Where to Begin?
I have no idea where to start. There is so much to tell you since the last time I posted and the longer I waited to post, the more there was to tell you and then I just froze. FROZE! And I’m not talking about the fact that we are FROZEN here in upstate New York. I mean that I just couldn’t get to the blog.
Then, today I decided to just start and tell you some things and if I don’t tell you everything that is fine. We will all survive!
So, in knitting news… I have decided that this year I am going to focus on finishing my many works-in-progress (WIPs). I have approximately twenty. TWENTY!
So, first up was to take out my not-very-far-along Memories Sweater.
I’m making this with Malabrigo Rios which is one of my very most favorite yarns to work with. And I love this colorway – which I would tell you the name of but I can’t seem to locate the skeins in my messy-totally-unorganized stash. More on that later.
I pretty much decided to make this because of the detail at the bottom of the sleeves which has a thumb hole so the sleeve can act like a fingerless mitt. So great, right???
Next up is my Moorland Blanket which I started with a crochet-a-long with the Attic24 blog TWO. YEARS. AGO. This is how far I got….
Five stripes. I loved the idea behind this blanket. Lucy at Attic24 had a beautiful picture of the Moorland near where she lives in England and she designed the blanket to mirror that picture. Here is the side-by-side she posted on her blog…
That picture does not show the wave pattern that actually became the pattern stitch for the blanket. You can see the wave pattern in my 5-row sample above. And it’s REALLY pretty. The problem was that I’m not a great crocheter and keeping track of the wave pattern was difficult for me. Unlike with knitting, I have a very hard time “reading” my crochet stitches. So, since it was hard, I just stopped or, more likely, got very easily distracted by a new pattern.
Fast forward to 2019 and Lucy is hosting another crochet-a-long for her very pretty Sweet Pea blanket. And she designed it specifically so beginners would have no trouble following along. Hooray! That’s for me! So, I decided to use my Moorland color pack of yarn and crochet it using the easier pattern of the Sweet Pea blanket…
And voila! I’m 19 stripes in already. All double crochet and very easy to “read” my work.
A good start to finishing some WIPs.
The other task regarding my knitting that I am working on this year (hopefully this month??) is to organize my stash. It’s a mess. I have an IKEA cube shelving unit that has 16 squares with cubes made out of fabric that sit inside and hold all the yarn (and roving) and it is mostly full. JAMMED. And I can’t see any of it. I have no idea how much I have and where it is. I as mentioned earlier, I can’t find the next ball of yarn for my Memories sweater at the moment and I need it. So frustrating! That means for now I’m just working on the blanket.
Marie Kondo and her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing are calling to me.
What else? Oh, today is the Super Bowl that we don’t watch but we make food for! I made a snack and a dessert….
Both are Smitten Kitchen recipes. Perfect Blueberry Muffins to which I added raspberries. SO. YUMMY. And Spicy Brittled Peanuts from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Recipes and Wisdom from an Obsessive Home Cook . SO. ADDICTIVE. I also made pizza dough so pizza will be the main dish. So excited to not-watch-but-eat-goodies!
Ok, that’s it for now. Except for a picture of Smudge from the holidays…
…because he’s cute.
.
.
.
Liz, I was just thinking of you a couple of days ago and realizing that you hadn’t sent a blog in quite a while. Your ears must have been ringing!!
About your stash, I realized very early on in my knitting that I needed to get organized. I decided to organize by color, which seemed to surprise a recent visitor. But I don’t think it matters what categories or divisions one uses; Everyone will know his/her own system. For Christmas I received an actual yarn winder. It has been a Godsend, as I was getting a sore arm/shoulder from trying to wind everything by hand. So, first I measure out my partial skeins, etc, and then I wind and keep a record of the yardage left with the yarn. Because it drives me crazy to not know how much of a certain yarn I have left over. For myself, I have one, sometimes two bins for each color, and for a few (like variegated) I even have some BIG bins. Luckily we have a good-sized, dry basement! Nevertheless, I decided it is time to try to “work down”/use up some of my stash. Anyway, all this is not to suggest you try my methods, but to say I certainly understand what you are talking about. Can’t use the yarn if you can’t find it!
Great to hear from you.