Organizing the Stash

On Monday, I accomplished quite a bit of organizing. For a while, now, my yarn stash has been getting more and more out of hand. So, along comes a day off from work and I have time to get busy with it! I started by finishing some mending that had been taking over my ironing board. (I wanted to use the ironing board for my organizing project as it is a great, adjustable "table" for sorting small items.) I put the zipper in the sweater that I made my dh for Christmas and then fixed the hem in a pair of pants and sewed on some buttons. At that point, I felt like continuing down through the pile, and working on some sewing projects that have all been started but are in various states of being unfinished. There is a jacket that I only need to hem, add a button & button hole and sew the sleeves on. There is a pair of pants that I have sewn the front and back darts, but nothing else and a shirt that has only been cut out, as well as a piece of fabric for a dress that has only been washed.
However, I didn’t. I stuck to my original plan of organization. I pulled most of the yarn out of the closet and started to decide what to keep, sell, or give away. At the one-third of the way done point, I decided that I could no longer ignore the lovely weather and went out for a walk/jog. After arriving home, I worked on it a little more, until I needed to get ready to meet my mom and sister. After a fun day out, I came home, made dinner and then went out to get some ink for the printer and some storage bags for it all. Once home, again, I went to work. I bagged all of my cotton leftovers together and put all the wool into one pile to be sorted further. Anything that I had enough for a sweater, I put back in the Rubbermaid tote that I use for storing yarn. Any that there was not enough, I either put it in its own bag or with some other yarn that was of similar content. There were 2 different yarns that I purchased to knit a sweater and ended up having 1/3 of the yarn left over. How do I over estimate so much? Well, that’s a question for another entry…After all of this pooling, sorting and bagging, I filled a regular sized paper shopping bag with the bags of yarn that I don’t have a plan for or were ones that I don’t want to keep. I plan to take these with me on the knitting retreat in February so they can be sold in the silent auction. I still need to write up the listings, but those can be done a little at a time in the evenings until I go.

Contest

I am looking for a little help, here:
When I go to Silver Falls for the knitting retreat, I am supposed to bring a couple of items for a Show and Tell. I am having a difficult time deciding what to take. Yes, I know that it is almost a month away, but I love to plan well in advance. In fact, the planning is part of what makes the fun of the weekend start sooner. I have already been working on what to take the Silent Auction that they have each year. I’ll probably take with me much of what is on my Trade or Sell page on Ravelry. I’d love to sell the balls of yarn that aren’t enough to make a larger project. I might even sell enough to be able to buy a larger lot of one yarn for sweater knitting! :) Well, back to the issue at hand…Please, help me out by going to my projects page on Ravelry and choosing your favorite finished project. If you leave me a comment on this post, I’ll draw a name for a special knitter’s package, on Monday, January 26th. That gives everyone a week to comment. I will pay the shipping to anywhere in the US only. (If you enter and are from outside the US, you would need to pay the difference between domestic and international shipping.)

Knitting Retreat

I’ve made so many plans for things to do, this week. First, I decided to go to Portland. Then, I registered for a knitting class. Now, I’ve decided to go to a knitting retreat in Oregon during President’s Day weekend. It was such a deal that I couldn’t pass it up. Usually, I always like to make sure that I know someone who is going, before I sign up for things. However, two of the three events, I will be going alone. I surprised myself with that. For the trip to Portland, I did make sure that my best knitting pal is going, before signing up, but for the other two events, I didn’t. I let her know when I signed up for the class, hoping she might do the same, but I didn’t wait for her. Then, when I asked for information on the retreat, I was told that there was only one spot left and still signed up! I am very excited for each of the events and am really looking forward to each one. For the retreat, I have even asked for a carpool partner, a person I’ve never met. Normally, this would make me a little anxious, and it still may, but I’m not worried as of right now! :)

A Lovely, Long Weekend

This weekend I went to Lake Retreat, in Kanaskat, WA, with a group of friends form church. Saturday was lovely. Oft and on, there was SUN! The camp is on the west side of the lake and most of the benches face the lake. So, when I was trying to find a sunny place to sit outside and knit, most of the benches put the sun at my back. However, I did finally manage to find one that let me sit with my face to the sun. It was a great half hour, or so before the wind picked up and I went inside to warm up.

I have been working away on my NaKniSweMo project, Morrigan. It is starting to grow and the pattern is getting easier and a little faster to work! The cabling truly is lovely and the fabric so soft. I took it with me on the women’s retreat this past weekend. Everyone who saw it was awed by the complexity. I have almost 2 inches of the body done and figure that it is probably around 6.5% of the total project. I finished the first ball of yarn on Friday night and began the second after my friend untangled it for me.

I also took the Cambridge Jacket with me. We had 4 lecture style meetings while there and I like to be able to keep my hands busy. Morrigan is too complicated to fully focus on the talk, so I needed a simpler project. This one really worked well. I managed to finish the back a few minutes after the 4 and final session! It looks great and I had many compliments on that one, too.

On Monday, I knew that I would be tired from staying up too late at the retreat, so I took the day off ahead of time. I planned to knit on Morrigan some more, but ended up having a great time outside. I raked the leaves off our porch and flower beds, pruned some of my plants back, divided another plant and put away some little fences that I use to keep the neighbor kids out of the flower beds in the spring and summer. I have procrastinated for many months and finally did it! It looks great and I am happy to have it done.

Weekend

This past weekend at Lake Retreat was GREAT! The days showed clear weather, only getting rainy and cold in the evenings. The speaker was very inspirational and a great time of ladies fellowship was had by all. During free time on Saturday, I knitted for a while and then walked around lake twice with two different groups of friends. I came home pretty tired, as I stayed up too late both nights...But it was so worth it! I did get quite a bit of knitting done, most if it was on the Garter Rib socks, so my Fall Jacket is still about 2-3 hours away from being finished. I finished the first sock and started the second one on Saturday morning. In the van pool, today, I finished turning the heel. I'm so happy to be in the home stretch on these socks. I want to start another pair, this month's Sockamania pattern.

2 Weeks?!

Its difficult to believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since I last posted...I've been knitting steadily on a dark blue cardigan sweater. I am almost done knitting all the pieces and then there is a considerable amount of ribbing to be knitted on. I'll take a picture for posting next week. I have so many projects on the needles, that I keep asking myself why I started this one. Don't get me wrong, I love the pattern (#101-16 from Drops.) It has been so fun to knit and just about the time I tire of the stitch pattern, I have some ribbing that can be worked on instead! The real reason I started this sweater: I am cold and need an extra layer to wear! :) This one will be dressy enough to wear to work and yet not so dressy as I wouldn't wear it with jeans on the weekend.

Tomorrow, I'm off work to get packed for a weekend away with the ladies from church. We're going to stay at Lake Retreat for the weekend. There are several people that are going that want to learn to knit, so I'm taking some supplies that they can buy from me and I'll teach them. 2 of the 3 that usually meet with me on Saturday afternoons are going, too. I'm very excited to be going and looking forward to a weekend of relaxation and relaxing. It sure would be great to finish my sweater before going, but I don't think there are enough knitting hours left until then.