all set for sunday

the mySQL server at my webhost has been crashing for the last few days due to mysterious causes, and i have had only spotty access to my blog. it took ages to post the other night, and last night i couldn’t get in at all.
i missed you . . . and hopefully, that unpleasantness is over.

i have surprisingly little knitting to show you today. or rather, i have knitting, but it all looks almost exactly as it did a couple of days ago.

i actually made the most progress on my most humble brown sock (i almost said boring instead of humble, but that wouldn’t be fair OR accurate . . .). i had a lot of 1- and 2-minute wait-times yesterday for printing and uploading. if you have enough of those in an 8-hour day, you can knit a sock heel

one row at a time. i mean it, sometimes i could only get half a row out, but it adds up, and was especially helpful in getting through that slip-stitch heel flap.
the more i work with this sock yarn (fearless fibers, same as the smoke sock, only here in thoroughbred), the more i like it. i’m knitting it on size 1 for the top of the cuff, and size 0 for the ankle and foot. it has that nice merino feel, and knits up nice and dense on smaller needles. i keep stopping to just squeeze the cuff and feel the goodness—mmm.

i got a bit more done on the smokeSox and the sweater too, but they don’t look it. and some work on these little blue mitts, which i am finally happy with, after several bad starts.

and i’m working on a few new patterns, which is not fodder for blog photos, generally speaking.

as i said earlier in the week, i’ve been restless, and it’s hard to concentrate on knitting when i feel that way. i settle in, and then almost immediately find an excuse to jump up and do some little thing that really could wait. it’s a kind of anxiety, but i don’t know why. maybe just a lack of structure over the last couple of weeks (yeah, right, like we normally live with any sort of structure to our lives when it’s NOT the holidays? . . . ha!).

then, david scored a great bargain on the storage containers i needed, so i decided to expend some of my energy by tackling the last of my workroom organizing. i needed to attend to that dreaded pile of boxed fiber and figure out what to do with it.

i was so ashamed of the way that looked, and the space it took up in the room (a LOT—it stuck out into the middle of my spinning area, so there was no room for guests to sit and spin with me. or for that matter, even for me to be really comfortable . . .).

organizing the yarn was nothing compared to this task—for that, i already had a system in place and i really just needed to sort the sloppiness and put things away. the fiber problem was more complex; i had no idea how i should organize it and could not see any space where it would fit in the room (insert ominous music here).

so i pulled everything out of the fiber closet and everything out of the boxes. sorry, no picture of that—i was too busy trying not to drown.

there was a lot.

and though i have promised myself not to acquire more for a (long) while, i still had to figure out where to put all that i laready own . . . oh groan.
at first i couldn’t even see a way to group things so as to store them in a way that would make sense. i like to have things organized so that i don’t forget what i have. with the yarn, i’ve got that down. with the fiber it is harder because it all looks so much the same.

there are a few things that right off the bat distinguish themselves, but mostly i have a lot of white, brown, and gray stuff. not easy.
eventually though, i got things separated by animal (alpaca and other camelids, sheep, worm, etc), and by amounts (fleeces into big boxes, small amounts and dyed stuff into smaller boxes).

(i still need a coupla more large clear boxes to empty that one cardboard box into) and i did find places to put the boxes once they were organized

though not necessarily hidden away, or even protected very well.

this i worry about, as our old house is an open invitation to insects in summer (DIY types put it very nicely, saying that old homes “breathe”, when what they really mean is there are holes everywhere that invite moths, spiders, and cold drafts like a blinking “welcome” sign . . .)
and that’s why i need to stop stocking up on all this stuff.

so anyway, now i can almost see the fireplace in there. you missed that feature, didn’t you?
exactly my point.

a few good weeks of spinning time on that pile and it will be cleared away—woo-hoo! but even better, my floorspace has opened up tremendously, and now i can have company in there again.

i don’t know if any of that put my anxiety to rest. i don’t think it made a huge difference, but when i was involved in the task, i definitely felt like i was on vacation from it (hmm, maybe there’s a lesson there, and i should explore it while doing the rest of the house?—heh, fat chance . . .)

and then sunday is spinning day.
on second thought, that is probably going to be the fix i need. yep.