Clean, Gut, Disinfect, and Purge

Don't worry, this post will actually be about yarn. I have been thinking about what to write about for my first entry of the new year (on JANUARY 23, no less :rolls eyes: oh let's not even get started about my blog neglect), and upon reflection, the most meaningful event of my new year thus far has been the cleaning of my yarn room.

Everyone knows that the new year is the time for cleaning, gutting, disinfecting, and purging -- oh, and organizing. I know this because all the stores have their cleaning and organizational items (plastic tubs etc.) on sale. That proves it. Even before I realized this fact, I was already compelled to do some new years cleaning. I cleaned out all my kitchen cupboards, reorganized them, moved the shelves so I could reach things better, and even put down new shelf liner paper! I also cleaned out my closet (somewhat, anyway) and made Mackenzie clean out her closet (somewhat, anyway), whereupon we made umpteen trips to the Goodwill drop-off center, which, by the way, was OVERFLOWING with the stuff of dozens of other people who were also doing some new years purging. Hmmmm, maybe there's something innate to this? Is it like when women live together their cycles start to coincide? So when you live in a society where everyone celebrates the new year, we are all drawn to cleaning house at the same time? But, I digress...

Anyhow, I set out to clean my yarn room. I am extremely fortunate to be able to devote an entire room in my house to my yarn stash and knitting paraphernalia. However, if you have read my earlier blog posts (e.g., visiting eight yarn shops in eight days), you know how bad my addiction is. Over the summer my yarn room had become an unsightly, unorganized mass of bags of yarn.

Yes...the mess at right is my yarn room at its worst -- unsightly and disrespectful to the yarn! Ugh!

So I set about to clean and organize my stash. At first it was fun going through all the bags of yarn and reminding myself of what I had. But then it got a little scary and I was feeling guilty for having SO MUCH YARN. John even came and stood in the doorway and commented, "Wow, you have a lot of yarn." Uh, yeah... Luckily I have the most wonderful husband in the world (who is equally addicted to fishing) so he is not judgmental about my predicament at all.

It took THREE DAYS to get everything organized and put away. And in the process I frogged numerous projects that I knew I would never finish. The best thing is that frogging produced more yarn for my stash, ha! Remember the project my dog tried to eat? Here is what it looked like:

Oh what a giant mess. The good news is that I succeeded in untangling all the yarn and wound it into cute little yarn muffins that will now be put to use! Yay, happy ending!

Well, to make a long story short, my yarn room is finally looking like the private yarn shop it was meant to be. I love spending time there, looking at and petting the yarn, and making plans for ambitious new projects for 2011. Here is the lovely result of my hard work and dedication:

The Shawl that Saved Knitting

This past week my life has been dedicated to finishing a shawl that I entered in the county fair. I started the shawl on July 3, and the textile judging was on July 30, which leads you to believe that I had plenty of time -- basically 4 weeks -- to complete the project. Now, I am not a speedy knitter by any means. So it was interesting to see how my first real "deadline" impacted my knitting.

On Monday, July 26, the shawl was still in its infancy. Could I finish it by Friday? People suggested that I enter it in the Barbie clothes category. Haha. Then my friend Lauren finished her shawl that she was entering in the fair, and it was so gorgeous that I thought about not even finishing mine! I mean, everything about hers was beautiful -- the vibrant blue color, the luscious yarn, the lovely lace pattern. But then I realized that I was not entering my shawl in the fair to WIN. Rather, I entered my project in order to keep the knitting category alive at the fair. See, when there are not enough items in a category, the fair committee is likely to eliminate that category. So my shawl could save knitting!!

I went to work, my fingers...well, not really flying...but going pretty steadily. As the week went on, I remained confident, yet secretly worried that my shawl might not only lack exquisiteness, but might not get done! Wednesday, I spent the entire day at Serendipity knitting with my gal pals and made some progress, but by the end of the day I still had 20 rows to go. Thursday, the day I had planned to just block the shawl, I knit most of the day (except for a few hours I had to go to meetings at school). I barely stopped to eat dinner. I knit nonstop and didn't even get out of my chair for hours and hours. DH went to bed and I was still up knitting, my chart marker moving up and up through the (ever increasing in number of stitches) rows.

Finally, at midnight I finished binding off (whew, that took an hour by itself!). Yay, then I had a ton of ends to weave in because that @#$%# Zauberball had about 17 knots in it that I had to cut out. Ok, so by 1:00am the shawl was soaking and I was praying that it would dry by 8:00am. I blocked it, fearing that once I got it all blocked out, some horrific mistake would appear -- a yarnover in the wrong spot or something like that. However, to my joy, the shawl looked...almost...exquisite.

Well, who can sleep much after an evening like that? In the morning I ran into my yarn room to check on the shawl, and it looked as lovely as ever ::proudly showing my DH, who agreed::. The best thing was that IT WAS DRY!!! Yahoo!

So the shawl and I made it to the fairgrounds at 8:30 on Friday morning. Judging started at 9:00am. My friend Lauren and I went back on Friday evening to check out the entries. Lauren's gorgeous shawl won second place, and mine won third place. (Don't even get me started on how a crummy Red Heart afghan won the blue ribbon...) But the exciting news is that the superintendent for the textile division told us that the knitting division is going to be expanded next year, so there will be MULTIPLE CATEGORIES for knitted items! It looks like my third-place shawl saved knitting after all.

Indulgence

I think we have established that I'm a loser at blogging. I think about my blog every day. I plan out what I will post. I ruminate about my yarn adventures. Yet, as I tell my students, "I don't have access to the information in your head. I only have access to what is written on the paper." ...or in this case in the blog. So I need to take my own advice! :S

With so many yarn adventures swimming in my head, it is time to put the pen to paper...or fingers to keyboard. I'm going to start with my amazing series of yarn shop visits last week. In the 8-day period between July 9-17 I was on a roll. I hit EIGHT yarn shops in 8 days! Let me report.

Bloomington, IL
First, I visited Bloomington to see Jenelle before she moves to Virginia to start her new job. Her very first academic job after receiving her Ph.D. Yay! (Hi Jenelle!) Oh, back to the yarn. Well, Jenelle is a crocheter so we decided to go on a small yarn crawl during her three-hour lunch hour. Wow, Jenelle, who did you work for there in Bloomington, Grace Adler? (LOL)

Anyway...our first stop was at Mary Lynn's Yarn Garden in downtown Bloomington. Ok, so it's in an unorthodox location -- third floor of an office building, not the customary retail space. But it is a fabulous yarn shop! Mary Lynn carries tons of nice yarn as well as a good selection of knitting bags and accessories. You know I am the accessories queen. I got some luscious Pagewood Farms sock yarn, some Knit Happy notebooks, and Namaste candles!! Yes, Namaste (the knitting bag company) made candles that come in these super-cute boxes, but no more. I got the last two! (Score!) I have to say that I just loved Mary Lynn, the shop owner. I will definitely be back to the Yarn Garden!

Our next stop was at Village Stitches. But first let me back up and say that finding the place was an adventure in itself. It probably took us 30 minutes of driving back and forth and then finally stopping in at a hotel to ask at the front desk. The neat thing about that was that they gave us a map -- hahaha! Well, it is a hotel. We finally found Village Stitches, a cute shop, but sadly...mostly needlepoint stuff. They have a small room of yarn but nothing so fabulous that it knew my secret knitter name. So here is something that you will rarely hear me say: I walked out of the yarn shop without buying anything.

By this time Jenelle's half-day lunch hour was over [oh, we did have lunch in between yarn shops] so I drove her back to ISU and then went to a third yarn shop by myself. This shop was Ewe Knit, a nice shop near the ISU campus. The owner was very friendly and helpful. I ended up getting some Cascade wool-bamboo and some Malabrigo sock yarn because I loved the color. In sum, my trip to Bloomington was super-fun, I loved getting to spend some time with Jenelle and thank her for indulging me in the yarn crawl! Bloomington is not as far from Monmouth as I thought -- only about 1.5 hours, so I am looking forward to going back for more yarn one of these days.

Muscatine, IA
The next week, my BFF Robin and I met for our regular weekly yarn trip to Serendipity Yarn Shoppe in Muscatine. Serendipity is dear to my heart and even though it is 60 miles away from my house, I consider it my LYS. Robin and I meet there one day a week all summer long. This week Francy, the owner, had gotten in some new luscious yarns. I got some Mushishi, which is a tweedy wool-silk blend, and you get nearly 500 yds in a hank! Also new at the shop is Berroco Remix, which is recycled cotton, silk, linen, & nylon blend -- very soft. It definitely knew my secret knitter name. As always, we have a blast at Serendipity.

Morton, IL
Friday I met Jen and Aaron at Ewe-Nique Yarns in Morton. This is a big, fabulous yarn shop just south of Peoria. They have a nice selection of yarns and a big sale wall, which I always have to check out. This time they had some Queensland Collection Rustic, a super-smooshy yarn that I love, and it was 40% off! The only hitch was that it was an ... um ... unattractive color, kind of a greenish-yellowish. Jen and Aaron dubbed it "BP Oil Spill." Now, I have never bought ugly yarn before, but I could not leave that yarn there for 40% off. So I got it, and now I like it a lot more!!! (Can you say dissonance reduction?) Aaron also helped me find some yarn in "boy colors," as I never seem to have any yarn appropriate for making manly projects. Now I have gobs of it.

Iowa City, IA
The last day of my yarn indulgence happened in Iowa City. I went to my knitting womb, Fae Ridge Farm, owned by my dear friend Janette. I go up and visit as much as I can and hang out all day Saturday. I bought two bobbins for my spinning wheel and some gray-blue Highlander by Alpaca with a Twist. This is super-smooshy yarn that I love working with. Got it to make some xmas presents.

While in Iowa City I also ventured with Robin to a couple of other yarn shops. We stopped in at Home Ec to say hi to Codi, our friend and owner of the shop. I love Home Ec! I raided the sale bin and got some lovely wool-cashmere blend that will make something nice. Next we went to The Knitting Shop where I got some merino-silk from the sale bin, which will make nice xmas presents for a boy. :)

What an amazing whirlwind of yarn shopping! ♥

Inspired

I'm blogging! So yesterday I was having lunch with my friend Jenelle and we were talking about yarn adventures. She suggested that I blog about all of my yarn adventures, and lord knows I have them at every opportunity. ::hmmm...but who would be interested in reading about this?:: I ask myself. No, she swears that people will be enthralled by my yarn adventures. To prove my blogworthiness, she cites my annual Christmas letters. ::awww, someone actually READS them?!:: And then I think, ::yeah, I have some pretty good stories, plus I have thought about writing a newspaper column about knitting in the local paper...maybe we should see how this blog thing pans out.:: So here I am with my beloved little netbook and my new blog. Maybe I'm more hip than I thought! Stay tuned for some yarn adventures!