Author: beverly

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Is That a Light?

The yarn room decluttering continues. Mr. Honey is a much better housekeeper than I. It made sense to me to ask him how I should start to tackle the free range yarn but then I remembered who I was married to.

Mr. Honey, when asked his opinion, never has one. He will either stare at you blankly or go into a dissertation on something that has nothing to do with the question. On the other hand, when you don’t need, desire or even thinking about asking his opinion, he is right there to tell you what to do. 

So when I deferred to his domestic skills and asked how he thinks I should go about tackling the free range with the stipulation I wasn’t going to buy more containers; his reply was: “You have to clear it out.” Ahhhh. 

But then he does his other Mr. Honey thing. He will come back 12, 24, 36 hours later and say “I’ve been thinking about your question.” He then proceeded to tell me about the idea of getting those big storage bags and some Velcro. I sort the yarn, I attach Velcro to each bag and attach the bags to each other and that way they will all be together. 

Don’t mind the idea about the bags. They will take up way less space than the containers and will be more convenient. The Velcro idea is out because they don’t need to hang out together. Though I admit the thought of creating a yarn bag Stonehenge did occur to me.

He then took his idea way too far. “You can write down each thing you put in the bag and make two copies: one on the bag and one for you to keep.”

He forgot who he was married to. It’s like he doesn’t know me at all.

He bought me nine of those 20 gallon Ziploc big bags – because he’s an optimist and thinks that will be enough. The sort is being done by brand/type. So far, I have a bag for all the cake yarn and one pound skeins. One bag for yarn that comes from Hobby Lobby, a bag holding Red Heart yarn. I haven’t decided who else will share that bag but someone will and a bag with Lion Brand and Hayfield.

I’ve made myself a little giddy: i found some of my large yarn bobbins, a set of Chibi needles. I thought I had all of them and I vacuumed a space where bags of yarn used to be. Yes, I got giddy or vacuuming a small space. Be happy for me.

I thought I would take a photo the EDS – Elizabeth’s Daughter’s Sweater. I am on the section where I am putting in the increases and because I don’t understand what the designer is asking for, I am doing the increases my way. Acknowledging the written instructions are probably easier in the end.

The afghan is also coming along. I am adding five leaves a day and that should have me cruising end before we get on the plane. I am also on item 5/10. I finished the 

pattern. OK, you can get a taste. It’s the lace and cable beanie. 

As long as I keep myself on task this first hour of the day, the sweater and the yarn room will advance. Is that a light? It’s an extremely long tunnel but I see something flickering. It’s not a train. It could be daylight. Let’s hope for the best.

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The Diurnal Tide

Lest you think there is really nothing going on here in Knitsville, let me assure you the citizens of our fair village are keeping an eye on me. At least one eye each. I have several projects going on with the idea of finishing each of them by the end of September.

  1. The Do You Collection. I am on item 4/10. It’s a pattern. A cable and lace hat. It’s already on the needles. I’m on the ribbing and that leaves me a minute to think about how the rest of it is going to go. Slouchy or beanie? Slouchy. Big increases or small? Just enough.
  2. The Elizabeth sweater. It is going along and I look at the calendar and look at the fact that I started over and I’m still on the first part of the first part and I think maybe I need to work on it for more than part of an hour a day. On the other hand, knit math has been very good to me and I don’t want to make the knit gods angry by appearing greedy. Besides, there’s other knitting to be done. (See 1 above and 4 below.)
  3. The decluttering of the yarn room. This is where the diurnal tide has hit me. One the one hand, the high is there because I am doing the cleaning and decluttering and it really looks good. On the other hand, man, how the heck did it get so out of hand and now I understand why Mr. Honey said he had to create a work around rather than nag me constantly. I appreciate it. I appreciate what he has suffered. That’s the low tide.

4. The wedding afghan is going on as well. Now that, I did take a photo of.This is where it was when last I worked on it. It was looking promising. The photo below is where it is now.

I counted the squares and calculated how many I have left to get it to square off. This is going to have me tearing my hair out which makes me grateful I have a very short hair cut to begin with. No one will really notice anything is amiss. 

The photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s really pretty. It’s stunning. And again, the diurnal tide plays with me. I started this on purpose and now that’s there’s a finite amount of time to get it done, I will have to resolve myself to watching episodes of Criminal Minds while working on it followed by watching the 1965 version of Cinderella to keep me from losing my criminal mind.

There has to be more progress made before the weekend. We are headed to San Antonio. We are going for a memorial service for a cousin I played with as a child. It’s a quick turnaround and then shortly after, we (and the afghan) will be headed to Phoenix for the wedding.

Tides.

 

 

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Moving Closer

The rest of the office is still in shambles. There won’t be any before photos because even with great after pictures, that would still qualify me for the next Hoarders special. I can live without that.

But we are moving closer to the finish line – kinda like mile three of a marathon closer. There’s so much ahead but, hey, there’s something behind.

Today I tickled myself something when I cleaned from under the desk. I sat there and admired it for a second. (I admit, I just did it again.) 

This is how my first hout every morning goes: I come to the computer and fire it up. Because it’s a few years old, it takes a bit to fire up so I pull out the sweater and start working on it. (I have until the end of the month to get it done and I started it over at the beginning of the month so…) Once the computer is ready, I open two separate windows: one for the Yarn Harlot which, because I am weird quirky I’ve started from the beginning. Fourteen years ago. I’ve read the blog on and off and each time it’s on, I start over. Some of the posts are familiar, always entertaining. So I knit while reading a post and the idea is to read until my mind is ready to do my own post from Knitsville. 

I read a post while knitting. When the post is done, I get to finish the row I’m working on. Sometimes it’s a good portion of the row, sometimes just a few stitches and then I have to do something that pushes the room progress forward. Today, that was under the desk. (Yes, I just admired it again.) 

What is usually under the desk are the three electrical strips holding all the electronic together: a computer, a laptop, printer, telephone and modem. What was under the desk were a myriad of other things that I didn’t know was underneath there. Including a ruler I knew I had but since I have another one that looks just like it, thought maybe didn’t exist. A necklace someone gave me that I loved so much it has been under the desk for…years? And one of my yarn bobbins. And a bunch of paillettes. Small holed ones that I wasn’t going to use and don’t understand how they got under there…loose. The broom and the vacuum made short, satisfying work of the mess under the desk and now all that is there are the cords that are supposed to be there.

So, the bookcase, the space between the bookcase and the desk, the desk and under the desk have all been reclaimed by the sane part of my psyche. The rest of it still has to be done but there is something to be said about moving closer. My spirit is lifted just that much more. 

This has been a good hour. Some progress made on the sweater and the room and my blog post inspiration. That’s already a good day and it’s just getting started. I have to go downstairs and do my workout (strength training) and make my cereal (no bake granola and it’s soooooo good.)

And knitting. Everest. I’m on top of Everest…well, moving closer. 

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On the Road

We are on the road every summer. I should say we are in the air. It depends on where we’re going. I think I might have mentioned that we go on Cubs away games during the baseball season. It started with us just going to Milwaukee once or twice but there were only so many times we could go there and the Milwaukee Zoo – which, if you like zoos is pretty good. 

I felt the need to expand our horizons. So I suggested we go to a different major league ballpark every season. This, is the height for us. Our traveling before this was going to Disney World every other year. I don’t know how many trips we took before it hit me to just go in alphabetical order and make the deciding easier. Asking a question to Mr. Honey can take anywhere from one to sixteen weeks to get an answer. He likes to look at things from every angle and then make sure the angles don’t have angles that need looking at. So, I just tell him where we’re going early on so he can angle look all he needs before we eventually book the trip.

This plan was working really well until we discovered our nephew, he lives in Denver, didn’t see much of him growing up, is a baseball player. The kid loves baseball from the time he was three. He had to choose between baseball and lacrosse and chose the former. He is a really good player.

When I played college tennis, an away trip meant we got on a bus and traveled maybe two whole hours to a different school. For him, going to school in Phoenix, an away game was coming to Chicago. So two things I loved combined into one my nephew and baseball. I have to admit the kid is good. And I wasn’t the only one to think so. He was named WAC (Western Athletic Conference) Player of the Year.

So good he was just drafted by the Cincinnati Reds after finishing university in three years.

The road to the majors can be long. He was sent to Montana to play for the Billings Mustangs. So that’s where we went on one of our trips this summer. And we drove because it ain’t easy getting from Chicago to Billings through the air. Mr. Honey mapped the trip and I made just one minor adjustment for the return trip.

We were stopping at Mt. Rushmore.

Now let me say, I am directionally challenged. I can get lost in my own house (and I have) so when I thought of South Dakota and I wasn’t looking at a map, it was always to the right of Illinois. It is decidedly to the left.

I promised Mr. Honey we wouldn’t be there for long. We had some serious miles to travel to get to our hotel on the other side of the state. And since some of the park was closed for the rest of the year and I cannot walk really long distances, there wasn’t going to be much to do but look at the monument and pop into the gift shop to get some gifts for my three great nieces who are all under the age of ten and are already presidential historians.

So, we arrived at the park, tooks some photos, went to the gift shop and the bathroom and we were on the road again in under 30 minutes. Don’t think I wasn’t sufficiently wowed. I am impressed with seeing it in person. Never thought that would happen and if we didn’t have to get over to the Minnesota side of the state, I would have been happy to hang out until we could have heard a lecture or something.

This has been a big travel season on the road for us: Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Three of the states I never visited and now I want to go through a list of the states to see how many of those I have left.

There was knitting done. I will save that for another post. Gotta leave ya wanting more.

 

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Welcome to September

You have this plan and you work the plan. You think the plan is going along just fine. Then you wake up and it’s Welcome to September, the doorstep of your busy season and you find maybe the plan needs a little tweaking.

This is what I did with my August. I finished them in August, too. That was a good thing considering I started working on them August 7th or something like that. I know I didn’t start them the first day of August. All the photos are done as well. So now starts the administrative piece of getting them ready to be sold.

The plan is a good one: create 10 items a month. That’s pretty straightforward. But I started the plan in June and here we are in the fall and I will have just 60 items in the shop. For those who are math minded, I had some patterns that were already up in the shop.

I’m gonna stick with the plan because it is an ongoing one. I may have less items in the shop than usual but I don’t know how well the plan works or where the tweaks need to be made until I see if the plan worked.

In the meantime, I have already done 1/10 for the new Do You Collection and I’m about to get busy with 2/10. Cuz knitting never stops in Knitsville.

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I Got Nuthin’

Nuthin’. I got nuthin’. Well, that’s not exactly true. Another shelf has been cleared and fourth one almost cleared. There are some more books to add to the stack that will be going to Economy Shop and they may be books someone is actually interested in. There’s books on gardening and graphic design (tools from an earlier life.) And photography. It was written when cameras still had film but I’m sure it’s more technique than material.

There’s also more than an inch more to the sweater. I know I should take a photo but the camera and the sweater aren’t in the same place. But I was working on it this morning when there was noticeable length. It was just a little over an inch yesterday and when I measured today, it was almost three inches. Knit math working positively for me. I think the cleaning gods are putting in good words with the knitting gods. I wanted to vacuum that place in front of the bookcase which made them happy but they whispered for me to calm down and finish the bookcase and then the next step would be to clean that area of carpet between the bookcase and the first desk. I am actually looking forward to it.

The cleaning folk also want to know what I am going to do with that Celtic suncatcher I’ve done nothing with since I purchased it more than 20 years ago. I don’t know but I’m keeping it. We aren’t anywhere near Irish but I do like it.

10/10 is almost done. I took it to lunch with me yesterday with Ellen, Melissa and Laeh. We all bought our knitting with us but we decided to eat instead. Imagine that. It was past two in the morning when I decided I wasn’t going to finish it. But the decreases have started and I can get it finished before September rolls in. That would be a great accomplishment. I did the video for the stash dive on August 2nd and nothing was made then. C’mon, you have to be kinda impressed I did it all in under 30 considering we were on the road. Right?

Laeh might have gotten me some yarn from Herrschners. She works at a summer camp every year and she passes by this mecca on her way to and from. She is kind enough to drop me a note and ask if I want something. I’ve been very good in the past and said no – in between the years when I’ve said yes. And this year she may have bought me back something. I will take a photo of that and perhaps do a mini yarn haul video. It was just five skeins but a little bit of heaven goes a long way. I need to go finish a hat so I can pull some yarn and start the ordered mayhem all over again.

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Work the Plan

Plan the work then work the plan. That is a key to success on many fronts. Where my brain was all a scramble just yesterday; there is hope today.

No amount of money or love of readers will move me to post a before photo of my office. It is a wreck. The producers of Hoarders – Yarn Addition have called – twice. However, today I was thinking of the after photo.

That in itself is progress because it speaks of me believing there will be an after. There will be a time when it is all done and worthy of a photo. What has me in such a positive spirit? Two of the bookshelves were emptied and are now neatly filled with books. Well, nearly filled with books. Can’t be full of books because there are fewer books. The culling has produced space. That means the big pile of books on the floor are no longer on the floor. They are on the shelves. Considering how long most of them have been on the floor, that is improvement. It means I can get the little vacuum and clean that part of the floor.

Yes, there are three more shelves to clear and those books haven’t even been culled yet. But we need to take our victories where we find them. I am already eyeing that third shelf and it doesn’t seem as if it will be a big deal. There are very few books on the shelf and I will have to deal with a couple of supplies and the other shelves have books which will be leaving. A few will stay. I think I will have this first part wrapped up in short order.

There’s also improvement on the sweater front. I decided on the rib pattern and started knitting and I’ve already got more than an inch done on that. Only 13 more to go but I feel like a warrior so I don’t see worries on that front.

I’ve even started the last of the items for the current collection. So the new collection may be started on time. I am hoping to get the last hat off the needles tomorrow so I can do the video and then pick the new yarns. Fun times!

I am hoping the cleaning and knitting gods and goddesses see this as being excited at being kissed on the forehead by them and not being arrogant. I need them to keep this going for me so I can get stuff done. Don’t tell me to look at all that’s left. I know it. I just need this moment. This moment is good.

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What’s Going On in There?

This is my brain. I have no idea what’s going on in there. Except it’s jammed. It must be jammed because I started something I cannot take back and will have to see it through and if I survive – well, I will celebrate with chocolate in several forms.

I am working on a sweater for a friend’s daughter that is the sweater from hell. Her daughter started it and the pattern is not simple and the yarn is not exactly right and the needles weren’t either and there was a section where the yarn was all cut up. It was a mess. 

And I said I would fix it. Before I knew the extent of it. Looking at it and the pattern, I decided the best thing to do was start it all over. I am now on my third starting over but this time I think I got it because I decided to start over and just design the sweater and put it aspects of the original pattern. The original pattern is overly complicated. But no one really knows that until they get the pattern then try and follow it. We look at the picture and we want the pretty thing in the picture. I took a look at the pretty sweater then pulled out some books and went to the Google until I could find the sleeves that were in the picture. Having found them. I got the pattern in my head and that’s what I’m sticking with.

I do not regret this decision though I’ve had this sweater for nearly a year. I will finish it by the end of September. Which is the time I have also given myself to finish an afghan I started two years ago. I need to finish it because it will be the wedding afghan I give to a most beloved niece who is getting married the first week of October.

It is also the time I will have completed ten new items of the next collection – including 4 patterns – hey, maybe the sweater can be one. Yep, this is what a normal brain does and how a normal person functions. Is it any wonder I want to know what’s going on? Or do I really want to know? Maybe I’m better off not thinking about it but just doing it. Don’t have a goal – have a plan and then get after it. That’s gonna be the spirit here. 

This will require a lot of chocolate.

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Let Me Explain

Let me explain how this whole office/yarn room purge works.For the record, this is not my office, either. Mine is way worse. But I am a little bit heady with success at the moment. I finished the hat I was working on and started the new design for what I was gonna call the ski bum hat. But have decided it needs a new name. Because I am making with colors from the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority (no, I am a member of Alpha Psi Omega) and because it is a beanie suited for a guy, I am calling it the Sorority/Fraternity Beanie. I know, it’s not the greatest name and I am open to suggestions on a name that will suit the intention..something like SoFra.. hey that might work, let me think about it.

I also have had some success in my happiness project. My body is my happiness project and I’ve been moving more. This week – Sunday to Saturday – I’ve managed to get in more than 100 minutes of exercise. Considering I used to play more than 4 hours of tennis a day, that is nothing. But given the stuff my body has been going through, that is a lot and I am not vain enough to not know it. I see my doctor this Thursday for my annual, and I am determined to have the 100 minutes that took seven days to get, done by then.

So, what does this have to do with the purge or even knitting? Well, I would be bored to tears if all I had to do was come into the room and just clean. The idea was to do it for 15 minutes and then put it behind me for the day but I asked Cortana to set the alarm for an hour and then I mixed in the cleaning with reading a knitting blog and moisturizing my ankle which needs massive amounts of coconut oil. 

The end result is that I have found more books to go to the Economy Shop. I discovered a couple of knitting books I haven’t seen in a while and was wondering where they got to. My ankle is feeling softer (still got some work to do there) and I am catching up with the blog. I have another strange quirk. I started at the very beginning of the blog I am reading. It is 15 years old and because I know what the blog writer has been up to recently, it’s like being in a Star Trek time warp.

And there’s a shelf that clear. Or it will be when I remove the last five books/other stuff on it and determine if they are keepers or goners. I then imagine me taking the books from the floor and putting them on the shelf in a neat order. I have no illusion that all the books will fit on that one shelf. Though they should, there are less books going back than came off but the universe has a way of mocking me. I tread lightly.

This is how I know my life is blessed. This is the stuff that brings me happiness. There are things that bring me low but in the scheme of all things, this is a pretty good life when clearing one shelf of a five shelf bookcase can make you breathe easily and deeply. 

One step closer to an organized yarn room/office. Love it.

 

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The Project

Let’s get something straight off the bat: this is not my office/craft room. My room is dark and cluttered with books, papers and free range and caged yarn. There are two desks, two bookcases, 30 bins and countless bags of yarn. Along with the papers and books. None of it is tidy. 

I love a tidy room. I just don’t like doing the work it takes to get it there. The downstairs is passably clean for me. Which means I would let someone come into the house. If I knew they were coming. Don’t come by my house unannounced because unless you’re family, that door ain’t opening.  As an aside, I am convinced when they train people to come your door to sell you a new window or internet system, they tell you to knock on the door urgently like it’s someone telling you they’ve got a lost child or your car was just buried under a fallen tree. That’s happened a couple of times where they ring the doorbell with Sheldon like obsession and then knock on the door.

I’ve gone to the door expecting to lend assistance to someone in trouble just to have someone say, they want to help me by letting me know they just opened a new office five miles away and want to handle my finances. Which I will need because someone will need to handle my money and make sure I have money on my boks while I’m in prison for killing them.

Anyway, the downstairs is now passable and I’ve decided the project that needs doing is my yarn room/office.This is going to take a long time to accomplish because there is a lot to be done and I am giving this 15 minutes every morning and that will be it unless cleaning the office comes up on my schedule. It is on my schedule, so it’s possible I will have two cleaning session this week.

I’ve selected one bookcase as my 12 o’clock – couldn’t choose the other bookcase, it’s blocked by dozens of free range yarn bags. I will start with the bookcase and work my way around clockwise. 

I am sorting through the books that are massed there. I’ve already decided some knitting patterns books are no longer needed. I won’t throw them out. I gave a brief thought to selling them online but that would mean holding on to them. I will be donating them to the Economy Shop in Oak Park. The books are in very good condition and have some great patterns. I’ve made a lot of them – I just don’t want to make them again. There will be some great finds there. 

The project doesn’t have a deadline. I will get after it and do it until it’s done. There’s no goal, either. I have the plan to keep the downstairs as neat or neater as it now. So, no regressing. The same with the upstairs. I am starting with the most difficult room and then will tackle the bathroom and bedroom. Mr. Honey will help with those two rooms but even though he uses my laptop in my office, this mess is all mine. But he will appreciate it. He is one of the people who like to clean – he just refuses to enable me by cleaning up my mess. Let it noted, that on those rare occasions that he leaves a mess, I will clean it up if I happen to be cleaning that day. Just sayin’.

Though there is no deadline, I don’t expect there to be anything discernable for a month. There’s a lot to do and with the time I used this morning, I went through about two dozen books and decided about seven of them were on the good-bye pile.The others are piled neatly by the bookcase, The books I went through weren’t even in the bookcase. Don’t judge me. OK, judge me.The project will be successful. It’s gonna be great.