It's finished!

Yippee! I finished my Dusty Miller Cardigan! I don't care what anyone has to say about Red Heart Super Saver - it made a great crocheted sweater! I wanted a workhorse, and I got it. It's comfy, warm, and has beautiful stitch definition. Here she is!

I love crocheted sweaters. It's so fitting that March is National Crochet Month - I didn't even know that when the bug hit me in late February. Much to the dismay of Oblique, the crochet bug is not satisfied yet. I finished Dusty Miller, I'm nearly through the back of the Lady's Kanga Sweatshirt...



...and the estranged back of the Hooded Pullover from Weekend Retreat is quickly being transformed into Climbing Cables from More Crocheted Aran Sweaters.

You might notice that Climbing Cables is the same color as the Fisherman Sweater. Well, I really love that Fisherman Sweater pattern and I know I need that sweater, but I realized that I just haven't been crocheting my cable crossings loosely enough. I'm just not sure I can block the acrylic yarn out enough to make it work. When the Hooded Pullover has been obliterated, I'll continue with the yarn from the Fisherman Sweater. I trekked down to JoAnn yesterday for some more sale priced TLC Essentials and ended up with 5 skeins of Medium Thyme. I'm pretty sure it's destiny is the Fisherman Sweater. I'll make sure to crochet more loosely next time...and enlarge the pattern. The print is teeny and doesn't cut it for my weak 34-year-old cruddy eyes.

I also started the Pillow by Annette Petavy from CrochetMe. I'm using stash yarn exclusively for this. I thought at first that I would make this into a throw, but I like the colors and the patterns so much that I think I might just use this pattern to make several pillows for our couch. Everything in my family room is starting to look dark and character-less so this could be just the punch it needs. I also buckled down and finished Baby Genius Burp Cloth #2 from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I love how the solid color softens the effect of the variegated yarn.




On the home front, while the little buddy was extremely disappointed to miss his concert (he's still talking about it today), his fever finally broke sometime between Saturday and Sunday and he's better now. He had a rough day at school yesterday and cried a couple times about the concert, poor thing. I hope today goes better for him. His teachers decided to re-implement a feedback sheet for him. They hadn't been doing it this year but felt that it could give him the motivation he needs right now to get back on track.


For every stage of his day, he gets either a smiley face or sad face for the following categories: I said "ok", I used nice words, I was quiet, and I walked. The sheet from yesterday is kind of funny. The first stage of his day is reading and he got all sad faces for that, but everything else for the rest of the day has a smiley face. Mr. L. really likes to get smiley faces so I hope this continues to work. His teacher even commented that the afternoon went really well for him. Yay!


Time to get back to work. Miss A. is getting braces in a couple weeks (yippee, hoo ha, hooray) and has an appointment today for impressions and x-rays. It's a 40 minute appointment so I'll bring my crocheting. I'd love to bring Oblique, but I'm very near the sleeve cap and I don't want to have to mess with measuring while in the orthodontist office. Perhaps I'll start another burp cloth. That's mindless enough. Cast on at home, get through the first color change, then go go go!

The air is clear and so is my conscience!

Yarn conscience, that is. I don't have a huge stash, and I did already do one major stash airing, however the remaining yarn was grating on my mind. Today was the day and I bagged up or tossed most of what I didn't get rid of the first time around.

The spur in my backside is that my mom, my brother, Jamie, and his girlfriend, Yocasta, are coming to my house on Saturday to celebrate Christmas. He lives in the Bronx, New York, and he's only able to come into town for a few days. I'm trying the strategy of one area of the house at a time - and I started today with the formal living room and dining room.

To call it a formal living room is kind of a joke. There is a sofa, but I'm the only one who sits on it. My 100 year old Mason & Hamlin upright is there too. And my desk, or, the Armpit of the Room. I have a jar of buttons, a fork that a friend bent into a bug, a mug with pens, piles of work papers, a printer/fax machine, laptop, 4 boxes of contacts, and several mini DV tapes. Oh, and shhh, don't tell, but I also have Christmas gifts stashed inside the pullout front drawer. It's kind of a nightmare, but I did already clean it so that wasn't my focus.

The starting point was the corner between the piano and the wall. I have plastic tower of drawers that hold medical records, insurance documents, recipes and yarn. Next to the tower is a small cabinet that holds my piano music. On top of that is a large basket full of all my wool balls and scraps. On the floor around everything were boxes of phots (another project I haven't finished).

Once I knew what I was up against, I went out and got 3 of these cool new plastic containers that are designed to fit on wire shelving. I labeled one Feltable Wool, another Cotton and Cotton Blends, and Wool Blends. I have a plastic box under my bed already for the acrylic that I might still have a use for.

I don't know if anyone even takes yarn donations (of yarn that isn't brand new, I mean) around here, but I bagged up the Fun Fur, Lion Suede, Red Heart, Homespun, Bernat Babysoft, and some unlabeled novelty yarn put out by Walmart a couple years ago. Into the garbage bag went the remains of Mariah (a story for another day), the body parts of a bunny that was never finished, bits of projects that were started, then abandoned, and some really ugly Red Heart.

I also tossed loads of papers. Yay for me!

Now my plastic tower has room for all the music that didn't fit in the little cabinet and there is still room for some afghan squares that I crochet from time to time. The basket is empty and the whole corner looks neat and organized. I can even see the floor! The living room is totally done and I nearly got through the dining room.

My bins worked great! Luckily my stash isn't huge so it all fit just fine and now they're resting comfortably on my closet shelf. The bins are clear so I can quickly see what I have and now my memory is refreshed about what I actually have.

It's a good thing.

Airing of all things Stash...and a Shooting Star!!

I saw a shooting star! 4:40 a.m., clear black sky, and 36 degrees will do that, I s'pose. Sammy and I made our wishes and no, I'm not gonna tell you!

Speaking of 36 degrees, it must be the cool crisp air of a Minnesota October that gets me in the mood to air all things Stash, yarn or otherwise. I don't get into spring cleaning half as much as I get into fall cleaning. Realizing that the house is going to be shut up for the next 6 months will do that, I s'pose.

The airing of the yarn stash happened last Friday. Though I've been a knitter/crocheter for many years, I've been cheap for my entire life and until recently had a hard time purchasing anything other than Red Heart Super Saver. Then a couple of years ago when I bought a Knifty Knitter, I also bought a lot of novelty yarn (have I ever mentioned the Scarf/Hat Extravaganza of 2005?) I pulled out my underbed plastic boxes and found a horrendously large number of hideous partial balls of acrylic and glittery disgusting boucle/furry novelty yarns.

I have no plans to partake in another Scarf/Hat Extravaganza and I know no one, charity cases included, who would benefit from a scratchy acrylic hat that turns into a wet snowball come December. There are better acrylics out there and heck, there are inexpensive wool blends - so what was stopping me?

Nothing! I went through all the boxes, consolidated what I wanted and tossed what I never planned to touch again. This led to the cleaning of my closet (shudder) and the decision to frog Breezy Cables . I had a little heart palpitation there...but I think it's something that has to be done. The back is done, one front side is almost done, and one sleeve is about a third done, but I really have a hard time thinking I'll ever get back into it. Firstly, it's acrylic (TLC Essentials). Secondly, it's robin's egg blue acrylic. After having knit a few things with 100% merino, I look at this project and frown. It's just not working. There, I've said it. I took the remaining two new balls and cast on for the Uma Sweater from The Natural Knitter and I'll use those up before I commence frogging. I'm sure I'll be ready by then. Talk about going from one extreme to the other: all over cables and box stitch to garter stitch. Couldn't we all use a little truly mindless knitting?

Back to airing. Stash airing led to closet cleaning, which led to bedroom and hallway cleaning. Then I had to look at the guest room that my darling Ben has turned into Star Wars Playstation Annihilation Central - sprinkled with plastic faceted beads and puzzle pieces with a few outgrown clothes thrown in - so I hit that one too. I vacuumed the stairs even! Downstairs wasn't nearly as bad, just had to remove the top layer of Golden Retriever fur and everything looked bright and shiny again.

Another stash I set out to air yesterday was my plastic food storage container and bakeware collection. We all have them, don't try to hide cuz I can see you - you right there behind the cooling racks! My plastics reside in a black hole-like upper corner cabinet, are never nested properly by other members of my household, and invariably go on the attack whenever the cupboard is opened. My bakeware is much the same except it lives in my island. I emptied both cupboard and island, wiped down the insides, and tossed everything that I hadn't touched in the last week. That might seem extreme, but I was nearing mutinous levels of take n' toss plastic containers, gallon ice cream bucket lids (where the heck did the buckets go?), and one cake pan with the nonstick coating flaking off. I don't need that in my life, so I tossed it all! Now I have at least two bright and shiny cabinets! The spice cabinet is whispering it's taunts...

Fruit flies led to my thorough disinfection of the entire kitchen (I told Tony not to buy the bananas!) which wasn't complete until I'd baking soda and vinegar'd the drains. Bleeeeaaaahhh! All better now.

My infernal job has been getting in the way of my knitting...silly office had to go and move...AGAIN...so I'm stuck with the job of changing every phone number and address everywhere it occurs in documents, database, and on the website. Icky. I needed a break, hence this post.

Now I'd better get back to it. There's no preschool today, thus no reason to leave the house, so I'd better be able to get in some knitting time. That is if the 6 baskets of clean laundry waiting to be folded would SHUT UP ALREADY!!!