Sorting the Stash - Pt 1

This is the current state of our living room. No, we are not in the process of moving. I have just taken the yarn stash out of its natural habitat (the walk-in closet) and turned it free-range until I get it sorted.

Phew. It's been a bit dusty, quite grim, and I'm only halfway done.

Progress report:

I already kept a strict sweater-amounts to themselves rule which has helped a lot. Sweater-amounts have each their own bags/containers which has made my life a lot easier. I pulled the bags and containers out, had a look into each bag/container and most of them are back in the closet. Some of the sweater-amounts were acquired as kits (like this one) or with a specific pattern in mind (like this one) and now they have the pattern included in their bag/container.

The biggest task is now to organise everything else. Luckily I am an experienced yarn organiser(!), so I have a very good idea about how I want things organised. Mine is a somewhat idiosyncratic system which I would not recommend you implement in your own yarn stash nor in your business. I have decided to organise the remaining stash in a vague "what type of project is this for?" way.

The laceweight yarns are all together - and I have finally faced my laceweight problem. It is huge. I have a shitload of laceweight, pardon my language. I thought last year's shawl-a-thon would have made a dent in the laceweight but I still have a staggering amount in my stash. I am both delighted to see how many beautiful yarns I have and terrified by how many shawls are still waiting to be knitted. Instant moratorium on buying laceweight.

Then I have a box for my "11 Hats in 2011" project. This box is devoted to all those one or two balls kicking about the stash. So far I'm surprised by how many of these balls come in shades of brown, grey or off-white. I hope to find some colourful one-offs soon otherwise my little endeavour will turn out slightly depressing. At this stage I can just about squeeze all these balls into one box, but I think I'll soon need to upgrade the size of the box.

Following on from that, I have a bag for general purpose cottons. I use cottons a lot when I'm doing provisional cast-ons or am putting things on waste yarn. The colours I have are not great (apart from one cone of beautiful green dk cotton) but they'll work just fine for their intended usage. Fingering weight yarn goes in its own box - I do not have that much. I have a box for yarns which come in a designated "awkward amount": too much for a hat, too little for a sweater or cardigan. Hats & mitts? Giant cowls? Scarves? Who knows. They'll all be living in the same box, though. Interestingly these yarns tend to be shades of green. And then I have a box for sweater-amounts that do not take up much space (fingering weight, sport-weight and Kidsilk Haze).

And this is me at the halfway stage. I am pretty much in control of the sweater amounts - I know what I have and where I keep them. I am horrified at how much laceweight I own. I'm okay with the rest of the stash I have looked at so far. I'm weeding out a lot of yarns which I'll be donating to Garterstitch100's SitandKnitaBit knitting stations throughout Glasgow (although the most vile things will just get thrown out).

(And can I just point out before anybody uses the words "rampant consumerism" and "shopaholic" that a very large chunk of this stash consists of gifted yarn? It does not make its size more palatable, of course, but it does make me feel better. Don't ask why.)

Fail!

We're having ongoing plumbing problems. When we returned from Christmas holiday, we found a note in our mailbox. The top flat's toilet outflow had frozen and broken over the holiday period. An emergency plumber was called out and he ripped out part of the outdoors outflow pipe. A few days later another plumber came out and fixed the broken pipe.

Except..

.. can you see our problem?

It's almost worthy of FailBlog.

All I'm saying is that I'm deeply appreciative of our nearby 24-hour supermarket. I used to have huge issues about a 24-hour supermarket - who really needs to shop for carrots at 3am? - but I have made a huge U-turn in recent days.

Right now I'm trying to get hold of a plumber who is a) registered with our rental agency and b) willing to pick up his phone. Wish me luck.

Third

I have not mentioned my red Kim Hargreaves cardigan recently, have I? It has turned out to be one of those curious projects where I work obsessively on it for three days and then it lingers for about a month before I return to it. I have no idea why I do not just keep working on it. Once the pattern has been 'spread-sheeted', it is actually a really relaxing knit and the yarn is beautiful. Yesterday I cast off the first sleeve and I cast on for the second sleeve. Things are zipping along really well - except once I cast off the second sleeve, I need to unzip the provisional cast-on on both sleeves and start the k2p2 ribbing. Still, the end is in sight and I cannot wait to sew up(!) this beauty. I'm really looking forward to wearing it. Let's hope it fits as well as I think it will..

As the light at the end of the tunnel becomes increasingly brighter, my thoughts have obviously begun to turn to the next big project. I have another big project on the needles which I need to finish quite soon, but as it's not a jumper or cardigan I have been roaming the Ravelry database in search of patterns.

• I'm totally in love with Balance from the forthcoming Rowan Studio 22. It looks like a combo of Kidsilk Haze and Kid Classic. I'm thinking Jelly (KSH) and Spruce (KC) although wilder colour combinations also appeal (orange, anyone?)
• Recently I've begun looking closely at Bliss, an old Sarah Hatton pattern. I bought some Rowan Calmer last year in order to make a Kim Hargreaves jumper, but I'm beginning to wonder if I wouldn't get more wear out of a short-sleeved cardigan?
• Speaking of cute cardigans, Miette recently jumped into my (carefully curated) queue. No, I'm not going to knit another red cardigan. Probably not.

Another thing I'll be knitting is an inside layer of my Twee Winter hat. I finished it well in advance of Christmas but it has turned out very big (when rav comments all say 'this hat is huge', believe the comments). Paula came up with quite a few solutions and we decided that knitting an extra inside layer would a) make the hat smaller and b) make the hat winter-proof (felting was not an option, incidentally). I still need photos taken of the matching mitts - they are goddamn adorable and I've been wearing them constantly.

A few links, finally:

• Pete Postlethwaite has passed away. He was easily the best actor in most of his films and it was a joy to see him in even small parts.
• And the Danish contestant in Eurovision 1980 has passed away too (skip the 1st minute). His was the very first concert I ever saw.
• I really, really want a puppy and I think Maddie is just about the most adorable thing in the world.
• I've bought fabric with this quilt in mind. I'm crazy.
• Best line ever line from a trashy book? Don't know, but "Yum. Johnny Hulk tasted like fresh gorilla" is up there. Or down there depending upon your perspective.

Last Thing

Tonight I'm a cooking an almost full-blown Danish Christmas dinner (only 'almost' because I'm only serving one type of meat). We decided to make this a tradition so every time we celebrate Christmas in the UK we get a Danish Christmas dinner a week later and vice versa. It's a new tradition, though, and it is the first time I'm cooking the dinner on my own. We are having duck breasts (scaled down from an entire duck) with two types of potato (boiled and sugar-glazed potatoes), braised red cabbage and duck gravy. Normally I would also serve roast pork but it is nigh impossible to get the correct cut here in Scotland unless you order it well in advance. For dessert I'm serving risalamande with hot cherry sauce. I bought the cherry sauce when I was in Denmark in November! Food is such an expat thing, I tell you. I never used to care so much about traditional Danish food as I do now. I saw tea rusks in my local supermarket today and could almost taste hot elderberry soup right there and then.

(And seeing this little guy try out salty licorice (salte fisk!) made me beam. He's a very cool kid even if he says that salty ammoniac licorice requires "an advanced palette".)

Happy new year - happy Hogmanay - godt nytår! I'm off to try and balance four pots cooking at the same time..

2010: The Year In Knitting

In 2009 I completed 32 knitting projects. On the surface of things, I have not been nearly as prolific in 2010 but I have been busy doing other knitterly things: I have been teaching a great deal, written up various patterns and have generally enjoyed working within the knitting and crochet industry. I have met some fabulous designers, teachers, vendors, spinners, farmers, and knitters along the way. I would not want to change all of these things for the world - but I would like to finish more than 2 and 3/4 jumpers within a year! My two most used knits of the year? My Art Deco shawl  and my Haemitite shawl.

I have previously waxed lyrically about the Art Deco shawl but I am happy to wax lyrically again:

I used a free pattern and an inexpensive acrylic/wool yarn to make myself a big, toasty shawl. It was a modular knit, my first, and I certainly became very adept at picking up stitches (I reckon more than 2500 stitches were picked up during this project). The shawl quickly earned its keep during the big freeze of January 2010: I used it as a lap blanket in the flat, as a shawl when sitting by the computer, as a scarf when out and about , and as a headscarf during blizzards. Throughout it kept me warm and its warm, spicy colours cheered me up. A year later it has been machine-washed and tumble-dried with no discernible damage nor has it shown any wear'n'tear from being used so often.

My Haemitite shawl was a very quick knit, but the quickness of the project belies just how much use I have gotten out of it. I knitted a Kim Hargreaves pattern in some Rowan Kidsilk Aura in a neutral colour - and I practically live with this scarf around my neck 24/7. Its neutral colour means I can wear it with most of my wardrobe, it also packs lightly and - best of all - it is the warmest scarf I own. It is now looking a bit worse for wear, so I think I shall have to give it a good soak .. and maybe knit myself a second one? Here in Britain Kidsilk Aura has just gone on sale in the John Lewis department stores, so I think I might succumb..

2010 was the year I participated in "10 Shawls for 2010" on Ravelry (well, I joined the group and knitted 10 shawls - I actually did not participate in the group activities) so it is unsurprising that my two favourite objects turned out to be shawls. 2011 will be my year of hats and I'm really looking forward to that. I recently lost my Intuitive hat whilst on my way to Aberdeenshire so I will be wanting to replace that asap. A Karie with cold ears is not a happy Karie!

Apart from hats, my only knitting resolution for 2011 is to knit from stash as often as possible. 2010 saw my stash grow quite rapidly thanks to lovely gifts and work-related stash enhancements. I hope to keep the stash somewhat under control, get the masses of yarn organised, and to knit up some of my many odd balls. Modest hopes, eh?

A Year in Books: 2010

Here are two of the reasons why I blog: 1) I can keep track of things which would otherwise have disappeared through the cracks of time and 2) I am able to detect patterns. Through blogging I can keep track of how many books I read and learn that I read between twenty and thirty books a year. OK, one memorable year I did read 103 books but I had just graduated from university/unemployed, I was single and I had no net access/TV. 2010: 21 books, down from the 38 books of 2009 but a big up in quality. I started this reading year pledging to improve the overall quality of my reading matter and I'm pleased to say I stuck to it. I hope to continue this trend in 2011: quality over quantity. I'd still live to get a few more reads sneaked it but needless to say that my reading time is competing with my crafting time, so we'll see which activity wins out in 2011..

The worst books: I always knew that the Julia Quinn novel, Splendid, was going to be one of my worst reads of the year. A book set in Regency London should properly not have its characters sound as though they lived in 1990s Los Angeles, full stop. On the other hand Splendid was not the spectacular train-wreck that Scarlett Thomas' Our Tragic Universe turned out to be. I used to like her books until I realised she was essentially a one-note author hiding underneath a layer of pretend- counter-cultural-coolness - and Our Tragic Universe is not even that pretend-cool. If Julia Quinn is guilty of letting her cardboard characters slipping into a contemporary register, Scarlett Thomas is guilty of writing books she does not have the actual ability to write (I'll come back to this point later when discussing another author). Finally, Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go was a huge disappointment.

The honourable mentions: Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil was an entertaining book but one always destined to live in the shadows of Chabon's superior Kavalier & Clay (one of my top reads in the Noughties). I finally got around to reading Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White which was good but not anywhere near as breathtakingly brilliant as Faber's Under the Skin (see A Year In Books: 2009). Crimson was also "a novel thriving on exploring the dark side of society, and yet (..) polite enough to become a Sunday evening BBC costume drama" which continues to bug me a bit. China Miéville's The City & the City was a clever, well-written novel fusing crime fiction and science-fiction. The book was a touch too plot-driven for me but I really enjoyed Miéville's light writerly touches. Tom McCarthy presented himself as the heir apparent to James Joyce declaring his novel, C, to be 'the Finnegans Wake for the 21st Century'. Utter nonsense, of course. I thought McCarthy guilty of the same crime as Scarlett Thomas: attempting to write novels that are outwith their novelistic abilities. Unlike Thomas, though, McCarthy can actually write and while C does not live up to its billing, it is a fine conventional Bildungsroman disguised as an experimental novel. At times it felt like McCarthy had written his book especially for me with amusing High Modernist references coming right, left and centre. C is an acquired taste, no doubt about it,  but I liked it a lot.

The very good reads: David Mitchell is one of my favourite contemporary authors and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet did not disappoint. It is densely plotted, well-written and I felt bereft when the book ended. Quibbles? Not many. At times you could almost see Mitchell moving his characters around as though they were chess-pieces - that may not work for everyone but I did not mind - and the pacing was occasionally uneven with some parts moving slowly followed by rip-roaring action. Colm Toíbín is another of my favourite authors and Brooklyn turned out to be one of the highlights of my reading year. I'm not much of an emotional reader but I connected strongly with Brooklyn's depiction of the émigré experience. Finally, on Lori's suggestion, I read Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five over the recent holidays and I was blown away by it. It read like a heady combination of Nabokov and Alasdair Gray. Not my last Vonnegut book, then, and definitely one of the best reads of 2010.

http://www.kariebookish.net/2010/03/books-2010-ishiguro-larsson/