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?