Knitting Resolutions

In moving, I have learned that I have too much yarn. And yes, sadly, it is possible to have too much yarn. In particular, it is possible to have too much acrylic yarn. Acrylic yarn is the staple of my stash because I don't have a lot of money. I was also never really all that good at knitting, so I didn't know what I was buying. Or I would buy bulk instead of quality. Now that I have gotten better at knitting, I know I want to start using better yarns, and I want to treat myself to the experience. I am still a little nervous about screwing up more expensive yarn, but I know I would like to use better yarn more often.

So my knitting resolutions:

1. Make at least one charity project per month. This can be as small as a chemo hat or a square for a blanket that will be joined together by others.
   
2. Work down the stash before buying new yarn. I know that this is a pipe dream, but I am going to make an effort not to just keep buying yarn. So I am going to try to make at least two projects for any one project's worth of yarn that I buy.
   
3. Make scrapghans out of whatever leftovers I have that aren't really enough for anything else.
4. Finish UFOs.

Anyone else have any other suggestions of knitting resolutions?

Oddities of moving

A few things that I have discovered in moving:

I have too much scotch tape. I understand why this has happened. Whenever I go to wrap a present or something, I invariably cannot find my tape and I have to buy new tape. So I understand why I have more scotch tape than I could possibly use in my life.

I have about a dozen sets of tweezers. Unlike the scotch tape, I don't know where these all came from. I don't use tweezers -- I get my eyebrows waxed. I don't buy tweezers -- or at least I don't ever remember buying tweezers. And yet, there they were. In my medicine cabinet, the drawer of my night-table, one in my sock drawer. I don't know who is hiding tweezers among my possessions, but I don't particularly appreciate it.

And other than that, my big problem is that I just have too much stuff and not enough motivation. I feel like I'm not going to get everything done before Thursday, when the moving people are coming... I am definitely taking Thursday off so I can be here when they move us -- I may have to take Wednesday off, too, if I can't get everything done tomorrow. It's a little intimidating. I mostly worked all day today and got through a lot of crap. I'm taking a little break to watch the Penn State/Ohio State football game (Go Nittany Lions). And then tomorrow, I have to really do the rest of it.

What I Have Learned From Moving: A List in Three Acts

Prelude: The packing began in earnest today. The countdown is 13 days until I have to be completely ready to move.

Act I: Morning

• I have too many papers.
• I have too many books.
• I have too many candles.
  
• I have too much yarn.

Act II: Noon

• I have too many pictures.
• I have too many clothes.
• I have too many pillows (odd, right?)
• I have too much yarn.
  

Act III: Night

• I have too many shoes.
• I have too many dishes.
  
• I have too many CDs
  
• I have too much yarn.

Epilogue: In my next life, I want to be a minimalist. And only to buy the yarn I'm going to use.

New Digs

I put a deposit down on a new place to live today. It's great. I think it will be a really good place for me. It was time for me to leave this apartment, and the new one is in Hoboken. The good news is that it is about a half a mile from the PATH and the better/more dangerous news is that it is about half a mile from Patricia's Yarns. Hopefully, I can go and get lots of ideas for working down my stash before I go and spend lots of money on new yarn. But I'm excited about living in Hoboken. For many people from my area, it is sort of the pinnacle of destinations before you buy a house. It's where all of the bars are, where all of the young people are, it's not NYC (which turns a lot of people off) and it's close to public transportation. So we shall see. All I know is that I am hoping that everything goes smoothly and that I can pack up all of my garbage. I'm trying to throw away as much as I can and get rid of whatever I can...

Falling off the Face of the Earth

Oh, I had no idea it had been so long since I last posted. Whoops. Life is what happens when you're making other plans, right?

I started taking a baby sweater class with Patricia at Patricia's Yarns. During one session, these two women walked by and we overheard one of them say, "I'd like to take classes there but they're so expensive." Patricia and I had a good laugh over that one. For the three sessions, Patricia's class was $45. At three sessions, an hour and a half per session, that's $10 an hour. Minimum wage in NJ is $7.15 an hour. Yeah. She's barely breaking even on these classes! And I've learned a few new techniques that I can take into other projects, and I'm almost finished with the baby jacket (pictures soon).

I'm also making a shawl. I was looking for something fast and easy to remember. I started making one but it was much too difficult to remember how to do. But then I found the Crescendo Shawl, http://www.freevintageknitting.com/shawls/crescendo-shawl-pattern.html which I like because it is easy (cables on rows 3 & 7 but the rest is just knit and purl) and I don't have to keep looking at a pattern. As long as I remember to knit 2 before and after the cables on the 3rd row and knit 5 before and after the cables on the 7th row, I'm good. And I messed up on one row (I didn't discover it until much later) but you can't actually see it unless you know what to look for (I've asked non-knitting friends to find the mistake row and they couldn't). So I think I'm leaving it rather than knitting all the way back.