How did September get here?

I don't know whether it's because I haven't been traveling, or just because time is warped this year, but it doesn't seem as though it should be September.  And yet, here it is.

I also don't feel as though I have much more to report than I did in the previous post.  Work has continued, and we signed one deal but another has taken quite a turn, so I'm busy with it but in a different way.  I found out that eBay was offering sellers extra free listings in August, and that gave me incentive to go through my stash and post a number of auctions.  Many years ago somebody sniffed that you never receive what you paid for the yarn, so why bother?  My thought is that I get the advantage of more space in my home, a bit of money in return, and somebody else may love getting yarn at a good price.

So far, it seems to be working that way.  I've also sent boxes to people who make items for charity, and donated a bunch more (do you know the IKEA Dimpa bag? we'd had one of those donated to a local makerspace, and after sorting out the yarn it included I filled it with other yarn to donate) to a local thrift/charity store.  A woman on KnitTalk has been posting about the good things she is excited to find at her local charity/thrift store, so I don't mind donating to mine.  Again, somebody benefits.

August mini-Resolutions Update

As I said, no progress.  I didn't finish the Boneyard Shawl, nor any of my own UFOs, although I did finish several that were in the Dimpa bag with the yarn.  In addition to the striped hat in the last post, I finished the hat with the entrelac top, and put together some granny triangles into a scrappy scarf:

Also shown are a hat and mittens made of scraps of a multi and some royal blues, and an in-progress scarf of (not mine) handspun.  So I've made plenty of things this month, just not the ones I resolved to finish.  So........

September Mini-Resolution

Easy ones, just rolling over from August:  Finish the Boneyard Shawl, and at least one of my own UFOs.  I've made some progress on one UFO, but not to finishing.

Back online, with hats

Tuesday, August 4th, Tropical Storm Isaias came ashore in Connecticut and did impressive damage.  I took some photos which are not great; you can find plenty online showing trees down, buildings and other property damaged.  Some trees looked as if they had been wrung; my friend Rich took this photo:

I was lucky, as we had little to no power loss in my condo community.  However, the internet/phone/TV utility went out, and after two days of pushing the posted estimate for repair further, they switched to "as soon as possible".  Since I use internet for work (also the landline phone, to a more limited extent), I got permission from work to charge my additional data draws to work, as long as it didn't get too expensive.

It worked out to an extra 2-3GB per day.  For a week, although on the weekend I used as little as possible.  I didn't feel right about doing social things when work was paying for the additional data.  Online meetings take a LOT of data, in case you were wondering.

On Tuesday, a week after the storm, late in the day, they predicted that we'd get service back by around 3:00am on Friday.  Wednesday afternoon I was startled to hear the phone ring - naturally, it was a robocall.*  While I had to pop back onto the hotspot a couple of times on Thursday to get through a work meeting when the internet faded, by Friday morning it was indeed back to being stable.

I still feel that I came out well, as some people were without power for nine days.  Not only did they lose any food in their refrigerator (at least two friends said they'd just done a big shopping trip) but some needed CPAPs or other devices to help them sleep, or other medical support.

I've caught up on a couple lectures that happened while I was offline.  It's quite handy that they record them and you have a week or two in which to watch or rewatch.  One is on Chicago architecture styles, the other on Nicola Tesla.

* I think the robotcall was from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which was funny because our primary election was the day before.  I voted by absentee ballot, which I often do because of travel, but this time I dropped it into a box at Town Hall instead of mailing, especially as it arrived only the Saturday before.

How is my August Mini-Resolution going?

• The Boneyard Shawl is still in timeout.  I've felt the need to work through some of the stash I'm trying to divest - I know, counterintuitive - and I've made a scarf and four hats:

Counterclockwise from the top right: hat of leftover deep blue and the last bit of some handdyed/handspun; the scarf of Aslan Trends "Los Andes"; a hat of Nashua Stripes and some leftover brown; hat of leftover green and some fingering weight wool I dyed, and used doubled; and the bottom center hat is from a ball of Knitting Notions Classic Merino Sport and some random pink/multi from the stash (I'd planned to use a different pattern but the yarns blended too much so I just did garter stripes).  On the bottom right is a partly done hat, somebody did the center part and it cupped, so I decided to add sides and turn it into a hat.  For a long time it was a decoration at MakeHartford for the String Thing area, and when MH closed I brought anything not wanted home and finally have been going through the last bag of yarn and bits.  My addition is in a very close shade of green, but just single crochet, not entrelac Tunisian.  Or any Tunisian.

• Other UFOs remain UFOs at this time.  Unless you count the fifth hat, but I didn't do the starting part and it's not really from MY stash.
• At least one non-fiber project progressed a bit.  What else could I do without internet or TV?  I pulled out DVDs and audio books, and finished a novel and an anthology by Agatha Christie.
• Thrift store load progressed a bit.  I posted that if the charity group that will receive the items I've made wants the animal-fiber yarns to let me know, otherwise they go to the thrift store too.
• Yarn diet - well, not perfect, because I signed up for a yarn club, but the first delivery is at the end of September and they had only one week for subscriptions.  So I count it, and I can yarn diet through September.

Edited to add:  During the KnitTalk zoomcall in the evening, I finished another hat:

This was also in the makerspace stash, and mostly finished, but partly unraveled while I untangled the last of the yarns in the big bag o' stash.  It didn't take much to finish the final wedge and sew it together.

Busy, Busy Yarny Months

First, I did miss the monthly "Cooking From History" post, because while I planned to do it, I got very busy with work and deadlines and didn't take the time to cook.  So I am going to double up either this month or next, and in the meantime you can read about someone else's cooking adventure here.

I participated in both the opening reception and the meet-the-artists talks (and following potluck) for the Paper Possibilities 2017 exhibit, and really like how my entries are exhibited:

The colours of the hanging piece really pop against
the colours of the wall.

I've also been working madly on the annual Knitting for Grads at orphanages in Kazahkstan by the Mittens for Akkol knitters, adding a number of from-stash scarves and hats to the shipment in addition to what I committed to make for various graduates:

Extra grad set - a sweater I made for me but didn't wear,
added hat and scarf.  Yes, the body is entrelac.

This boy asked for red, and the "mom" making his accessories asked if I
would add a bit of blue because she added some, so I added a bit.

Closeup of the stitches - crocheted with knitted ribbing

Several people thought of doing "RAAM" from Berroco -
here's mine, in Patons Classic Wool red.  Not a great photo.

At the end, I did have one failure, when it was clear that I would not finish the final sweater.  However, I found one online that the store promised to ship by deadline, and it arrived in time, so - whew!  I saw a lot of cute sweaters but they need to be all-wool (or other animal fiber - mine include wool-alpaca or wool-mohair blends) and those are in slim supply this time of year.  I'll finish the other sweater eventually, and either a grad next year will want the colour and be about the right size, or it will be an extra.

Now I am enjoying knitting for me.  I joined a KAL (Knit A-Long) and am doing two shawls: one following the pattern except in a lighter yarn with a smaller-sized needle, partly because the finished shawl looks huge and I am not.  I am using stash yarn, of course, and happily found one by the hosting yarn company in a really pretty blue:


The other uses some yarn of theirs in three colours (the third will be in Section 4) and some from another company in a very pretty silver, and follows the pattern except for making a closed spine.  I'd envisioned using these yarns to make a shawl to wear to summer concerts in the park, with stripes of reflective yarn to add safety when I walk home from the bus at night.

The KAL is up to Section 3 of the pattern and a lot of people are knitting ahead.  I made sure to get a photo after each stage.  After this I'll get back to finishing some WIP/UFO shawls.

I'm also doing a couple of "idiot scarves" (plain garter stitch in non-plain yarns) to donate to a collection or other for shelters.  These are handy carry-around items.  I finished one this weekend - they do go fast! - and it is pretty long, almost seven feet!  I'm going to do more with the yarn and now I know I can make them wider; this one is about 5½" but thick (I used the yarn doubled) so it should be plenty warm for someone.  More using up of stash, in addition to what I am donating to charity and selling on eBay.

I do have one baby blanket to finish, but the baby isn't born yet so I have ..... about three weeks.  I guess I should get that one started, eh?

28 Items Ready to Go

The first week of the Minimalism Game is done, and although I got busy and didn't pick out item for the last couple of days, I caught up this morning.  This means that in addition to the items I had already packed up to go to a thrift store, twenty-eight more items are heading out the door.  I calculated that by the end of the month, I need to have gotten rid of over four hundred items!  To be precise, Σ28 = 406.

In some cases, the item was a thing I had thought about sending away, but hadn't made up my mind.  The challenge helped me make up my mind.  In others, it was something I had gotten thinking I would use it and have not, or had gotten for gifting and that never happened either.  Sometimes it's a child's item and the children I know are older now.

So hopefully on Sunday I'll take this week's collection to the thrift store, and get some boxes and things to start the next week's collection.

I did add some rules of my own, at least for this week:

• Items already packed up for the thrift store - I had 21 of them - did not count.
• Items I have set aside to send to Mittens for Akkol for their current grads collection also do not count.
• The boxes and things that I am using to take the items to the thrift store of course do not count.
• Items for my Etsy shop also don't count, since I keep hoping to dispose of them by having someone buy one.  Or several.

So far, everything I packed up on a day had a single ending, mostly the thrift store, with one exception.  I think that may change later in the month, but we shall see.  I know I have plenty of magazines for some of the larger-numbered days.


In other news, this also left the house this week.  Given that it is a commissioned item, I don't really count that as something that should leave.  I was working on a scarf for a friend, and our stage manager saw me, and asked if I would make a scarf for her.  In discussing colour options she mentioned grey, and when I asked what shade she wanted, her eyes lit up.  "You know, there's that movie coming out....."

I told her that there was no way I would try to find, or work with, fifty shades of a colour, but I'd see what I can do.  This is five shades worked in single crochet entrelac.  Washable acrylics because she has three large dogs; the outermost one has a touch of sparkle.  She's not a big "bling" person, but was thrilled to see a bit of it in the yarn.  And she loves the end result, which is the best part.

Next up are to finish my friend's scarf, and make five hats of reflective yarn that a friend commissioned for her sister-in-law, nieces, and daughters.  And I want to get a couple of boxes of craft supplies organized and photographed to post on Craigslist to see if anybody wants them.  I'm sure they will go quickly on Freecycle, which will be the next stop for them.

Resolutions for 2015

I've been thinking about whether to post them, and why not?  I did last year, and it's not as if I have thousands of people reading the blog and keeping me accountable, so there's less pressure to actually DO them.  And it's fun to keep track, sometimes, and figure out where I am in terms of what I think I could accomplish this year.

So for this year, the three resolutions I am making are:

1. To keep the blog more up-to-date, posting at least once a month.  I know, it didn't happen last year, but that's a good reason to re-use it, to see if I can make the goal this year.  Once a month isn't horrendous.  I know where I fall down is because I want to use pictures, and that means resizing them and sometimes other adjustments to get Blogger to like the arrangement I want to show.
2. Keeping a record of everything I knit, crochet, etc.  I've done that sometimes in the past, and there are usually partial records as I blog, or post on Facebook, or keep records for my taxes, or get pictures of people wearing what I have sent.  It's interesting sometimes to keep a real record and look back to see how many of what I have made, or even just finished, in the year.
3. Put together the standing computer desk I bought, when I hurt my hip and then annoyed a back muscle and sitting was painful.  I've used a kluge when I needed to stand and work, in part because I have to clear and partially re-arrange my office area to put the desk where it will work with the rest of the items I have.  I'm well and have this enforced vacation from work, may as well put it to use!

So far this year, I spent yesterday organizing things in my crawlspace, and the extra area I use for yarn storage overflow.  I am trying to get the overflow to fit into the crawlspace, and might succeed, in part because I pulled out a lot of yarn to donate to my father's church, where a group of ladies knits and crochets items for shelters, the kids who come to the afterschool tutoring program, and so on.  A great place for odd balls of yarn to end up, or yarn from projects that never quite got started.

I also started a hat for me.  I decided that I want my first new project of the new year to be something for me, and special, and the hat I planned to wear this winter came out a bit big on me so I put it into my Etsy shop instead.  Since I've gotten into entrelac in the round over the holiday, beginning with this mitt:

Not quite one ball makes one mitt.  Yes, I will finish the other!

I decided to find a hat pattern and use some yarn I have in the stash.  In part it is because I found the yarn in my cleaning, and decided to use it for a hat and mittens for me.  I noticed that the yarn ("mystery bump" from Tidal Yarns) has very long colour changes and I thought that instead of making plain items, it would be fun to take advantage of that and make them in entrelac.  Here's what I have so far:

Not much done because I was busy organizing on January 1st.

The second hank, at the top, and whatever is left over from the hat-ball will become mittens.  The yarn is soft and squishy and I am enjoying knitting it.

My cordless drill needs charging, so I guess it's back to knitting.  Or maybe I'll replace the bulb in the entryway ceiling light.  And there might be a couple upstairs.  I like quick-to-finish chores!  Then I'll get back to knitting.