Stash Cleaning

Yesterday I spent time cleaning my desk up, which lead to reorganizing part of my yarn stash. Of course, in order to get the extra tub I wanted for my yarn, I had to clean up the Christmas light/ assorted light box. I made a little animation of the organization.

I had to move from three containers to four. One box for yarn remnants/half skeins, a box for all the animal hat yarn, a box for other full skeins of yarn, and the little folding basket now contains knitting in progress. It'll be pleasant looking for yarn and not having a whole mountain rain down on me.

Pedaling Along

Tour de Fleece is going well. My official goal for the tour is to improve my art yarn spinning abilities.

Day 7 and Day 9

My unofficial goal has been to spin a skein a day.

Day 6

Thus far, I have been able to fulfill both goals.

Day 8

I've been practicing my skills on scraps of wool from work so far.

Day 9

But I think I might almost be ready to move on to some colored wool. I've been saving it for when I felt ready. These are from Wild Hare. Left to right is Strawberry Sundae, Creamsicle, Milk and Honey, Irish Eyes, and Pacifica.

In other exciting news, I finally cleaned my room and improved my desk. Note the wool section.

Clouds and Cleaning

I got Cloud Yarn! The talented Moonrover made it.

I was convinced I could knock out a hat in the very same night that I abandoned the icarus shawl.

I did finish the hat in a night, but I hadn't counted on it being ugly. The yarn is so pretty. How could I have gone wrong. I let it sit in my knitting caddy for a few days before Katya came over and suggested I make a pillow case instead. The hat has since been frogged.

While I was ignoring the cloud yarn yesterday, I planned to clean the house. It has gotten a little gross (except for the bathroom oddly enough. There was a group cleaning effort on that one.) The day went something like this.

10:40: I hear the dog scratching the door. Usually means he wants to go out. But today was my sleep in day, so I ignore him.

10:45: I hear the back door opening. There is no way Brennan is getting a shower before me, so I leap out of bed and claim the bathroom.

11:30: I look at the sink and think that the dishes should be done sometime.

11:35: That sometime might as well be now.

11:50: The laundry needs to be sorted. I found a sock that I haven't seen in 2.5 months. I wonder how long the laundry sorting has been put off.

12:30: Coffee break.

1:00: Finish putting away the laundry and start cleaning up all the junk in my suitcase that has been lying on the floor since mid March.

1:30: Found some yarn I bought in December in a bag under the suitcase.

1:35: Looking for neat patterns to go with the yarn. There has to be a shawl that qualifies for 10 Shawls in 2010 that requires the limited amount of yarn I have.

1:40: Call Mum about who she thinks might like the shawl I want to make. Conversation veers off into how cute Scooter is.

2:40: Looking at fiber magazines that were in the suitcase. Wonder if Borders has this one magazine I'm looking for. The house still needs to be cleaned.

3:10: Walk the dog.

3:20: Walk to Borders.

3:30: Knitting magazine is not there so I walk over to the knitting books only to overhear some dummy 15-year-old insult knitting. I think about giving her an earful.

3:35: Decide against talking to the teenager as I do not have any of my knitting on. Do not wish for her to believe I am "all talk".

3:45: Tell Justin about the idiot teenager. He agrees. She is indeed an idiot teenager.

4:10: Eat lunch, watch America's most wanted.

4:20: Finish lunch, still watching America's Most Wanted. Decided that I should be productive and knit while watching. Print out Andreas Shawl. Finish weaving in ends for Mum's birthday scarf.

4:30: Looking for needles, start cleaning room.

4:40: Find a UFO (unfinished object) that I had been looking for in January.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between knitting and cleaning while looking for certain knitting notions. I stayed up rather late working on Andreas Shawl

Reason's this shawl is going to have serious problems in the near future:

1. I didn't swatch

2. I'm using a heavier weight yarn than the pattern calls for (I've resolved this somewhat by making the "small" shawl)

3. I don't have much yarn to begin with.

Reasons I cast on anyway:

The yarn is variegated. If I run out of yarn, it shouldn't matter what dye lot the yarn was from. Right?