A Meme? For Me?

I have been tagged for a meme. My first one. I am at work and can't do it now, and it was passed to me like a week ago so I'm bad. I will do it soon though. Minty tagged me. She also gave me a great little gift from Stitches East - a toe-up sock kit in "Jaax Green." Ie the color I wear all the time. Whee! I'll have to post pics of the kit when I get home. More knit stuff to come.

What is a swift, anyhow?

I should have covered this when I first started talking about buying a swift, since as of a few months ago, I was one of the many folks who didn't know what a swift was. When you buy a hank of yarn that you need to make into a ball, you can use a ball winder and swift to make them more easily than sitting there and wrapping and wrapping. You open up the hank into the large circle, and put it around the swift. Then you feed the end into the ball winder, and just wind away. The result is a wonderfully compact, center pull little "cake" of yarn. You can use the ball winder without the swift, but it's kind of hard to keep it all from getting twisted and knotted as it goes.

I balled some Manos recently, and you can see it here.

I am revered!

You are Shetland Wool.
You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a
little on the harsh side. Though you look
delicate you are tough as nails and prone to
intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you are
widely respected and even revered.


What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Time is Swift

Woo Hoo! I just got a call from the front desk that a package has arrived for me. It is my swift! Oh, I wish I could go home and make pretty balls of yarn tonight.

The Big Clean / Flashing my Stash

I should start at the beginning. Last year, when we moved from Philly to Boston, we downsized for the second time in a year. Going from a large 2-bedroom apt to a smaller 1-bedroom apt to a very small 1-bedroom apt, going from about 1200 sq ft to 575 sq ft. There was a lot of craft stuff and not so much room. For the past year we had the livingroom set up with the couch in the middle facing the tv, and my craft stuff shoved behind it with a table that was just not workable for crafting. This weekend, we began the big clean. I pulled all of the craft stuff out from behind the couch so we could push the couch against the wall. This is the pile of craft stuff:



Those are two different sewing machines in the front there. The one in the hard case is a beautiful Singer from 1965 with tons of pretty stitches, the other is a basic Brother that I bought a few years ago because the Singer is just too slow to try to use as a workhorse.

I sorted and sorted, and put together a new work table for myself. Here is the worktable:


Notice that it already has piles of stuff on it. I'm working on getting everything organized, which, like every other project in life, is taking longer than expected.

I was able to get all of my yarn together into a set of clear plastic drawers for yarn I use often, and a rubbermaid bin for kits I'm waiting to start and acrylic worsted that's waiting for some new knitter to want.

Here is all of the yarn in its contained form:



The drawers can roll into the corner under my desk. Where the bin will be stored is still in the works.

Here is what is inside of these:


(notice my pretty cat sniffing around)



There you have it. My yarn laid out for the world to see. Now that things are more organized I could probably even break it all down and say what each set of yarn was for, and whether there is really any chance in hell that it will get made. ;)

Not so swift

Oh, I want my swift to come. I feel like I ordered it forever ago. I am having it delivered to my office because sometimes packages don't come to our apartment, instead we get a little piece of paper to pick it up at the post office. Only now it's Friday going into a long weekend and it's still not here. I suppose it's prbably for the best, as I'm supposed to be cleaning out my crafting area, setting up my new craft table and flashing my stash this weekend. I don't have time to play around with balls of yarn for non-current projects.

How did I not know this?

Well, Minty, you have once again changed my life forever. Several years ago, I knew how to knit, but I had done very little of it, and didn't do it very often. And then we started meeting weekly to knit, you took me to Stitches East, you inspired me. Now, you've introduced me to the felted join. I will never knit with wool in the same way again. Ever. The sweater for myself that I've been working on in bits and peices for years, I want to frog it and start again so I don't have loose ends. Why is this not a standard practice? We should be shouting this from the rooftops. Not to mention that knittinghelp.com is damn cool. It's official, Minty is my idol. Even if she does want me to flash my stash, which I will do as soon as the stash is again accessible (hopefully this weekend).