How I pack to move.

Step one goes without saying: Find out I have less than a month to move.  Panic.

Step two: round up every WIP I've worked on in the last three months or so, and put them in a basket.  Do not attempt to move basket, or it will over flow all over the floor.  It will over flow about three times anyway.

Step three: round up all work yarn.  Worry that it isn't enough yarn.

Step four: decide that my WIP basket will clearly not be enough to keep me in projects until I get my stash back.   Since socks are a perfect on the go project, select about six balls of my favorite sock yarn.  Then decide that that's not enough and grab a couple balls of laceweight, just to be safe.  Put in a basket.  The stack leans against the pile in the  WIP basket, so it doesn't spill all over the floor.  Feel confident that this is definitely not too much yarn.

Step five: tape shut stash bins.  Panic.  Buy yarn.

Step six: realize that in Virginia they have clothes moths.  Panic again, because while the stash bins are reasonably beetle-proof, moths fly.  Apply more tape to stash bins.

Step seven: Pack all the clothes, toiletries, etc. we'll need while in transit.  This takes like three hours.  Obsess about yarn selections again.

Step eight: decide to participate in a CAL.  Realize the yarn I want for it is in a taped bin.  Attempt to open bin.  Realize that even if it is not moth proof, it is human proof.  Weep.

Step nine: get ready to load the car.  Realize that the whole towering piles in baskets thing is not going to work.  Throw everything into a giant rubbermaid bin.  Yarn bin ends up having to go in my dad's truck to get to my family's house, since the children have to fit in the car.

Step ten: arrive at family's house for Christmas.  Realize that I didn't pack my ballwinder and swift, yet have a giant number of skeins that need winding if I'm going to use them.  Panic some more.  Realize I'm at my mom's house.  Borrow her ballwinder and swift.

Step eleven: realize that I'm going to have to get all this stuff into my van.  Plus Christmas stuff.  Put all yarn in gallon size zip top bags.  Christmas yarn takes up two bags (my family clearly knows me).  Cram bags of yarn into small nooks and crannies around the suitcases.  Drive to Virginia.

Step twelve: moving truck arrives in Virginia.  Decide I need my stash and bring it to our temporary housing.  Requires two trips.

Time without stash: six weeks.

Unused yarn that I packed in the car: one less than half finished sweater, two balls lace weight, seven balls sock yarn, the Christmas yarn, two gallon bags of spinning fiber, and a (now broken) spindle.

Conclusion: I am either insane or think I knit/crochet a lot faster than I actually do.  Possibly both.

Ah, handspun...

How many yards do I have?  Heaven only knows.

So I love spinning.  I mean, seriously, I'm one of those crazy spinners that buys raw, unwashed fleece and processes it myself, by hand.  What I have a problem with is what on earth do I do with the resultant yarn.  A lot of it is in small skeins (hey, I get distracted easily), and it's difficult to know exactly how many yards of the stuff I have.  Thus, most of my handspun has been relegated to sitting in my stash.  But, I've been thinking about it, and have some ideas to use the lovely stuff.

• Scarves and shawls.  If it looks like you're going to run out of yarn, you can just make them smaller.
• Hats.  Don't take much yardage.
• For my high quantity handspun, start with a sweater vest in mind rather than a sweater.  If there's still yarn when you've got the body sewn up, do your sleeves two at a time.

So yeah, handspun!  Hopefully I'll be able to stash down a little bit with this strategy.

I hate sewing!

I admit it.  I HATE sewing.  Seaming knit or crochet projects is ok... but cutting out fabric?  Making stuff out of it?  Despise.  This annoys me intensely, as I went through a phase where I thought sewing was so cool, because you could make neat custom stuff and OMG LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTY FABRIC.  I never had much time for it, so I ended up with a fairly extensive fabric stash.  Now it haunts me, because I still want the things that I intended to make... I just don't want to make them any more.  I'm also very frugal (read: I hate spending money), and so I can't seem to justify to myself buying things when I have the stuff right in front of me to just MAKE them, making the item free as far as this month's budget is concerned.  On the other hand of course I would knit and crochet all day if I could.  Why do I do this to myself?  I have no idea.  But for whatever reason the half finished sewing projects are weighing on my conscious lately, so I guess I'll fire up the ol' sewing machine, if just to make them leave me alone.  And hey, who knows... maybe I just need to do MORE sewing, and I'll learn to like it, right?

Yeah, I doubt it too.  But hey, I'll have cool stuff.

Gratuitous stash flash

While I'm talking about All For Love of Yarn, I just had to pull out my stash of Angela-dyed fingering weight.  Mmmm.

Clockwise from the top, those are her Nogi, Soleful, Resplendence, and Opulence bases.  You've also seen her Lublu base... it's what I'm using for my erstwhile crochet socks.

Wait, why am I talking about this again?  Um... Opulence has cashmere in it?  Weekly theme?  I suppose I just felt the need to take pictures of pretty yarn.  I don't do that very often, as it cuts into the time I could be knitting/crocheting the pretty yarn.  But sometimes it's fun.

Design break

Due to poor planning on my part, I am taking a forced break from actively designing anything.  (Altho I do still have one pattern in testing.)  That is not necessarily a problem, because all of a sudden, it has gotten COLD.  Bitterly cold.  Mazillions of snow cold.  They don't plow our street cold.  Which, of course, means everybody needs warm woolies.  Only to have me realize that my kids are distinctly lacking in what I consider proper winter wear.  Which means that I had to turn these out in a day:

Of course, they turned out too big in spite of my best efforts, but hey, that just means they'll fit next year, too.  And then this hat out over a weekend:

 And this, my friends, is why I need a stash.  Stash wool has rescued my children from certain chilliness!

Repurposing

This is one of the things I do in my spare (hah!) time.

 

This is the first time in five years I've had the space to set it up!  But what's that?

Yup, high hat stands make a GREAT stand for coned yarns.  I pull the outside end, and it rotates nicely, giving me a smooth, tangle free working yarn.  Score one for clever!  This is some 100% cotton don't know what that I'm using to make bath mats for the kids' bathroom.  Go team cotton!

204 MOP buttons

It should be no secret, I suppose, that I really, really like buttons.  Generally speaking, I go for simple, classic buttons, the sort that integrate with the piece without distracting the eye.  But at the same time, I want to be able to say, "hey, that's a pretty button" when I look close.  So when I saw these beautiful mother of pearl buttons on eBay?  Sold.  I am now the proud owner of 102 half inch MOP buttons and 102 one inch MOP buttons.  I've avoided having a button stash this long, but I guess it couldn't last forever.