Well, Lookee What I Found!!

First of all, let me congratulate Daniele, because she's the winner of my first comment bribe giveaway. That's nice, because she's been a faithful commenter for a long time. (Of course, that means she didn't need a bribe, but let's call it a reward or something.) I should mention that the winner was chosen by the scientific method of taking five playing cards, one for each commenter, shuffling, drawing, and awarding the bribe prize to the comment number that corresponded with the number on the card. Obviously this works until you have more than 13 comments, but I'll not worry about that just yet. So thanks to all who commented, and stay tuned. I've been cleaning up the stash, so there will be more bribes giveaways in the future.

So, the stash cleaning. Wow. The original plan was not only to inventory, photograph, and list The Stash on Ravelry, but also to get The Room organized and cleaned up enough to actually walk through, instead of creeping sideways through the narrow path to my computer chair. After much moving, shifting, prying open, and dumping of boxes, the inventory commenced. I say again, WOW. I made a shocking discovery:


Eh, so what? you say. Look at this picture:


This is Missy's lace shawl--the one I mentioned in the last post that we started together because she found this faaaabulous lace yarn at Woolgathering. Compare the photos. Yep, it's the same yarn. And even though I stood there at the booth and helped her pick it out, I had absolutely NO recollection that I had bought exactly the same yarn from exactly the same booth at exactly the same fiber fest the year before! What's even funnier is that she was with me last year too, and she doesn't remember it! Scary, huh?

But wait, there's more. See this?


This is a shawl I started for the Spindlicity handspun shawl contest a while back.  (Wow, I didn't realize just how "a while back" that was until I retrieved the link!)  I loved that roving so much, and spent so much time working with it, both spinning on a drop spindle and knitting it. You'd think I would recognize it instantly if I ever saw it again. Nope. Look what I found in a box on the bottom shelf behind the loom:


Again, exactly the same roving, probably bought from exactly the same vendor. The details of both purchases are a blur, but really. Am I going to have to start carrying smidgins of wool everywhere I go so I don't make multiple purchases? Oh well, at least I'm consistent in my tastes!

That shawl never got finished because I started knitting it before I finished spinning the yarn. As I spun, the yarn got finer and finer, ending up like this: 
(Love that classy yarn bobbin!) Unfortunately, the difference was obvious in the shawl, and I pulled it off the needles because I knew it wasn't going to work out. Here are the detail pictures--you can clearly see how the yarn got progressively finer.  The center starting point:

About a billion million hundred rounds later:

I was terribly disappointed, because I so wanted to win the scholarship to SOAR, but I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I put it away until I could stand to look at it long enough to frog back to where the yarn started becoming a little more consistent, and of course, I forgot about it. I've got so much of that roving now, I could spin and knit 40 shawls with that weight of yarn!

So far those have been the worst discoveries in the Stash Inventory. I am going to get tough, and get rid of some of the leftover yarns I have rattling around. Somebody somewhere can use them. And to show you just how tough I can be...I THREW AWAY yarn I had spun and plyed on a drop spindle. It was one of those projects that was just not turning out well and I knew it, but I couldn't bear to give up on it. I had spun and plyed so much of this yarn--laceweight again--that I tried to ignore the little voice in my head that was insisting that it was scratchy. Really, really scratchy. It was a mystery roving I got from someone else who was destashing, and yesterday as I fondled the thousands hundreds ten little skeins, I realized that wearing a shawl knit out of this stuff would be like wearing an exquisitely lovely hair shirt. So it went in the trash, roving and all (though I think I spied more of that roving peeking out from under some mohair in a clear box I haven't gotten into yet. Maybe it will make a nice...um, well, it could be spun into a thick yarn for...hmm, maybe I could...) Aha! FELT!!

It's been fun (though eye-opening) to go through all my yarn and fiber, but I don't think it will all get posted on Ravelry any time soon. It's just too much! I have been writing down the bare bones information, so I'll probably do a spreadsheet just so I can see what I have and where I've stored it. Pretty much the same idea as Ravelry, but without all the pictures. Which leads me to wonder: how do you manage your stash, if you have one? (If you don't because you're one of those anal compulsive freakish wonderfully disciplined people who only have yarn for the project you are presently working on, I don't want to know about it.) Do the rest of you just toss your purchases on top of the pile, so to speak, or do you post it on Ravelry or use another organizing method? I really do want to know, because besides yarn I have needlepoint, cross-stitch, weaving, and quilting stash and UFOs, and I'd kind of like to keep track of it all. If for no other reason than that I don't need any more purple silk-blend roving!

Windstorm 2008!! And other sundry items...

If you live in the Midwest United States, you know what this is going to be about. It's only taken me 10 days to post about it because I hate trying to put pictures in my blog!

Here's a view of the mess in the back yard. It ended up worse than this, because this was taken while the windstorm was still going on. We moved fast, though. A couple of those 75-MPH gusts were all it took to make us all head back inside!



This is a view of the tops of the trees. They're even smaller now. We have three of these trees in a clump in the backyard, and they all need to be taken down now. Some of the branches that came down were 25 feet long, so who knows what kind of damage they did to the trees on the way down. That will be seen during the next storm, but I'd rather not have a 25-foot spear through the roof of the garage, so we're checking into having them cut down. We'll have no shade, but we'll have no branches impaling us, roots tripping us, and rootlets choking everything in the flower beds. I really hate these soft maples. They grow super-fast, so they get planted everywhere, but they are terrible trees when they get big.



This used to be a Bradford Pear in the front yard. Oh, well. I always wanted a sugar maple there anyway.



And at least we didn't have to deal with anything like this. This is my neighbor's (former) tree. You can see by the branches in the background that the wind was still blowing pretty hard here.



All in all we got off pretty easily. Our power was out just a little over 24 hours, but there are still parts of the Dayton area waiting for power even now. We have a generator, so we were able to keep the refrigerator cold, though we didn't run it nonstop. I did throw away some things from the freezer that had gotten soft, but we saved the refrigerator contents. I plugged in the microwave long enough to heat water to take a spit-bath. I used the warm water to soap up in, then got in the cold shower to rinse. Then I washed my hair in the sink with the rest of the bowl of warm water, and rinsed with cold. That was bearable, but I now understand why people didn't take baths often before electricity. What a pain. It took forever!

On to happier things. Here's a shot of the sleeve of the new "Pirate" coat that I mentioned in my last post. Cables=ropes=pirates. Well, it made sense last Friday! (Maybe I'd had too much grog or something.) The pattern is by Jo Sharp, and I'm using Brown Sheep yarn, the name of which slips my mind at the moment. It has some mohair in it. As soon as I publish this post, I'll remember. Anyway, I like it much better than the tweed yarn this pattern called for. The stockinette on the wrong side of this is really  gorgeous, and though it looks complicated, I haven't had too much trouble following the pattern. The safety pins are for the increases, a tip I got from Maggie Righetti's book. Can't remember the name of that either. Sheesh. I hate getting old.



Our company found out today that we lost our biggest client, so it's a good thing I've been buying so much yarn and fiber lately, huh? If my hours get cut, as they almost certainly will, I have the equivalent of a yarn store stacked behind me right now. (And don't tell anyone, but I just ordered two skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn from a shop in Canada. One for me, and one to trade on Ravelry. Maybe I can score some more Sundara. Or Wollmeise.)

Speaking of stash. We went to the Woolgathering on Saturday ("we" being my daughter, Melissa, and her 20-month-old.) Note to selves: DO NOT TAKE A TODDLER TO THE WOOLGATHERING! Gee, I wish I'd read that note a couple of days ago. I'll save the details for another post, but in the meantime, here's a peek at something. Something wonderful...

I leave you to ponder the beauty and mystery.

Breaking my Silence

For some reason, keeping up with computer stuff was not something I did while on vacation. Maybe it was because I was too busy winding yarn balls (or cakes, as they're called on Ravelry. Too bad I don't have the little icon that pops up for "cake".)  Ennnyway--that was a whooooole bunch of yarn-winding, and I at least can see what I have waiting to be knitted.

That, however, huge pile that it is, did not stop me from just ordering more sock yarn. It was just one skein, I swear! And I haven't ordered anything online for more than two weeks! Well, not counting a couple of things I got on ebay. They don't count, because they weren't knitting related. (I love my rationalizations, don't you?) But I needed  the Wendy Knits "Ribbon Candy" pattern for the pink yarn that came in the "Boobie" sock kit because I don't like the "Boobie" pattern that came with the yarn, and while I was at The Loopy Ewe site, I thought I might as well get some of that great Dream in Color Smooshy yarn everyone else seems to love. I would have ordered some Woolmeise, but it goes out of stock exactly 73.2 seconds after it's listed, apparently. I need to get on the advance notice list or something!

I still haven't taken pictures of the things I've been working on. Not the ball-winding part. That would be just too dull. No, I mean the socks that I've still been half-heartedly knitting for SOS08, and the other project that I mentioned. I might as well admit it here and now. I joined the lemmings and made a Clapotis scarf.

If you haven't heard of that, where the heck have you been? Not on Ravelry, that's for sure! The pattern is from knitty.com, from sometime in 2005, and it's the most downloaded pattern they've ever featured. In fact, the latest Interweave Knits magazine has an article about the designer and the impact the Clapotis had on knitty.com and the knitworld in general.

When I first saw it, I thought, "Meh. What's the big deal?" But the more I looked at it, the more I liked it, and I kept reading that other people felt the same way until they saw a finished scarf, then they fell in love. Well. I had three skeins of Noro Kureyon sock yarn, and the more I petted it, the less I thought I would like it as socks. It is kind of wiry and rough. But three skeins is more than enough to make a cool scarf, so I started looking through my patterns and books for just the right thing, and that turned out to be the Clapotis. (BTW, it's pronounced something like, "Clah-poh-tee" in some Frenchy manner. Accent on the last syllable, I think. That makes it sound a little less like some weird STD.)

So that's what I worked on between socks, while listening to "Persuasion" on the iPod. It's an easy pattern, once you get the rhythm of it, so it didn't take long and was fairly mindless. I haven't washed it yet, so it still feels a bit wiry, but it drapes nicely now and I think it will be even better once it's washed and laid flat to dry. The general consensus seems to be that you don't want to block it hard, like you would a lace shawl. I really will get before-and-after pictures, but the resident expert photographer is mortally ill (i.e. he has a cold) so I won't bother him today.

In other not-so-exciting news...well...that's about it. Except that I did finally get to my violin lesson, and I've been practicing a lot. I've loved all my teachers, but this one and I communicate so well, and she spots immediately what I need to work on and explains it perfectly. It's encouraging, because we agree that I am making progress, yay!! Violin is tough at any age, and when you start at the age of 46, you've really got your work cut out for you. Part of it is the simple fact that holding and bowing the instrument are new motions, and if you haven't been doing it since you were four or five years old, your body rebels a little. I got a new shoulder rest, after test-driving about nine of them, and that's made a tremendous difference.

So I'm loving my music more and more. One of my favorite pieces is "The Lark Ascending" as played by Hilary Hahn. (Go buy the CD. Even if you don't like classical music, you'll LOVE this. I promise.) I bought the sheet music, even though it's way beyond my skills, and can actually play snippets. That makes me so happy and keeps my enthusiasm up for continuing to slog through the Suzuki books. I have my own pet names for the pieces in Book One: "The Not-So-Happy Farmer" and "The Stinkin' Gavotte" are a couple of them. And, yes Virginia, playing your scales does improve your overall playing.

I've been trying to resist starting a shawl, but my Plurkbuds tell me resistance is futile. So, if I can find that cashmere-blend lace yarn somewhere around here...

Vacation!

My stay-at-home vacation started today, though I've been considering myself on vacation since I got home from work on Friday. No, I haven't tackled the basement yet, but I intend to work on that later this week. In the meantime, I have a tiny problem.

I can't lift my arms.

One of the plans for the week was to start doing regular exercise, whether by going to ballet class, joining a club, or working out at home. I've gone too long without any exercise at all to jump back in to ballet class, so I thought I'd better get a few workouts in first. I checked in at Curves, and they're having a special this month, and the lady said I could come and try it this week. So I thought I would do that tomorrow. Today, however, I finally grabbed my exercise ball, stuck the DVD in the player, and did my own at-home workout.

That was two hours ago, and I can hardly raise my arms above my waist. The exercises didn't feel that hard while I was doing them (though I did feel hideously clumsy--trying to drape myself over the ball without falling off was a hoot. Probably I really hurt my arms from flailing them in vain attempts to keep from sprawling on the floor. The cats were clearly baffled by the whole ugly scene.) Anyway, the pain didn't set in until about  half an hour ago. Which is a more holistic treatment--a pain pill or a shot of Old Crow? Pain pills have fewer calories, which is a consideration.

The really bad part of this is that I had a violin lesson scheduled for this afternoon. I was so embarrassed to call and cancel only an hour beforehand, but I have a wonderful teacher. She started laughing and said, "Oh, I did that once. I had to call in to the XXX Symphony (a fairly large orchestra) and tell them I couldn't play because I'd done a workout and couldn't move my arms. I was tempted to lie and tell them I had the measles or something--anything but the truth." So we had a good laugh, and she was totally cool with it. THEN she told me she'll be in China next week, playing with the orchestra for the Olympics! How cool is that? Bet she doesn't do any workouts between now and then...

So I obviously can't clean the basement today, which leaves me doing more of what I've been doing since Friday afternoon: cleaning the sewing/weaving/stash room, knitting, loading my iPod, knitting, adding to my Ravelry queue, knitting, winding yarn balls, and knitting. Obviously, I have a short attention span.

Since I have to set up the swift and ball winder on the dining room table, I'm trying to get all my skeins wound and stored neatly. I pulled out the bags and boxes of random yarn items--leftover bits, odd skeins, acrylic, novelty yarn from the scarf craze a few years back--and have decided what to keep, what to give to the Knitting Guild for community projects, and what to throw away. I've kept some yarns for small projects, but a lot of it is going to the guild. They do hats and mittens and lap ropes and such, so they'll make good use of it, I'm sure. And I didn't give them crap yarn, so I feel virtuous.

I didn't realize how much laceweight yarn I have, and that's what remains to be wound. I'm not looking forward to it, especially after the 2500-yard skein I wound the other day. I thought it would NEVER end. (But now I'm looking for the perfect shawl pattern for it. That's where Ravelry comes in. I've seen pictures of some breathtaking shawls, so I'll have to go through all my "favorited" items and see what calls to me.) And once I get all this yarn wound, I'm going to "repurpose" the clear storage bins hubby bought for the basement last week. Heck, we can use cardboard boxes down there. I need to see my yarn! I just need to get them up here before he comes home and sees me doing it. I hope I can carry them. Heck--I hope I can walk down the stairs and back up again!

I'm still plugging along (sort of ) with SOS. After I started digging through all the yarn, and figuring out how many projects I have planned, I decided that the priority list needed revamped. It's not an official List yet, because I'm still sorting, but by the end of my vacation week, I hope to have a better idea of what I really want to do.

Moving my arms will be high on the list, I'm sure.

Trying to Catch Up

As I promised some of my Plurkbuds (y'all know who you are!), here are photos of the sock yarn in "Plurk" colorway that I got the other day:Ok, so that photo was washed out, but I wanted you to see the tag, so you'd know how to hunt it down. But here's a link anyway, because it's hard to see. This is the yarn in all its glory:
For the non-Plurking among us, those are the main colors of the Plurk Timeline when you join up. It's lots of fun--the wittiness of knitters is a blast. Witty knitters. What can I say?

Here are a few photos of other fun stuff I've gotten recently. I wish the true colors would show up better, because this hand-dyed fiber is out of this world. This first one, the teal and bronze colorway, is really different for me. But I absolutely loved it, so I bought all she had. Now I have about 12 ounces of it to spin, and I want to know exactly what I want to knit before I spin it, instead of just spinning it, then figuring out what to do with it. This came from here.

I'm a sucker for pink and yellow together, so this (from here) found its way into my shopping cart:
And then here's a study in blues from the divine Ms. Z:
And then we sidle back to the yellow and whatever side of things for this, from here:
Obviously, etsy is a major trap for me. I have so many shops favorited it's not funny. You'd think that would be enough, but no, last night I did a search for "roving" and just about went out of my ever-lovin' mind! Do you have any idea how much gorgeous handpainted roving is out there, just waiting for my credit card to come a-knockin'? I did escape with ordering only one braid--another pink and yellow, but softer than the one I showed here. That's it. No more. I mean it. ("Yeah, yeah," they all sigh, "just like The Last Purchase sock yarn.") I know, you've read it before.

Speaking of etsy, here's another batch of really fun stuff (notice the quick change of subject?) I've already bought several sets of stitch markers from WeeOnes. That's where I got the cute sock monkey markers that were a few posts back. I wanted ice cream cones and cupcakes for my daughter, who loves both, and these were custom-designed for me:


I wish you could see the real thing because the texture and detail is beyond amazing. Missy keeps raving about what an artist Jillian is, and she's right. I simply have to stay off that site for at least a week or two!

This is what she custom-made for me when I described my Jack Russell Terrier, Boomer, to her:


I think she came pretty close, didn't she? Only the face is a little different, but it's close enough! Here's the real dawg. Is that too cute or what?


And what of SOS, I hear you cry? Oh, I haven't totally given up, but I'm still putzing along on the same pair I started last Friday. I should get them done tonight. I still haven't felt well at all this whole week, and I've been playing the violin more and doing some spindle-spinning as well. I think I just needed a little break, but I feel myself getting fired up again. The competitive urge is coming back, so though I'm down, I'm not out yet! I've had to resist casting on a sweater coat (don't say a word) and so far I've been successful at that. So it's back to socks tonight. And no more shopping on etsy!

Gotta go plurk. And knit.

The List: #2

Since I've completely abandoned the idea of no more yarn purchases (that didn't last long, did it?) I'm updating The List to reflect what I really want to get done sometime soon. At least this year would be nice. And I've been thinking about whether I want to be more concerned with The Stash, or focus on The Finishing.

The funny thing is that on one of my Yahoo groups (Spindilitis) there's been quite the discussion this week about stashing, and both sides of the situation have been presented. Most people who contributed confessed that they had tons of fiber to spin, but felt no guilt at all. The reasons varied: some feel like they might as well buy now because they might not be able to afford what they love in the future. Some just feel like it's no big deal--this is what they do, so why shouldn't they stash to their hearts' content? And some don't think too deeply about it, they just do it!

A couple of people ventured different views. I can relate to the opinion that having too much stash can weigh you down. You know it's there, and you feel pressured to use it. Someone mentioned that it's similar to any other type of clutter one would have stored in the house. It can clutter your mind as well (like the unused clothes and books that I keep meaning to drop off to Goodwill.) I think the trend toward simplicity is beginning to touch more and more people, and having a huge unused stash of yarn, fabric, fiber, or whatever can make us feel burdened.

So I'm trying to tread the middle ground. I can tell that I'll always be tempted by new yarns and patterns, so I'm not really going to stop buying as I promised in my first post. But I also am going to be aware that I may not always love knitting and spinning the way I do now. I have two giant shelf units full of quilt fabric and dozens of cross-stitch patterns that are sitting here untouched, but I was as passionate about quilting and cross-stitching at one point as I am about knitting now. I'm not quite ready to part with that section of stash yet, so I want to keep working on some of those UFOs as well as knitting.

Anyway, without further ado, here's The Second List:

1. Dale of Norway sweater
2. Pink lace scarf
3. Crayon Box Jacket
4. Laurel Leaves Quilt
5. Waterlilies needlepoint
6. Pink Tofutsies socks
7. Merino yarn to be plied
8. Weeping Tree Sampler cross-stitch
9. Baby sweater in Linen Isle
10. Spin Walnut-dyed fleece
11. Spin angora blend from Fuzzarelly Fibers

Most of these were on the First List, but I've dropped a couple and added a couple. I want to have a spinning project going, and the cross-stitch piece is so near to being done that I really want to wrap it up. Several of these projects are close to finished, but there are some biggies as well, so it's kind of balanced.

Now, here's the thing: I also signed up for the Summer of Socks contest, as I wrote a few posts back. So starting June 21, that's what I'll be working on pretty much all of the time. A couple more balls of sock yarn have found their way into the pile. I think I'm up to 26 now. I don't know if my hands can take only knitting, so I may keep the Arbitrary Baseball Rule in force. (I haven't gotten to use it much recently, as the Reds have been playing on the West Coast all week, so the games come on at 10PM here. That's a bit too late for me!) But, seeing as it's a Friday, I might just go flip on the radio and settle in for some stitching. Let's see--they're away, so I think the Rule says I work on the Laurel Leaves quilt. That's a switch from all the knitting!

The List: #2

Since I've completely abandoned the idea of no more yarn purchases (that didn't last long, did it?) I'm updating The List to reflect what I really want to get done sometime soon. At least this year would be nice. And I've been thinking about whether I want to be more concerned with The Stash, or focus on The Finishing.

The funny thing is that on one of my Yahoo groups (Spindilitis) there's been quite the discussion this week about stashing, and both sides of the situation have been presented. Most people who contributed confessed that they had tons of fiber to spin, but felt no guilt at all. The reasons varied: some feel like they might as well buy now because they might not be able to afford what they love in the future. Some just feel like it's no big deal--this is what they do, so why shouldn't they stash to their hearts' content? And some don't think too deeply about it, they just do it!

A couple of people ventured different views. I can relate to the opinion that having too much stash can weigh you down. You know it's there, and you feel pressured to use it. Someone mentioned that it's similar to any other type of clutter one would have stored in the house. It can clutter your mind as well (like the unused clothes and books that I keep meaning to drop off to Goodwill.) I think the trend toward simplicity is beginning to touch more and more people, and having a huge unused stash of yarn, fabric, fiber, or whatever can make us feel burdened.

So I'm trying to tread the middle ground. I can tell that I'll always be tempted by new yarns and patterns, so I'm not really going to stop buying as I promised in my first post. But I also am going to be aware that I may not always love knitting and spinning the way I do now. I have two giant shelf units full of quilt fabric and dozens of cross-stitch patterns that are sitting here untouched, but I was as passionate about quilting and cross-stitching at one point as I am about knitting now. I'm not quite ready to part with that section of stash yet, so I want to keep working on some of those UFOs as well as knitting.

Anyway, without further ado, here's The Second List:

1. Dale of Norway sweater
2. Pink lace scarf
3. Crayon Box Jacket
4. Laurel Leaves Quilt
5. Waterlilies needlepoint
6. Pink Tofutsies socks Done!
7. Merino yarn to be plied
8. Weeping Tree Sampler cross-stitch
9. Baby sweater in Linen Isle Done!
10. Spin Walnut-dyed fleece
11. Spin angora blend from Fuzzarelly Fibers Done!

Most of these were on the First List, but I've dropped a couple and added a couple. I want to have a spinning project going, and the cross-stitch piece is so near to being done that I really want to wrap it up. Several of these projects are close to finished, but there are some biggies as well, so it's kind of balanced.

Now, here's the thing: I also signed up for the Summer of Socks contest, as I wrote a few posts back. So starting June 21, that's what I'll be working on pretty much all of the time. A couple more balls of sock yarn have found their way into the pile. I think I'm up to 26 now. I don't know if my hands can take only knitting, so I may keep the Arbitrary Baseball Rule in force. (I haven't gotten to use it much recently, as the Reds have been playing on the West Coast all week, so the games come on at 10PM here. That's a bit too late for me!) But, seeing as it's a Friday, I might just go flip on the radio and settle in for some stitching. Let's see--they're away, so I think the Rule says I work on the Laurel Leaves quilt. That's a switch from all the knitting!

Falling Waaaay Off the Wagon

The new computer is finally up and running, so pictures should be forthcoming. I'm probably the only person on Ravelry who has stash and projects listed with no photos whatsoever. Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, I had to blow away the contents of the iPod because it was acting wonky, so I had to hook it up to the website and restore it to its original settings, whatever they were. (They certainly did not include the amusing trick of simply scrolling through all the songs instead of actually playing them.) So now I have to reload all my CDs, re-download my books from Audible.com, and save the purchased songs to CD from iTunes on the old computer, before it goes completely belly-up.

So....knitting and stash content. Let's see...I bought more sock yarn. And a Jo Sharp pattern book. And some great Rowan wool/silk blend for less than $4 a ball. And I ordered Lamb's Pride yarn to make a knee length cabled cardigan. Oops, I slipped.

That was on Friday. I haven't bought anything since then. But that's probably because I haven't transferred my bookmarks from the old computer, so I can't go shopping online.

And I haven't been working on a darn thing from The List. I've secretly been knitting a baby sweater from some Linen Isle that I got at half-price a couple of weeks ago. (Sorry. Didn't tell y'all about that one, did I?) And last night I pulled out the fiber that Nancy from Fuzzarelly Fibers sent me and started spinning laceweight on the new Jenson wheel. (Lovely angora, silk, and merino blends--and the angora is from her own bunnies.) That was a soothing, satisfying experience. I must remember to have a spinning project on The List at all times.

So why have I slipped so far off the straight and narrow that I swore to stick to way back in my first post? I blame Ravelry for part of it. You just can't get on there and start looking at everyone's projects without getting the itch to start some of them for yourself. And the blogs! Oh, my my my. Look at what I found yesterday. Just look at those shawls! How can I see those and not give in to the urge to start one for myself? Heaven knows I have plenty of laceweight yarn in the stash, because I shop here. I've got silk blends, cashmere blends, angora blends, supersoft merino, and the fiber--well, I could be spinning superfine laceweight for the rest of my life and not use it all up.

I think part of the problem is something I could see coming--I haven't finished anything in a while, so I don't feel like I'm making progress. I got my little projects done in a hurry, but now I have to slog along on the bigger ones. Starting something new gives me the false impression that I'm actually accomplishing something. In a way, I suppose I am. If I already had the stash and I start using it, at least it's part of the way toward being done. But then I'm back to having 30 projects piled around The Chair again.

At least I've gotten the sewing room straightened up quite a bit. I can finally walk around in here, and if I want to use the small loom, I can get to it now. I've located my skein umbrella and ball winder, so once I figure out where to set them up, I can start winding sock yarn balls. Best of all, I can get the closet door open, which means I can once again gaze lovingly upon the silk fibers that I had forgotten were in there.

Mission for tonight: make new List, which will include spinning and a couple of smaller projects that I need to dig out of the stash. And take some photos!