A Room of One's Own

A few posts ago, I mentioned that the lighting in my guest room isn't the best and showed a picture of my Enchanted Wood Shawl blocking on the guest room bed. That is the only time in the past two years that bed has actually been used.

For years I desperately wanted a guest room. We had three kids at home and no spare room, and it seemed like people were forever visiting and having to sleep in the living room or the office. Or we would move the kids around and put guests in the kids' rooms. When Oldest Son went away to college six years ago, I seized the opportunity and turned his room into a guest room. It was gorgeous and I loved it. I painted the walls and ceiling a deep shade of coral and moved in our old pine four poster with all-white bedding and linens to keep it from being too dark. I hung sheers from rods from the ceiling to create a canopy around the bed which was piled with pillows and down comforters and quilts. The room is small and the bed took up most of the space, making it wonderfully cozy. Everyone who saw it wanted to stay in that room. And for four years, it was in almost constant use. My brother lived with us for two stretches of several months each. My sister and her little boy came to visit like clockwork every three months. Oldest Son regularly came home from college and stayed there.

But in the past couple of years, things have changed. My brother moved in with our parents, just 20 minutes from us. My sister and her son have also taken to staying with my parents when they visit. And Oldest Son has graduated from college and moved into an apartment only 15 minutes from here. So for the past two years, the guest room has lain fallow. At the same time, my crafting habit has grown. And grown. And grown. The yarn that used to take up only a bookcase in the guest closet has since grown to a stash of yarn and fiber that overflows the closet and spills into the family room. I have acquired a spinning wheel, skein winder, swift, ball winder, yarn meter, and various and sundry other bulky tools that also live, for lack of a better place, in the family room. I own two old sewing machines, both of which are in storage in the garage, and currently have my mother's sewing machine on loan for some projects I'm doing--on the dining room table.

My husband has, on several occasions, suggested that the guest room might be put to better use as a crafting space for me. I always brushed off the suggestion, because we needed the guest room, right? But square footage in this busy house is way too valuable to sit unused, no matter how pretty it might be. A few months ago, I turned the entirely unused formal living room into a game room for the kids (they had been playing video games in the office, which was...disruptive, to say the least). That room now serves the neighborhood boy pack every afternoon. It's been used more in the past six months than in the previous ten years put together. And thanks to lots of good storage, it still looks like a living room, too.

With all this in mind, I finally bowed to the hubby's superior judgment in the matter and decided to take the plunge. The guest room is no more. I sent the mattress and bedding to a local charity. I persuaded hubby to put the four poster bed frame, which I can't bear to give up, and all the boxes under the bed, up in the attic--more work than it sounds, since he had to lay more plywood in the attic to create the space for them. I emptied the drawers of the various furniture I will be reusing--mostly full of junk I didn't need anyway.

Now I am getting to work plastering and painting the ceiling. Long story, but it needs to happen. I'm keeping the coral color on the walls, but painting the ceiling white to reflect more light. Then I need to paint the old furniture I'm keeping in the room--a chest for storage and two nightstands which will be the base of a new desk--as well as the old worktable that is currently out in the yard and is destined to be my new sewing table. All of these will also be white when I am done with them.

I plan on buying an Expedit bookcase from Ikea for open yarn storage on one wall, and we have an old rocking chair in the garage that will also be moving in. I need a desk chair and a floor lamp, and I'm hoping to buy a nice rug at a decent price. Eventually I plan on bringing in a tv with satellite hookup and maybe a dvd player. And then we'll see. I think this is one of those spaces I'll have to live with for a while to figure out exactly what it needs. Even though I will miss my beautiful guest room, I am so excited to finally have a room of my own!

The Trouble with DPNs*

It took me about an hour to get to this point.

I've never done a toe-up sock before. After a quick check of Rav, I looked up Wendy Johnson's "Easy Toe." It's not as easy as the name would have you believe, but I am willing to believe it is easier than the alternatives. Unfortunately, it calls for the use of dpns, which are not my favorite knitting tools. I'm sure there is a way to do it with a long circular, but frankly, my brain was pretty overtaxed just following the directions as written.

I'm not one of those people who can manipulate five tiny needles with speed and grace. When I have to use them, I prefer short, blunt, bamboo or nylon needles with a little give and a little stickiness to help me control the stitches. The only dpns I have in the right size for this yarn, though, are rather long, pointy, slippery, metal needles. This did not make for an easier first toe-up experience.

I did eventually get the toe finished, but I'm not at all sure it looks right. It seems to me the increases ought to be on the sides, not on the top and bottom. Yes, I could just lay the sock the other direction (and in fact that's what I will do), but then the tip of the toe is vertical rather than horizontal. This seems wrong to me, even though I'm sure I followed the directions correctly. Does anyone understand what I'm talking about?

This is what it looks like now. I'm not the world's fastest sock knitter, obviously.

(Can you see what I mean about the toe now? The stitches on the very tip are turned sideways because I turned the toe to put the increases on the sides.) I'm not using a pattern. I just ribbed the top in 2x2 ribbing, because I like ribbed socks, and did a twisted stitch cable for every other knitted rib for a little more interest. I'm sort of regretting that, actually. I don't use a cable needle and I've dropped quite a few stitches because I can't really see the little buggers that well, even with my glasses on, and the metal needles aren't helping. But I do like the effect.

All in all, I'm finding the sock knitting pretty interesting. I'm hoping I can sustain this level of interest, because this is what the mailman has brought so far--and there's more coming.

I may have gotten a little carried away.

*Please note that I am not in any way disparaging dpns. I know many people love them with a deep and enduring passion. I am not one of them, but I do understand. I love alpaca like that.

Now That's More Like It!

This is not the yarn I am planning to overdye. That plan is still in the works. This is the yarn that arrived today, and I am beyond pleased with it. This is a skein of Mountain Colors Bearfoot that was admittedly a splurge. I've often fondled this yarn in my not-so-L YS, but as a confirmed non-sock-knitter, I could never really justify buying it, no matter how soft it is or how rich the colors.

In my new knitting-socks-may-not-be-so-bad world, I decided it would maybe be okay to buy just one skein of unreasonably expensive sock yarn, just to try it. Sort of like testing the heroin, because, ya know, you can always go back, right? I found this skein in a Rav destash, and it was less than retail, so I'm working that angle, too.

It's really nice. It's a lot nicer than the cheap sock yarns I've tried. It's softer and denser and richer colored. It's like sweater yarn for the feet. I haven't tried knitting it yet, but I'm sure doing so won't lead me into any trouble. After all, my ability to resist beautiful yarns is well documented.

My Stash Runneth Over

Last December, I wrote about my realization that I had finally achieved Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy (S.A.B.L.E.). Although I don't believe in diets, for food or yarn, because I believe that the forbidden is oh-so-much-more-enticing--and therefore declaring anything forbidden is counterproductive--I did mention my goal of reducing the stash a bit through a combination of destashing and knitting from stash.

I made some impressive strides in that general direction. I put some of my yarn up on Ravelry, with the intention of offering it for sale. That got a tad overwhelming, and after an entire day of photographing and cataloging, I had to take a little break...which is now dragging into its eight month.

I successfully undertook the Great Giant Granny Square Scrapghan Challenge of 2009, which used up an impressive 10 pounds of stash yarn and netted me a blanket big enough to work as a car cozy.

I even cut waaaaay back on my yarn buying from WEBS and Little Knits and Smileys, and all the other pushers--I mean sellers--online. This reduction may have been offset slightly by a corresponding increase in purchases from Rav destashers--but come on, how can anyone resist those deals?

Last December, the stash closet looked like this:


This morning when I decided to pull a few single balls of yarn from the stash closet for an afghan square swap I'm taking part in, I was astounded to see this:

Is it me, or did I somehow acquire even MORE yarn in past eight months?

This does not appear to be an improvement.

Normally, I don't mind yarn piling up. I love yarn. It makes me happy. It inspires me. And as habits go, it's pretty benign. But when the yarn becomes a public safety hazard, it's clearly time to take action.

Destash? No. We've already established that destashing does not work for me. Yarn diet? Ditto.

But I had to make a pilgrimage to CostCo today (on a Sunday--save me!), and I happened across these nifty storage boxes at three for fifteen bucks:

I bought two sets. I debated buying more, but my husband was with me, and I didn't want to call attention to the full extent of the yarn issue--since I like to allow for a little plausible deniability on my part, and a little self-delusion on his part--so I kept it to just the two. Even that drew a little more negative attention than I really wanted, but I moved swiftly to the alcohol aisle and defused the situation with a little creative redirection.

Once safely home and closed up in the guest room, I dragged out everything from the floor of the closet. There was a lot. No pictures, because my husband does sometimes read the blog, and, well, see above re: plausible deniability.

After an hour of sorting and packing, I achieved this:

Okay, so I still have more yarn than I can feasibly knit in my natural lifetime.

But at least now I know what I have.

Small victories, right?

GGGSSC* Update

*Great Giant Granny Square Scrapghan Challenge

I figure you're all waiting with baited breath to see how the Great Giant Granny Square Scrapghan Challenge of 2009 is shaping up. The 1984 Olympics ain't got nuthin' on me.

I didn't measure this when I laid it out, but it's in the four foot square range. It's at the point where I'm wondering whether two rounds a day is a reasonable goal. Each round takes a loooooooong time, and I do have other fiber projects, after all. The ever-changing colors keep it exciting, though. It's fun deciding what should come next and planning out how best to use those yarns I only have a little of.

I have determined that each linear foot of afghan takes about five yards of yarn (or ten yards if it's a worsted weight that I have to hold double). This is very useful information, since it allows me to calculate whether I have enough of a particular yarn to complete a round. Or it would, if I actually went to the trouble to measure out the yarn before I started a round. On the last round, I ran out of yarn about halfway around. As it happens, though, I had another yarn that was so close in color that I was able to complete the round without it being at all noticeable that I had changed yarns halfway through. One of the benefits of having a completely unreasonable stash, I guess. I got a little X-treme Needlework rush out of that victory.

Oh, and I must thank all of you who suggested weaving in the ends as I go. I stopped and did just that, and was immensely relieved when they were all gone. But my extra special thanks go out to Ruth and Crochetgurl, who both suggested crocheting in the ends as I go! Why the heck didn't I think of that?! It's simple, and much, much faster than weaving them in later. Now I have a nice, tidy afghan with no dangling ends.

The "Unmentionables" are coming along nicely, too. I have the body of the shorts completely done, grafted, ends woven in, and I'm working on the first leg ruffle. And despite Colin's comment--which made me laugh out loud, by the way--I still think they're cute! I was able to try them on once I bound off the waist, and they fit, which was a relief. I had to guess at the sizing, and ended up adding an inch to the length of the legs and another inch to the rise, both to accommodate my rather long frame. I think those were good choices. I do think they'll make great summer lounging pajamas with the addition of a camisole top. If I have enough yarn left, I may even knit one to match!

S.A.B.L.E.

For those of you who: a) are just now reading your first knitting blog; and b) have somehow managed to miss every one of The Yarn Harlot's books; and c) have never spoken to, emailed, or otherwise communicated with another knitter, S.A.B.L.E stands for "Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy".

I'm there.

This was my stash in March of 2007, when I started blogging:

Two bookshelves, neatly organized. At this point, I only had two knitting books and no magazines. In fact, I had only just started to explore the concept of "stash", for which I totally blame The Yarn Harlot. Before this, I knitted for 20 years by buying the yarn I needed for the single project at hand, finishing the project, and then moving on (I threw out any leftovers). It was only after I read the first of the Harlot's books that I realized I could stock up on yarn, patterns, and books. You know, in case of an emergency or something. I seem to have embraced the concept with a certain degree of enthusiasm.

This is what I saw when I opened the stash closet this morning:

That used to be the floor of the closet. The bookcases from the first picture are behind that pile (still full of yarn).

This is the closet shelf, up by the ceiling, not visible in the last picture [actually, this is the closet shelf after I organized it. The before was embarrassing in a way that had nothing to do with a simple yarn addiction]:

That, folks, is a lot of yarn.

I think that is officially more yarn than I can justify. Several hours ago, when I opened the closet and saw the mess, I thought, "Hmmm. Maybe I ought to take an hour or so and get this organized and photographed so I can put it up on Ravelry. Maybe I could even see if there's anything to destash. That seems like the sort of thing a person might do on the last day of the year, if she were the organized, resolution-making type."

I got out my camera and a legal pad and set to work unloading, sorting, photographing, and cataloging the yarn.

My camera battery died. Twice.

I have six pages of the legal pad filled.

And, four hours later, I have only half the yarn cataloged.

I'm afraid drastic measures may be in order.

To begin with, I have identified quite a bit of yarn for destashing. I think it amounts to about a quarter of the total stash, and that's just the yarn I can destash without any discomfort. If I want to dig a little deeper, there are several more yarns that could go on the block. So, for starters, I'm going to put all that yarn up for sale on Ravelry.

Second, as a corollary of sorts, I am finally going to catalog all of my yarn on Ravely, so that I can see exactly what I have, and I am going to put up any new yarn I may buy as soon as I receive it. Forcing myself to keep track is, to my mind at least, a lot like keeping a running total in my checkbook; it makes it impossible for me to ignore reality. It also gives me a place to "shop" without spending any money. I love to look at yarn online and think about what I would make with it. If my own yarn is online, I can look at it anytime, and I won't be tempted to break out my American Express Card (hey, I'm trying, okay?).

Finally, although I don't believe in diets of any sort (they only make me crave what I've decided I can't have), some sort of yarn-buying reduction plan is clearly in order. I don't do New Year's Resolutions (see "diets" above), so let's just call this a little personal growth challenge. A complete moratorium is clearly not going to work. But for the next year, at the very least, I am challenging myself to buy less yarn than I knit. A lot less. My goal is to find the floor of the stash closet by the end of the year.

This is how that floor looks now:

Those two cardboard boxes on the right are destash yarns, and somewhere in there is a large bag of acrylic and cotton yarns that I plan to donate to the elementary school's knitting club. The rest of the yarn on the floor is the amount of yarn I will need to get out of the stash to reach the floor. I know you can't see it well, so you'll have to take my word for it: there's about sixteen sweaters' worth there, plus spinning fiber (which doesn't count as yarn, but still needs to find a place on the shelves before the end of the year, which means it will have to take the place of some yarn already on the shelves--see how it works?).

Now, I can't knit sixteen sweaters in one year, unless I give up certain other activities, like cleaning and laundry and speaking to my children. Even if I could, that would only allow me to reach my goal if I bought no yarn at all for the entire year, and we've already established that is unrealistic. But about a third of the closet shelf is also currently filled with destash yarn. I figure, moving yarn up from the floor to the shelf as I destash is fair, and totally in keeping with the goal of reaching carpet in 2009, as long as something is moving out of the stash in some way, right?

And now I'm off to make pizza and taquitos for the younger units so that I can send them and their friends up to the media room with sparkling cider, while hubby and I enjoy filet mignon and champagne downstairs. Happy New Year, all!