Playing Catch (up)

It's been a pretty busy week so I've not gotten to the blog to post things. Playing catch up now, if I can manage to get it all into one blog posting and if not, I'll simply split and make several postings till I get it all caught back up!

I've been busy trying to complete projects that I promised myself I'd get finished this spring. So far I've managed to knock off a few of them but had problems with that Cluster Stitch Doily I started two years ago. Kept having to frog the darned thing because it just wasn't working up right. Misread the pattern and had to have help with that (thanks yet again Nana Carol because you were so right about what I was doing wrong). Then ran out of the thread I was using and had to find another ball. I finally have it completed and have yet another problem with it. I am trying to view this as an opportunity rather than a problem. When I had to use new thread it of course didn't match up with the old thread. Of course! I don't know if you can see it in the picture, it's barely visible but it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. Rather than fret over the whole thing I'm going to use this as an opportunity to try something else I've wanted to try with crochet- dying. I'm going to turn the white/off white doily into a different color. Just haven't determined as of yet what I'm going to use to dye with. I have always wanted to play around with Kool Aid dying but not so sure I want to use it with this doily. I am leaning more toward using onion skin or tea or coffee and altering the color by shades rather than a dramatic color switch. Since the doily is just slightly off in color I feel that turning it into a subtle coffee color would be just the thing for it. I'll definitely let you all know what I decide and of course will post pictures once I've completed the project.

I have also picked up a Draped Bed Jacket project that is in my stash of PIGS. http://tinyurl.com/2wbnjy I made one for my mom at Christmas and it didn't fit. I took measurements and am making another in the same color and material (she just loved it) that I used for the original. I'm half finished with the main portion, which would be about 1/3 finished with the complete project.

Yesterday was my nephew's birthday. We had a party at a local pizzaria that caters to kids. You know, the type with the game rooms, separate party rooms and buffet. Well, they have the best pizza (in my opinion) in town and although we didn't book a private party room, we had a great time. My nephew just turned 11 and is into all that wrestling stuff. I think it's hokey, but hey, I'm not an 11 year old boy! We had a great time. Every gift he got was wrestling related too so that made him extremely happy.
Wrestling cake with Harley Davidson candle. When you twist it, the candle makes the sound of a Harley starting up.
Presents are great!


Cake is good too!

I've been working on projects for the craft fair that my friend and I are entering into this fall. I've completed a few more scarves. I started working on this beautiful shawl but had to frog that because of tension problems. We are trying a few different things for the craft booth. Scarves and hats, scrunchies and barrettes and shawls will be the staple items. My friend does beadwork and will be making some jewelry as well. I also intend to add various projects as I work on them through the year. Already have a shrug, a couple afghans and a top and jacket to put in. I'm also thinking some Christmas-sy things might go over well. We've talked with a couple people who have shopped this craft fair regularly over the years and from what they've told us most anything we make will go over. I'm sure hoping so because our game plan is to have a few of this and that and a bit more of staple items.

We also plan on having available two albums for people to look through. One will contain her works and the other mine. I am hoping this will prompt some orders for items, either items people see in the albums and like, or orders for items they have in mind that they feel we could make. We will also have business cards on hand as well.

Various and a Sunday

Gotta love those lazy Sunday's. I know I do. At least I do when the dogs aren't getting me up at the crack of dawn to take them outside. This morning they did get me up, but afterwards I went back to bed. Too tired to stay up. I honestly tried, I just couldn't seem to keep awake so I conceded defeat and got a couple more hours of rest. I must have needed it because I don't remember a thing.

My crochet cohort and partner in craft booth adventuring was over the other night. She'd managed to pick up some barrette backs for crafting at a really good price and decided to make barrettes to add to our line-up of craft items. She's only just started working with crochet threads and had some but not many odds and ends and I have oodles so we rooted through and found the ones with just a bit of thread left on them for her to take to make the flowers and such for the barrette backs. I knew I had a lot of thread but sure didn't realize I had amassed so much of it! I sent her off with all the odd balls and partial balls of it I had in various colors and some size 20 and 30 threads that I had as well. I'm curious now to see what she comes up with in the way of decoratives for those backs.

I seem to be cursed with the doily project I've been working on. Each time I get that accursed row completed I end up having to frog the dratted thing because there's a mistake in it. I'm talking four times now, I've reworked the same row. I understand now why I put the thing down for two years. I have a plan for finishing it though which goes something like this. Each day when I start my crocheting I am going to pick that doily up and work on it first thing. I feel this will enable me to work on it when I'm fresh and can pay attention and am hoping this will allow me to finally complete the row properly, and hopefully complete the last three rows left on it after that. Yes that's right, I'm on row 24 of 28 rows on this doily. Have been stuck on row 24 since I put the thing down two years ago. Have frogged row 24 four times now. I know the poor thing is going to need a thorough washing once I do have it complete.


It's been almost enough to make me want to donate ALL my thread to my friend! Almost! I do have a project in that stack of PIGS that is thread and there are balls of it earmarked for the project. The very same balls that came with the project to begin with. You see, that particular PIG is a project started by my mother a long time back and one she never completed. I have a total of 53 squares in the bag and a bunch of the thread she originally bought for the project left. Unfortunately I don't have the pattern for the squares. I will either have to find something to turn those 53 squares into, or else go on a hunt for the pattern so I can make more of the squares. The thing with it is though, I don't know what she was intending to make with it so I am not sure I'll ever actually complete the intended aim of it. I do know I'm going to make something with them all. Don't know what yet, haven't given it more thought than to just count the squares and see how much of the thread is there, and there are a BUNCH of balls of it there so if I do end up making more squares I'll have all the thread I need. Luckily the project is white so there isn't going to be an issue of color fading (maybe an issue of yellowing due to the age of the thread). I am confident that I can always bleach the completed project back into conformity if I find that necessary. From this picture of one of the squares though, I don't think any bleaching will be necessary.

One final picture that I just couldn't resist posting is of my dog Honey. I caught her the other day sleeping in this position. She looked so comfy and I just couldn't figure out how the heck she could be. I snuck off to get my camera and by the time I had it ready to snap the photo she was aware I was there and watching me. She just couldn't move, sort of like that sleep state where you're aware of everything around you but you are paralyzed and unable to do anything about it. I just laughed and laughed. Gives new meaning to my nickname for her - Honeybutt!

Projects that can't be ignored

Since I last posted I've been working on more scrunchies and scarves and I also pulled out this shrug project. I finished it yesterday and here are the pictures for you all to see.

I just love this shrug, it's so soft and cuddly. The pattern was very easy, from the book 100 Crochet Projects by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss. I have to say those two are some fantastic designers. I've worked more patterns they have created than any other designer who crochets. Their instructions are always clear and there are very few errors in them. I highly recommend the book, and the two women's patterns. I made the shrug entitled Simply Shrug. I used Red Heart pounder worsted weight acrylic in Light Purple held together with an eyelash yarn I picked up a few years ago when Target was clearancing it out ($.25 a ball!) in a purple that is just a shade lighter than the acrylic. I am thrilled with the way it turned out and very grateful that someone was willing to model it for me. It's definitely a bit too small for me to model. Now I'm intending to make one like it for myself. I did make a couple of changes to the pattern, for purely aesthetic reasons, nothing that affected the pattern itself.

There are so many wonderful projects in that book alone I don't know how I'll get to every one of them.

Spring is now three weeks away; I know I'm ready for it. I'm sure many of you are sick of winter and feeling the same way. Even though we haven't had much snow or even all that much cold here, it's been wet, wet, wet which made for a miserable, muddy winter. Hooray for Spring, please hurry with all your sunny days and new growth. I think it's probably a tossup for me as to which I prefer more, spring or fall. Though all the seasons have their good and bad points, for me, there's something really special about spring, all the trees budding out, flowers springing from the frozen tundra and even the rain in spring somehow feels different. Of course, fall is a fabulous kaleidoscope of color and crisp smells and it's as compelling as spring, but the difference for me is that spring brings hope while autumn is a harbinger of death and decay. The death of season, the death of summer, the passing of yet another year.

This past year I treated myself to a hairpin lace loom large enough to work some of the newer fashion projects. I made a few items with it, intent upon learning how to do it well enough to work a particular project I had in mind. Well, that fell through, I did try the project in a test run first, with a less expensive ribbon yarn and just didn't like the end result enough to use the more expensive ribbon yarn I'd purchased to use. I ended up using the ribbon yarn in another project which I was quite pleased with. I've made nothing else with the loom either. I do have a few more projects in mind using the loom. Something to look forward to as I plod along on all these unfinished PIGS I have vowed to clean out this year. I've been very diligent about getting them done and I'm proud of myself for my stick-to-it-ness. Of course, being so proud of myself I just have to reward myself for it as well and so, even though I haven't done that yet, trust me I have it stored away in the back of my mind. I am just waiting till I get a few more of those projects cleared out first.

The Skipping Stones afghan is one of those PIGS that is almost complete, just waiting on a trip to Wally World to pick up the extra yarn needed. I have plans, pattern, and material bagged to make a crucifix as well. It's going to be a gift for my mother on her birthday this year. I really need to get off my duff and get that going because I've never done anything like this project before and her birthday is only a couple months away. If I run into trouble with it I certainly want to have enough time to work through the problems and get it done.

I have vowed that once I get everything caught up I'll not let myself get so behind again on projects. I have vowed that once I start a project I won't put it away, I'll plug away at it until it's complete. I have every intention of doing this, but I won't chisel that in stone either. LOL
That's a sure fire way to throw a cog into the wheels!

Ok, off to finish this scarf, and then perhaps the doily I set aside (yet again). I needed a break from it once I ran into a problem with the pattern and now that I've been given a suggestion on how to resolve the snafu in the pattern I need to focus on it again. It's four rows from done! Four seems to be my magic (stalling) number. Seems each project I work, once I've gotten to the point where I'm four rows or rounds from completion I end up putting it up. A year later I find it in a bag, stuffed in the back of my project closet and so this year I resolved to change that and having changed the arrangement (meaning I took all the projects out of the closet which is a back of the mind mentality for me) and put them all into my line of sight (in the rolling cart right beside my favorite crochet chair) they're all sitting there in that cart taunting me to come finish them up.

Wants and Needs

Temperatures warmed up before sunrise. The snow melted off quickly, leaving behind thawing, muddy ground and puddles. The day was balmy, cloudy and errant like the soft iris gaze from a young child's eyes. Something you could lose yourself in. I've had a time getting the dogs out without having them come back coated in the mud. Only Honey will hold still to be wiped down (and that's only because she's so small I can actually hold her). I usually pen them up in the kitchen until they dry and then try to brush the dust from their paws.

I've learned, like I am sure most of you have, that Leisure Arts was sold to the company who owns QVC shopping channel, Animal Planet and the Discovery channel. I believe with this news an era has ended. Leisure Arts is one of the big names in craft patterns, having been around as long as I remember and believe me I can remember a long time. From the time I was old enough to see the slick pages (my mother crocheted) I would look at the lacy patterns with wonder. The effect was spun silk to my young eyes. The books, pictures and pages; a dream life it seems now, another set of social values, seemingly more genteel, a time when America had leisure, so long past it is being forgotten. I am hoping that this new venture will begin an era that can proclaim with as much pride its right to own the publication's title. That result would be a positive one. So many magazines have shut down production, and even the women's magazines don't seem to put much emphasis on crafts anymore, especially crocheting, that we crafters are feeling the effects of this demise through fewer paper sources for patterns. Outside of books. What are some creative ways you locate patterns?

This is my personal approach when wanting/needing patterns. I have to be frugal with my choices and so I try to get the best deal I can get for what I'm looking for when I do purchase, and I shop smart. I utilize the library and local booksellers, looking through the books before I decide which ones I really want to buy. I bargain shop the sales at Hobby Lobby and WalMart and sometimes I can find patterns and magazines at thrift stores. I shop on eBay. I have to confess though, 98% of my projects are from internet patterns. I have shot my budget for the next 6 months on all things crochet so I'm trying to be good and just use the stuff I have here for now. There's always something calling from the store shelves, but I am resolute.

So, since I have this stash and all the patterns, and now the new delicious yummy books I got I'm content. I'm still learning how to crochet clothing and am by no means a professional. I'm still learning how to gauge and figure yardage and fit garments and a thousand other things. I've got some beautiful yarns that I've put back for garments for myself, once I've mastered this necessary knowledge. Then I plan on making myself some spectacular items. Right now it seems like that time is a long way away, but I'm trying to be patient. I think it's worth waiting for.

While I love making afghans I find many of them take so long that I get bored with them and switch to other projects to give myself a break. You can take some afghans along as projects, mile-a-minutes, granny squares and motifs come to mind immediately. Eventually they get too large to carry or you finish all the separate pieces and you have to put them aside as a carry-along project. So you start a new project to carry along; the process continues. At first it's just one project, one bag, and you work on scarves or hats or dishcloths, afghan squares, whatever you chose, one at a time. Once bored with always carrying the same project, you start to find other patterns to carry along, some are a bit larger, some smaller but they're chosen and carried and worked on for specific reasons such as the amount of time you have to work on the project, whether you'll be sitting or standing, or which one you need done the most, worked on to keep our minds from over-thinking itself, our fingers busy, focused and why? Because we have a need. It's more than a want, it's a need because it's something that you have to do to feel your soul. Succinctly, there's the difference between wants and needs.

Before you're aware of what's happened you've got PIG's galore. You've got the project sitting there that you work on when you're in your Crochet Chair. You've got the projects you have at your chair to work on when you need a break. You have a project you keep in the bedroom to work on, the den, maybe even the kitchen or bath. You've got all those carry-alongs. Like rabbits they keep multiplying in direct proportion to the depth of your need to hook. Now this certainly calls for some sort of storage solution and so you just have to have a container, or two, or three; something to get them all up and off the tables, the couch. the corners of your living room. Acquisition of storage containers, however they are obtained makes this a fully blown official addition you know. You might as well accept the fact, surrender to it, you're hooked!

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

It's Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Lincoln was a man whose ideals have influenced me throughout my life. When I was young, I was taught Lincoln freed the slaves, he reunited a divided country and that he was honest. These qualities were an ideal I set for myself, to be honest, upstanding and willing to do what I felt was the right thing to do, despite all outside opinion, and despite the consequences. I read many biographies about him as a child. As I grew I learned much more about the man, about his personal life and his politics. I learned he did write the Emancipation Proclamation but that eradicating slavery was more a political move than any sort of moral dictate. That in order to usurp and undermine the Confederate Army he freed blacks from slavery, thus yanking the bottom out of the Confederate states financial base. It was a disappointing illumination that the man I so admired had ulterior motives for doing something that I grew up thinking was an act of honor. I learned he suffered from a severe depression all his life. I wonder many times what else this man might have accomplished had he had treatment for that depression. I admire what he did, I am just not so sure anymore that his motivation for doing such was as honorable as I had thought. I do feel however this person was the right one to come along at the time because it was necessary for the United States as a country to get beyond slavery and the slavery mentality. I know we don't live in a perfect country and that slavery in many senses of the word still exists today. What is different, and better is that now the slavery that is present is not directed toward a group of peoples. What is pitiable is that slavery is a concept that exists and is directed toward the working class and the poor because we are all enslaved by the great gears of government. With that I'll turn my soapbox right side up, refill it with the yarn it held until now and store it back with my stash, hehehe.

Speaking of yarn, I've so rightly resisted temptation lately that I cannot believe myself. While the boucle listed in my latest acquisitions isn't the last acquisition it was the last larger one I made. I haven't bought anything else except some yarn I purchased at the thrift store and some I purchased to give to a friend for her birthday. My friend was tickled to get the present I put together for her. I was thrilled that she liked it so well.

The thrift store purchase was something I hadn't expected and so I shot my yarn budget on it and am trying desperately to be good and not buy anything else the rest of the month. I ran across some cones of beautiful yarns and was so tempted that I bought most of what was there, bypassing some other ww acrylics that I'm always picking up to add to that stash. All are thin yarns, most acrylic or acrylic blends but oh so beautiful (these pictures don't do them justice). I can't wait to get my fingers in them, though for now they're simply put up, awaiting my determination as to what I'm going to turn them into.

Now, since I've been down and in pain I said I haven't done much crochet, only working a little at a time on the Skipping Stones Circular Afghan that I've wanted to make myself for years now. It's not finished by a long shot, but I thought you all might enjoy a glimpse of the work in progress.I am really excited about this afghan, love the color and love the way it's working up. I'm sure it will be a finished object by mid-week. Then on to the next project. All of these, by the way, are from the PIGS pile I've promised to clear out this year. The next is a shrug from the book 100 Crochet Projects.

Well, I hope that my morning report has livened your day at least a little. I know Mondays are so dreaded and sometimes dreadful and so I think offering something that's a bit of fun is a good way to break that monotony. Until next post.

Pre-Superbowl Prep Saturday

Happy Saturday afternoon all. Fresh off the heels of Groundhog Day where we were promised that Spring is just around the corner (let's hope that is the case), we've little time to gear up for that Greatest of Days, where grown men sit around all day and swill beer, hootin' and hollerin' and generally actin' like men do on Superbowl Sunday. How many of you are ready? I've got all my PIGS in a plastic roll cart right beside my best chair, Ott lamp at attention, waiting, and everything else I need close at hand because, by golly, I'm ready for the onslaught. I have five channels to choose from, strike one for the game and I've four left. I'm thinking rather than try to keep flipping through (studiously avoiding the game) I may just hang it up and throw on Winamp for the day. Some sort of background noise that's appropriate, that can settle at the back of my consciousness and leave me free to pay attention to what I'm doing with my hook. I'm the sort of crocheter that has to pay attention most of the time.

Ok now, on to better things. I promised a while back to provide a pattern and picture for the scarf I created that I am calling the 2+1 Scarf. The reason I'm calling it that is because this scarf is more a process than an actual pattern. The process is a simple 1,2. You chain however many chains you want for the scarf's length then single crochet back through that chain. Switch colors and do two rows (any stitch that will fit your length), switch colors again and do two rows, switch yet again and do two more rows (again, you choose any stitch pattern you want with this project). Finally you switch colors for the last time and work a row of single crochets. That's it, snip, weave and wear!

I've taken another break from the Jewel Box skirt and shrug project, but do have pictures of the finished skirt to share. It's the Caron's Simply Soft Shadows Open Weave Skirt pattern, made using Jewel Box Obsidian yarn. Gorgeous ya think?

Well now, I did another quick scarf project as the filler between projects when I put the shrug from the Jewel Box project down the first time and I'm currently finishing up a doily as my filler for this next down time with the Jewel Box project.

So, that's what's up with me these days. Projects and more projects.

Snow Crochet

Winter has finally come to my area and I'm cuddling up in a crochet mood. The weather forecasters started out predicting a goodly snowfall which has dwindled over the last few days to more like a smattering. Disappointing as I love to have at least one good snow a year.

Do you ever find that you've got way more projects in your head than you've got time to do? Sometimes you think you'll never get everything done that you'd like to do. Or even that you'd like to learn. When I get done with a project I always have that "take a breath" moment where I don't crochet, I simply relax, look through patterns and consider which projects I want to add to my list. Then I start to feel guilty about adding more projects because I have all these other projects that I need to finish which brings on a sort of paralysis and I can't pick up projects that are in need of finishing but won't allow myself to start a new item. The paralysis lasts sometimes only days; the longest it lasted was about three weeks. For the last couple of years I have been forging on and starting new projects, finishing a few of the pigs that I still had sitting I have a doily I set aside two years ago with eight rows to finish on it. How bad is that? I picked it up and now have four more rows left to finish. My New Year's resolution was to get all those pigs cleared out and so I've tried to focus on getting them out of the way before I will let myself start anything new.

I have also been doing a bit of stash busting, using up stash to just make scarves, hats and small bags. I'm planning on splitting the cost of a booth at a local craft fair with a friend and selling my crochet there this fall. Stash busting projects are
earmarked for the craft fair.

I tried telling myself I wouldn't Buy any new yarns until I'd used up some of what I have, but oh, the temptation has already been too much. I went to the thrift store the other day and picked up a bunch of cones of beautiful yarns. The largest cone is a royal blue and black chenille looking yarn, not thick, very fine but gorgeous. I also got a burgandy acrylic, a cone of Serenaide, a cone of white acrylic and a small cone of light blue acrylic. I bought a bag of yarn that contained some ww acrylics in pastel colors that I'd been looking for to use on the granny afghan project I posted pictures of the squares for in January. Inside that bag I found two small skeins of Red Heart cotton in a burgandy color. How old is that yarn?!? I never even knew Red Heart made cotton! It will go nicely with a partial cone of variegated that has a burgandy in it. This cone is a particularly difficult color combination to match up with any success. Really I've TRIED to be good but that old YAS bug has me by the tail. So, cold weather coming in will help me with all these condundrums because it's too cold to be out looking for yarns, I can cuddle up and get some projects out of the way and begin new ones soon.

Hankerings - Stash & Yarn Acquisition

Introduction

My hobby has, of necessity, been fed through what I like to refer as The Poor Woman's Guide to Crochet. Through the Grace of God and a deeply held conviction in faith I have never been unable to do whatever I chose to be doing. Life is a simple act of faith and if you can grasp how just being given the next morning can be proof of that faith, then you will truly live. Meantime, it takes a lot of paying attention in order to do it all. It takes making the effort to go that extra step, it means just having enough faith to keep putting one foot in front of the next, to walk into that thunderstorm and know that while you may not escape the rain, you will survive the drenching.

My blogspace today will entail explaining how I continued to create within the realms and confines of poverty, or lack of time, or whatever reared it's ugly head for the day. My Labels area will explain any acronyms and terms that I think need clarification so if you are unfamiliar with a term check there. Outside of that, any other terms or anything else you might need explained, feel free to contact me via the Comments link at the end of each posting.

Hankerings
Stash & Acquisition

The topic recently came up about yarn stashes and how creative we crafters get in finding places to keep ours. Living alone means that I don't have to be creative in hiding it from any One in particular, but I still have to give thought to where it will sit. How will it function, where is its place in the house, or how will I function, interact with it? How best to create an environment where it's accessible for me, readily at hand without looking so. A large part of creation with fiber is compelled by a desire for the tactile and whether we are touching lives as mothers, as artists, as women or as crocheters, be it acrylic, fur or cotton slub the need is as pressing as the next breath, because it's a deep passion that infuses our souls. In part, it is definition of ourselves.

Crochet is a part of our history, a tool for our sanity, a space for our individuality and stash is one of the tools of our trade, just as the musician has instruments, the painter canvas. It's a rite of passage into our actively creating selves. I thought I might share with you just a bit about my own stash. I started with no stash, just buying yarns needed for patterns I picked out. As those projects got completed I took the leftover yarn from them and tossed them all together into a crate and stash was born.

Shortly after I started crocheting again I ran into a few women who had quit, or had daughters who had quit and had yarn they handed down to me. I gratefully accepted this boon and added it in, found I needed a larger crate so I replaced the smaller one with three of those large Dollar Store, put-together-yourself, cardboard boxes, using the original smaller crate to hold my project yarns as I worked.

For the next couple years I happily worked from this acrylic stash, making scrap afghans, scarves and hats, and various small projects I whittled down half of the stash, then my mother, no longer able to knit or crochet, passed along all her yarns. Well now I was in a spot where I either had to come up with more tubs, or something as useful. I chose to transfer my yarns into Avon boxes because I have a friend who sells Avon and I could get the boxes free. They're wonderful; just wide enough to take the length of a skein of RH, oblong, not too big, not too small, with lids. They stack nicely and you can write the contents on the outside so you know what's there. I heartily recommend them and urge you all if you have that source available to you to utilize it. You won't be sorry that you did. Once again, I happily transferred materials and made a space in my study where I could stack the boxes. By now I'd accumulated about 12 boxes, all of it donated acrylics that I'd sorted and tried to box by colors.

I hadn't at that time acquired the dreaded YAS, but it wasn't to be much further behind. I fell in love with a few patterns from the Internet (where I get all my patterns, eh, make that 98.7% of my patterns, there again, the poor woman's way to acquire materials) that called for yarns I hadn't any familiarity with and thus began a yarn quest which took me to yarn lust. Making a special trip out to the yarn stores in town, I went through the couple in my area and noted the yarns, petted the yarns and cooed over them. At the time I could only look with envy; I didn't have disposable income for such luxuries.

Being the sort of person who hasn't money for luxuries, I would scour the discount shops in my weekly cycle, sometimes I would find acrylic worsted weights at discounted prices (which I bought gladly), but nothing else. In challenging my skills I would find patterns via the Internet that offered me the chance to learn a new technique or stitch, or that gave me the opportunity to learn a new type of crochet or try patterns that called for various yarns, but I could only go so far in these, I certainly couldn't substitute a worsted weight for a bulky chenille. I just bypassed the cute ponchos and thick sweaters and delicate lace tops with a wistful sigh.

My downfall came when the closeout stores finally started carrying the novelty yarns, then both novelty and specialty yarns as they began receiving them in closeout lots. Suddenly what was unattainable became a temptation and an opportunity to let my imagination out to play.

That simple stash stacked in the corner of my room has slowly evolved until today it incorporates a closet stacked full of fru fru yarns packed away in cardboard boxes, content marked many times over. A spare room (eventually destined to be the craft room) holds a couple tubs and some boxes filled with acrylics of various types, a few old suitcases with thread and a crate of plastic bags earmarked for yet another project as soon as I collect enough of the ones I want. Of course, meantime I'm collecting them all so I can practice with colors that I don't particularly want to use when making my own bag!
My current workspace gives easy access to the closet of yarns and has a 4 drawer filing cabinet of which only one drawer holds patterns printed from my Internet searching. An armoire, with several overnight cases full of items to aide my craft stashed beneath, is filled with supplies, tools, books, a few WIPS, and my cotton yarns. Beside the armoire is a plastic wheeled cart containing PIGS and beside my lamp and chair, right in front of my end table is a large tub and a small one with yarns that I'm pulling from for a project. Eventually those will end up back in with the other tubs in the aforementioned future craft room.

Now you may think this is an awful array of materials, but though I think that myself most of the time, I so often find myself looking for something in particular to make a pattern and cannot seem to find just the right item in there that it speaks to the relative deficiency of my hoard. Never enough yarn. Never enough time!

I have to say, at least I know where things are since this transition in my stash has been a recently achieved, albeit transitory, goal. I also managed to find a craft box, wicker, rectangular box on slender legs that I settled in front of the filing cabinet and a vintage vinyl-wrapped box on rollers, actually a sewing box but I'm using it to hold projects. It does double duty as a footstool. Once we set up the craft room, and the sewing machine, we will see if its use shifts since it has racks that hold spools of thread. I somehow doubt it because it's just the right size for me to elevate my feet while crocheting. So relaxing!