Monday, May 6, 2013

I see my knitting future, and it's socks

Breaking news: I set a simple goal for this past Saturday, and met it.


The whole house is in such a shambles lately, I could go into any room and spend a few hours clearing up just that one space.  But this weekend I thought the biggest lift would come from winding all my new Stoddart winter sock skeins into cakes, and then bagging them up with coordinating heel and toe yarn for individual sock projects.


Think I can get through six whole pairs before the end of August?

(well, seven actually: I have one kit left over from last year's shopping frenzy.)


Once I was done all the winding and weighing and cutting, the house felt so much less cluttered I thought I'd do the same for the four huge mounds of roving left over from last year's Knitter's Frolic, then built on this time around.  I've had trouble thinking of much other than spinning lately, though I haven't had time to get going on any, and it was sooo nice to divide up some material into spinning-ready bags so I can leap in as soon as I do get a chance.

Of course, it was much easier to prep knowing that I want three-ply yarn (just divide the lumps into three equally weighted piles) so I can knit socks (no fussing about which weight I want in advance; I can adapt my base pattern to suit whatever gauge I end up with.)


All that work is going to leave me with a LOT of socks in progress, so naturally I also got this yarn set up for, um, more socks:


I mean honestly, when is the next time I'll get to sit down at the swift and ball winder?


After that... yes, there was still some weekend left... I decided to accept reality and go clean up all my knits in progress.  It took hours to find all my loose needles and put them back where they should be (which is mostly in project bags with their patterns, queued up in the basket under the coffee table near the TV), separate out all the snips of excess yarn I hadn't dealt with, toss the pattern notes I no longer need and store with care the ones I do, and, shudder: put yarn away.

Guess what I learned when I was putting yarn away?

I need to stop buying yarn for a while.

Just until I catch up with a little bit of what I've got.  Because CRIMINY, there is a lot of yarn in my house!  It's tidy now, of course, but it's gaining on me.

Hope your weekend was lovely and didn't include any horrifying discoveries like that.  See you tomorrow with either pictures of a new sock, or a tale of sock Woe with a happy-ish ending, or news on a non-sock project somebody twisted my arm into.  You'll have to drop in to see which, heh.


ps cleaning up all that yarn reminded me of some hats I've been wanting to start, and the fingerless gloves I want to finish, and the sweaters I gave up on but would like to get done if only so they're not tying up any more needles.  so the future may have something more than just socks in it really.  it just doesn't look likely right now.

3 comments:

Leslie said...

I, too, spent my weekend tidying up my studio--and was so happy to do so. It feels awesome to be back in the house. I even managed to finish 1 pair of socks, 1 hat, a pair of fingerless gloves for my mom's mother's day gift, AND catch up on the "block-a-day" blanket I'm making from all my leftover sock yarns. Awesome.

Mary Keenan said...

You're back in the house!! That's so wonderful - and getting stuff done is just bonus :^)

Leslie said...

Thanks! We're very excited to be back in the house...hoping to have everything finally organized by this weekend.