New storage and organization and hooboy!

 An advantage to living in a complex such as ours, is sometimes random furniture or items show up on the community patio table that are just what I was needing. I went down yesterday on the way to the garden and a 3x3x1 cubby shelf thing was out there. It looked like it got a bit man handled in a move but was just the thing I needed for reorganizing my yarn!

Previously that space was my purple file box, the grey tub with bags and bags of projects and yarn. There is about two feet between the cubby and my side of the bed now and likely was the same before but it feels more crowded because it's a solid wall and a bit taller. It's much better though and as Rocky was investigating it and checking it out I suddenly realized why I never had my yarn out in the open.

(this is actually before the other two pictures) He sniffed everything thoroughly and then I realized it was an open playground of yarn for him. Also he likes climbing things and getting into the cupboards and I thought 'oh no, going to have to put everything back into bags because of the little furbutt'. Surprisingly, he is not interested in getting into the empty cubby sections, only pulled on ball of yarn out because he was throwing a tantrum while I was taking a shower. He can easily jump onto the top of that but only did it once so far. 

I have an underbed storage box that I had full balls of yarn in previous to this. I swapped out those balls, but the random partially used yarn and soon to be frogged projects in that box and put the whole balls in the cubby with more active or recent projects in bags. That farthest stack has my sock project, three shawls and the shrug. This way I can just pick what I'm going to work on at any given time, toss it in a travel bag if I'm going out and sitting a while, and pop it back in there. Now I do have some all or partial wool yarns that I also belatedly thought they were safer in a bag from moths. I'll be looking for the cubby containers, most likely the collapsible fabric ones to put everything in to also keep the yarn out of Mr. FurPerson's view.

I can't believe how many shawls I have in progress! 

The Diamond Homespun Shawl

Bella Botanica Shawl 

Patons Fern Leaf Shawl (currently working on)

Shawl in a Ball Eyelet Shawl

 And lastly this purple green and white which I forget what pattern and the yarn it is but I made a different shawl years ago for a friend in the same yarn and then proceeded to make one for myself because the yarn is so fluffy and pretty. I just had a hunch and it's the Haruni Shawl by Emily Ross and I found it on the KnitPicks site.

 

Once that is done I will likely gift it to another friend who loves those colors as well. I saved a LOT of my patterns in Dropbox which I still have access to thankfully. Most of my books and other patterns are on my Ravelry library.

What can I say? I went through a lace shawl phase for a while. I discovered how to read charts and now that's my preferred way of doing a pattern. I remember my epiphany when I looked at a chart and suddenly realized it wasn't any different than a cross stitch chart that had symbols for the different colors. The difference is with knitting, the symbols for the different stitches are mostly universal. As long as the symbols are constant, you can read most any chart for knitting or crochet no matter the language of the creator. Note I said 'most any' because some patterns have a written preface or instruction for starting. But that's what google is for right?

I think most of my other projects I may have ever done are completed and gifted, though I do think there's still a box or two of things in storage. 

Oh well, out of sight out of mind.

Knitting discoveries and more projects

 So, about last night.....

I was looking at my piles of bags of projects and yarn and I think I wanted to look for a project I remembered. So digging through and discovered not one, not two, but three shawl projects that were in progress. 😳😲 Well then, let's see if I remember what they are, oh and that doesn't include the one I'm currently working on, the big one in Homespun.

These other two are done in a finer yarn, one I remembered what it was when I got the stash home and labeled it so I have the pattern just have to figure out what row I was on.The green and white one I had the charts needed and could look up what it was.

The green shawl is Paton's Grace Chevron Leaf shawl in a yarn I found in a Tuesday Morning store randomly. Only two balls so it's not going to be very big and I 'think' I have the label for it in one of the other bags. It has alpaca in it for sure and sadly, unless I find another yarn similar that ball is the only other one I have and it will only be a shoulder wrap, it's not going to be very big even blocked.

The green and white one is done in Wool Like single thread (which explains the other colors in that yarn I have under the bed) and has beads in the green section (I hope I bought enough to finish it). I had luckily printed out the page of the charts I needed and luckily at the bottom of the page was the designer, looked it up and realized it was the Bella Botanical shawl which just the name had me hooked. I also discovered where my thread crochet hooks were. Because of the fine thread and beads I needed the smallest crochet hook to work the beads in and had them in a tube with the project. Can't believe I was that organized. I remember working on this when I was working at the fabric store.

I am also discovering where all my extra long Chiao Goo cables and needles are.... ::looks embarrassed::

They are both now bagged and labeled. Lord help my kids if I should leave this earth without finishing them. I have to start writing up what to do with them, as there is a group of crafters that you can contact for when someone passes on and leaves unfinished projects and they'll finish them as long as they have the pattern and enough supplies to do it.

So the Homespun shawl is on a back burner because it is so exhausting to move the stitches onto the needles. I really do want to finish at least one of the shawls, then there's the issue of figuring out how to get them blocked. My blocking combs are in storage and I gave up my blocking mats when I moved last time. 

Oh, I did frog back that crochet project to half the chain length and restarted the first row. So let's see that's three shawls, a crochet project and a pair of socks currently on my list. If I work on each of them for one row or an hour, whichever comes first, then I might have something accomplished by the end of the year. That's also four hours in a day that I will be crafting. I could also pick a project a day to work on for an hour, that would take even longer to finish.

Oh and I originally went hunting for the velvet yarn shrug I started a month ago because my neck and shoulders were cold this morning sitting in bed. So that's another project.

Frogging and other things.

 I have hit upon a theory, could be proven right or wrong but would have to take a poll of thousands of knitters and talk to doctors and all that. It is a common unwritten truth that crafters usually have more than one project going on because of varying degrees of ADD/ADHD and wanting to start a new project for the thrill of it. Here's my idea:

It is accepted that knitting and other hand arts are therapeutic for hand flexibility. Now, the converse of that is that prolonged use can actually be bad if you're doing the same size tool and pattern. It is better to have more than one project of different types going to exercise your hand and brain. So for knitters, let's say  you have a really simple sock pattern you can pick up when you have to pay attention to something but not really engage your brain. For multi-tasker brains it's easy. When your eyes and hands get fatigued from that, switch to a larger needle project. So it is beneficial to have more than one project going at a time mentally and physically for the crafter.

This project is done, moderate success but not ideal. Gave them to my honey and he wears them when his feet get cold but again, not the best project.

Now what do I pick up for my 'mid size' easy project? The Lego block blanket is stalled out due to yarn procuring issues. It's not a desperately needed project and will get done when the time is right. I toyed around with the pooling yarn that finally aired out but really am not satisfied working with it on knitting. Most of the pictures were of crochet so I got it in my head to try and recreate the blanket I made when I was like 10, I'm sure I've chained a lot more than I had on the original, might even pull it out and start over.

I am sure that the actual width of the original is half that but you can see the blocks of colors forming already. Yeah, I think I'll pull that out and go for half or two thirds of that size.

But crocheting is difficult now with the lack of dexterity in my fingers. I don't work on that one for very long and frankly, Super Saver is the absolute bottom yarn that is the most durable so will see what happens. There is still three more skeins of yarn in a bag that is still waiting for sunny weather to air out. Silly rainy days makes it difficult to put them in a box outside.

I rifled through another bag that I thought was just the shawl on the left but it also held a hat I was making at the same time (most likely). The shawl is the same one I made years ago out of blue homespun and for whatever reason I was enamored with the pastel homespun and bought four skeins to make this shawl. It is lovely but I have never been a pastel kind of person but it's somehow appealing because it's a muted rainbow. I luckily still have the pattern for that in multiple places just had to figure out what row I had stopped on. Oddly I kept thinking it was row 15 of 20 I had to do next and after checking the pattern and the shawl multiple times, I was right. I haven't touched that project in over a decade. So that shawl is on size 11 needles which are very awkward to use and the pattern needs my full attention to keep track of where I am. Not something to do when there's constant interruptions and can't work on it for long periods due to the cumbersome size of the needles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other is a slouchy hat project in James C Brett DK  yarn that is also discontinued and as well as I was going on that project, and the fact that I actually have the pattern book handy, I am not a hat person. So frogging was done and am now trying to find a cowl/neck warmer pattern to use for that yarn. I love those colors too, muted pinks and greens, almost a garden effect. Could do a scarf but I don't really like scarves unless they're really long and you can wrap it around your neck so it doesn't come off. I was just going to frog it back to the ribbing but then saw that very sloppy join at the cast on edge and decided to take it all out. I counted the stitches and may just restart with the same number as a turtleneck part and then do spaced increases and maybe a decorative stitch insert like I had. Just too pretty to sit around.

So I have these five balls of TOFUtsies yarn, all of which is discontinued so no chance of getting another ball of a solid. I decided to go out of my color range and use the orange and matching variegated for another pair of socks. I really wish I could get a ball of blue to coordinate with the other two. So, since I pulled the purple sock out I have the longer size 1 circular available and off I went.

For whatever reason, somehow I ended up with yarn over holes doing the rounded toe pattern. Also those little pooky points at either end. I was not pleased with that outcome and decided at that point to just frog it all out and restart.

Second start without distractions worked much better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I was going to try and do some stranded pattern really simple but that turned out to be too much fiddly hassle and went with a stripe to begin with. 2 main (variegated) 2 orange, then 3 main and then 3 orange and then just the variegated for the rest. Will do the heel and ribbing at the end in orange as well. Maybe do stripes like that on the leg side of the heel and before the ribbing, who knows. 

One of the reasons why socks are such a great project is for those of us females that want cool looking socks without paying ridiculous prices.

These are socks I got from the community table along with another pair, in our complex and obviously not a women's large sock. Those stripes are all individual colors not a self striping yarn and machine made. I am not crazy about doing stripes like that but being able to have socks that actually fit my feet and look cool is what keeps me going.

And that's all for the projects in the last few weeks. More updates when they happen!

Happy crafting!