bags full of yarn to go.  Then I moved to the garage.  I limited myself to no more than 5 bins a day to go through.  The bags of yarn started to pile up.  So John moved them behind the couch.  I kept going.  Today I went through the last box in the garage.  I also looked at all my usual hiding places.  I filled another couple of bags.  

This picture is from the garage after I finished today.  Look at all those bins that John can use in the storage room.  We have give some empty bins this year too. This is so he can see inside every single box.  The bottom picture are the bags of yarn leaving the house tomorrow.  The boxes on the left are the only boxes of fiber left in the garage.  A little bit of fiber that needs to be carded and almost all my Sugar n Cream yarn.  I am sorry I don’t have a before picture, but imagine the boxes on the right with 2 more boxes on top, all the way across.  That is an awful lot of yarn that has left the house this year.  I feel lighter.  I feel more creative.  I hope this will give me more energy to create.  Most of all I am really sore from sorting through all the yarn.  My hands are really dry too.  It will take a couple of days of lotion for my hands to recover. The entire family is also happy.  What more could I ask for?  

The Good News

 It was 107f today so I spent it going through more yarn boxes.  More yarn is leaving than staying.  I only have 7 more boxes to go through this weekend. I have more shelves to purge too. If it sounds like a seek and de clutter mission, you are absolutely correct.  

My pile of to go yarn was getting too overwhelming for me to look at until it is gone.  So John decided to hide the bags behind the couch where I can’t see them. He even carried most of the bags out for me.  As you can see from the picture below, which does not include all the bags there was a fairly large pile of bags.  

The even better news is that I found a couple of projects that I want to knit for myself. That will have to wait a few days right now I am using all my spoons cleaning and de cluttering the house. It has literally taken me 25 years to accumulate this much yarn so spending a week to purge a lot of what I don’t need anymore will take a few days more. Then it will be time to reorganize the areas that were cleaned out. Alas, I am getting ahead of myself. I need to finish one task before I start the next task. No cutting corners here. 

All of this yarn and more will be available for sale at the Old Pueblo Knitting Guild fundraiser in January. The details will follow.  If you are nearby or a couple of hour’s drive from Tucson this will be a great opportunity to add to your stash.  

Stash Beyond Lifetime Expectancy

 Do we really need a stash of yarn, fabric, jewelry, making supplies or any other supplies for our crafts that will last longer than we are expected to live? I have found that I don’t. I have lost count of the number of times that I have done de stashes this year. Each time sending yarn or fabric out to different people and charities. I am in the middle of another de stash that will take me several days to finish. I am going through every single box and project bag. I am currently at the end of day two And I have almost  Six kitchen trash bags full of yarn. I also know that I said that I would donate 4 bags of yarn.  I really hope they take all of my de stash. I know this is all going to a good cause. Our knitting Guild in Tucson is having a stash sale in January so I decided it was time to pair down my yarn stash again.

How many shawls, sweaters, pairs of socks or any other items do we really need in our closet? How many quilts can you put on one bed? How many pairs of earrings can you wear at once?  How much is too much? I want to preface this by saying if the items are going to charity please feel free to ignore this post. Do keep in mind that you need to make a very high-quality project because the recipients do not have the funds to replace them. If you would not give an item to your child or wear it yourself, you should probably not be giving it to other people.

Who started this whole idea that we need to fill every single nook and corner in our houses with crafting supplies? That we need to fill the garage or rent a storage space for all the supplies? How much can you realistically create in a given year.  Is it really necessary to buy supplies that we only marginally like because it’s a good price? Even if  the craft item is at a good price would we use it? If we just buy what we need and use on a regular basis we would not have a space problem. We might even have a few extra dollars to go out to lunch with friends. Perhaps actually take a weekend away or do a fun activity with our families. Have moremoney for retirement.  Perhaps even have more time to create.

This would also eliminate the clutter problem which does stifle creativity.  Clutter can in my case cause an under current of anxiety. The less clutter means that I will not risk misplacing an item I really want to make and use. I found 4 misplaced projects today.  

Also what happens to this incredible collection that you have amassed? Will your family know what to do with it? Will the resort to filling up baskets with crafting supplies and give them away at your services? Will it land up in the landfill? Will it overwhelm your local charity when your family calls them to pick everything up?  

After 40 years of trying to collect a stash of crafting supplies that will last beyond my lifetime, I have said enough is enough.  I am going through everything that is currently in residence in various parts of my home.  I am only keeping a very carefully created and curated collection of supplies.  

The reality is that I don’t have the spoons to start a small business to sell everything that I don’t need to keep or send to charity.  This has not been a stellar year for my health.  Even in the last 24 hours my body and I are not exactly on speaking terms. I am hopeful that by giving away most of my stash that it will help relieve my stress.  Don’t worry, some of it is staying.  I will have enough to keep me busy for a few years still. Also, guess what? If I run out of supplies, I know where to go and get more.  If I find something that I truly love, I will still probably buy it.  

What I will not have is crafting supplies from one end of the house to the other end.  John will have most of the garage back.  I am saying this because I still reserve the right to keep the clothes line and my car in the garage. I am going with the concept that less will be more.  Will you join me in this endeavor?   Let me know. 

Making a Big Mess

 I find it simply amazing how much mess that I can make when I go about decluttering and reorganizing the house.  Today I tackled my yarn beyond life expectancy problem.  I know you have read it here many times before.  This time even though I have less yarn, I plan on cutting my stash of yarn by another 25 to 50 percent.  

Today was the start of the project.  I spent the entire afternoon doing this.  I filled 4 kitchen trash bags full of yarn. Back when I could knit up to 20 hours a day, that would have taken me 4 months to knit.  I knit much slower now and a maximum of 2 hours a day, less if my hands are tired. So any yarn  that wanted a U.S. size 1 or 2 knitting needle I did not give a second thought to.  My over abundance of hand spun yarn 50% is gone.  Most of the fingering weight yarn is gone too.  Projects that I did not want to knit, I kept the bags but the yarn is gone.  Even if I loved the yarn and color and texture, it was gone too. 

I only have 2 more bags in the sewing room to go through.  Then it’s the garage.  My goal is not to have any more boxes of yarn in front of John’s car.  I have a very sizable collection of empty storage bags and 3 boxes.  At least 2 of the boxes will be holding more yarn.  

Did I mention that I found a lot of silk yarn that I can use to make art yarn? I found misplaced projects that I knew I bought and have wanted to knit up.  I threw away a basket that was falling apart. I found a new home or a place of residence for the things in the basket. So all in all it was a very productive afternoon.  I have bits and pieces of more room. 

Just don’t go into the knitting or sewing room right now.  They are still a mess.  I have a small pile of yarn to cake up and put in the scarf box.  Yes, I have a box of yarn for scarfs and hats too do I just have to reach in and grab a skein for my next project. I have a new box for my spinning accessories, crochet hooks and Tunisian crochet hooks too. The box that held those things is now full of yarn. A much better use for a big drawer. 

By the way the yarn will be going to the Old Pueblo Knitting Guild for the big yarn sale.  Hopefully my decluttering efforts will help the guild balance the budget.  I will give out the date and place as it gets closer.  

A little peek at the empty bags and the 4 bags full of yarn.  

 

Finding Balance

 Today I think I found balance between cleaning, organizing, shopping and resting   Yes, today did include a 2 1/2 hour nap.  Trips to 3 different stores and I got everything I needed for the up coming task’s for the rest of the week. 

I finished my first Tunisian Crocheted Scarf.  I did not use a pattern for the scarf.  I just did 15 stitches across and the basic Tunisian stitch for the entire scarf. I found a bright cheerful verigated yellow and orange color way to offset the dark brown for the edges. It is the perfect size for a younger child. It was too late to take a picture tonight. So you can see it tomorrow. Yes I had one skein of the yarn left and I started a second scarf tonight. I am teaching some friends next week and we will start with a washcloth.  

Now that I have recovered from the latest surgery and the multiple year sinus infection I seem to have a lot more energy.  I also have the need to create.  I am finishing projects as fast as I can.  I am also into organizing things beyond Recognition.  I even have a Dedicated drawer for small spinning items, crochet, and Tunisian crochet hooks, and Miscellaneous knitting items.  Maybe when I’m done I will take a few pictures. Although that is not guaranteed.

Now that my scarf yarn drawer is almost empty, I will have John pull down a box so I can add more yarn for charity projects.  I like to just pull out a dozen or so projects at a time from my stash.  I will also be knitting about 4 pairs of mittens for me.  I lost most of my mittens to the overwhelming scent of the hand lotion fiasco last winter.  The scent of the lotion would  not wash out of the yarn.  I even tried Dawn which I use on raw fleece. After 3 unsuccessful tries, I just threw them out.  

TTFN. My aspirational list for tomorrow as long..

The Boomerang Effect

 I have to admit it has been a very hard year for me.  I need to learn to reset my days activities and plan accordingly. To use my spoons more wisely. Wednesday and Thursday I really over did it.  Today was my wake up call. I have been sore and tired all day.  I have to remember that I am not 30 anymore.  I bounce back much slower.  

That being said, I still have a hard time sitting still.  I like to give the energizer bunny, a run for his money.  I am starting to think this is currently not a good plan. I will have to build back up to that level. It took me months to get out of shape. It will take time  to get back in shape and I am not a very big fan of being patient.  

To that end I picked out a small multi day project to start today.  I made very good progress. Tomorrow I will buy some supplies to finish the job. It should be done by Monday or maybe not. Only time will tell.  

My aspirational list

 This morning I was tired of the endless to do list that I have been making for decades. I also have been failing to complete them most days which I find quite discouraging.  So today it became my aspirational list. These are the things that I aspire to do during the day. If I don’t get everything done oh well, no harm done. I did manage to complete 80% of my aspirational list today which made me feel pretty good. My dad always said it’s not what you say, but how you say it that matters.  Words do make a difference. Now I just have to get rid of all the list that say to do, and convince people to make aspirational lists instead. 

I was very busy for most of the day. I can’t remember a day recently that I did six full loads of laundry since the end of 2019.  Now to be truthful, two of them were hand wash. But that’s still six loads of laundry. Except for the clothes drying on the clothesline everything is put away too. I haven’t done that in a long time.

I even found time to knit and spin today.  I also managed to get in 10 minutes of Zenning by partly cleaning out a drawer and filling a trash can halfway.  Plus get over 6000 steps just by cleaning house today. So all in all it was a busy day and I’m really tired. I haven’t done this much work since at least the beginning of February so I’d say I’m well on the road to recovery.

TTFN

A Very Geeky Day

 Today was one of those incredible geeky days for me.  I figured out that if I went over international yarn standards and deviations in my head it would relax me enough to fall asleep.  Things like how many knots are actually allowed in a standard ball of yarn.  The answer is 3.  If you would like no knots in your yarn I would suggest using an independent yarn dyer because even though you pay more, you generally do not get knots in your skeins of yarn.  The knots in yarn are actually what helps keep mass market yarns on the less expensive side. Say $3 to 10 USD versus $25 dollars or more for a small batch skein.  Yes, you get what you pay for.  Yes, there is a large place in the market for mass market skeins.  Think beginning knitters or crocheters. Young kids art projects.  Charity projects.  Table decorations etc….

The day did get even more geeky, yes that is possible.  At knitting guild I explained that each country had its own yarn standards that are different from the international standards.   I did not go into details, but basically before mass yarn manufacturers. There are currently 5 that dominate the world market. All yarn was manufactured in each individual country. Weights and needle sizes were most likely determined by local weather conditions.  Thus an Aran weight yarn could be different in different countries.  Thicker in colder climates and thinner in warmer climates.  That account for the variation of size on knitting needles with the same numbers but the millimeters are different. The current yarn standards make international shopping much easier with numbers for the weight. Each yarn distributor can then label to their country standard. 

The last geeky event of the day was a knitting in public kind of thing.  I was working on a right handed knitting project. The comment made was I don’t knit like that.  With a little discussion I figured out she was a left handed knitter. So I put the project I was working on down. I picked up a left handed knitting project and started knitting left handed. Yes, that is how she knit. A person across the table looked at me and was probably wondering what kind of person brings both left and right handed knitting projects. Also how does she keep track or could use both hands to do the same thing a different way.  After all aren’t all people either right or left handed?  The simple answer is a definite no.  So of us are lucky enough to be able to use our hands interchangeably.  They call that being ambidextrous.  I am sure it bothers a lot of people, even my own family.  I have been know to switch hands in the middle of something as mundane as a meal.  It came in handy when the kids were younger.  I would feed them with my right hand and myself with my left hand.  It did make meals go faster. Also I made special stitch markers for just that reason. I made L and R stitch markers.  Each project is marked.  You would want to ask my friend Louise why that is necessary.  

I hope your day was less geeky.  

A Very Busy Day

After an early morning doctor’s appointment, where everything was fine and healed nicely. There is also no visible sign of infection or inflammation. My sinuses are finally working again.  I am very happy with that.  

I accomplished knitting and grocery shopping today after my doctor’s appointment.  I finished hat number 7 for the year. Then of course started hat number 8.  I did not want the stitch markers getting lonely.  After lunch it was nap time.  

Also the clouds got in the way of the lunar eclipse tonight.  Not many good pictures.  I did do some spinning while watching the eclipse tonight.  I can spin in semi darkness.  That is my new superpower. 

Things For Sale

 In an effort to de stash some more things around the house I am making a foray into eBay and Etsy.  Today I started with listing 5 things on eBay.  Things like collector issues of knitting magazines like Vouge Knitting  20th anniversary of the European magazine and 1st issues of magazines.  These are things that local resellers will not take.  So here is your chance to help me de clutter my knitting room and keep things out of the landfill.  While getting an out of print issue of a magazine  

I will continue with magazines and books on eBay.  Then my curated knitting kits with my patterns, hand spun yarn and stitch markers on Etsy. I will put the highlights on my blog post and the usual social media sites.  I also have a bespoke shawl that is going to be listed on Etsy.  I made it a little too large for my current size.  

So keep an eye out for what I have listed.  

Spinning.

 I think that I have finally gotten rid of the sinus infection that lasted over a year and caused so much grief in our lives.  It feels wonderful not to be in pain all the time.  I am slowly getting my energy back.

  Today I worked on a spinning project for me.  It will be a shawl. I think I finally got the knack of plying on my e-spinner. I just thought what do I do on my wheels.  It worked.  The 3 skeins on top are from today.  The red is the next spin.  Each bag is its own spin.  I only open one bag at a time.  I am plying it with a llama and silk blend yarn.  This is truly going to be a bespoke project.