Wherein the knitter concedes that she has a leetle bit more yarn than she might originally have let on. (Caution: Pics ahead)

Uhhhh, well, maybe like a lot more:

I have a ton of uncatalogued yarn. if I don’t catalogue it, it means I don’t have it, right? So it’s okay to acquire more, right? Right?

Wrong. I’ve still got room in my apartment, but I’ve got enough yarn now (to my mind) that I really should start knitting from stash for a while. I know, I know. One of my resolutions was to knit from stash. To which my subconscious answer was well, I suppose I’ll just have to acquire more stash from which to knit. I realize that my stash acquisition hobbies are usually on the heels of emotional decisions and/or preface and represent avoidance of said emotional decisions. Acquisition afterwards for those kinds of purchases is usually a ‘congratulations, you made a tough decision. Bully for you. Go forth, therefore, and increase – your yarn stash, that is’. Yeah, it’s silly, it’s ridiculous and maybe a little wasteful, but you know what? People cope in different ways.

I cope in yarn.

I also have nifty storage.

Noooo, not all this yarn fits in these little book cases, one of which also holds a bunch of my spinning fiber. I keep some of it in the closet, in airtight bins. Because I don’t have enough room to display it all. Sigh. Pauvre moi… Peel me a grape!

In any case, I got a lotta yarn. I’m in the process of inventorying it all into Ravelry (on top of what I already had inventoried) and actually knitting from it. (the very idea! I’m scandalized!!) ETA: Just finished putting it in – PHEW!

In my defense though, some of it was bought with the intention to do something good for my house. Exh. A: Lion Microspun, purchased for making Swiffer cloths (microfiber, yo!); instead of using the use-it-throw-it-away kind of Swiffer cloth, I can use and wash these and they’ll be less wasteful. Go go ecological knitting!

Exh. B: Cotton-Ease, some of which was acquired for Amigurumi(ding!) preparation, and some of which was acquired for knitting a BYOB from Knitty.com, a bag-saving grocery sack alternative, which I have cast on. Woot!

Other stuff was to bolster my sock yarn collection, which will eventually become socks.

Still other stuff was acquired in swaps or gifted, and so I didn’t actually pay any money for it.

Still OTHER stuff was bought with a specific project in mind, swatched, and then the project was never cast on, due to something or other happening and me deciding not to cast it on.

Such as the Mystic Waters Knitalong, which I swatched but didn’t ever cast on. After the debacle of the Secret of the Stole (I had so much trouble with it it just made me crazy, but it was owing to my ineptitude, not the pattern – the pattern was GREAT! – I still have the yarn for it too, but I guess it’ll be something else.. eventually)

In knitted progress news, TMP II is finished and off the needles, ends woven in – Whooppee!! Now I need to get back to some lovely lovelies for me. In addition to TMP, I also made a scarf. In an evening. I needed a quick knitting project fix, so I knitted a Noro Striped Scarf, a la Brooklyn Tweed, a blogger who, if I ever met him, I would go COMPLETELY fangirl on him. He is way, way, way talented.

I knitted mine out of Silk Garden Chunky, though, and knitted it only 12 stitches, on a Sz 11 needle, instead of the recommended 39 stitches on whatever size was originally recommended. It turned out really nice, so I gave it to my mom, who I promised a scarf NOT made of Red Heart yarn some years ago, and never fulfilled. Although I’m regretting my decision a little bit, b/c that was one pretty scarf. Maybe I’ll be able to negotiate a loan sometime in the future. This is only a progress pic. My rechargeable batteries decided that it was Time To Die and Never Ever Recharge Again, so I don’t have a finished picture, sadly. I’ll ask the Mom to take a picture wearing it so you can have a size referent. It’s really quite fabulous. It wound up being well over 6 feet long, b/c I’m all about the wrapping of the scarfage and still having plenty of length, and I added a 5-6″ fringe on each end, which added some length, which wasn’t really needed, but did give a nice effect to the edges – they needed something.

In addition to this, I also started a new pair of socks:

Nanner Socks, a pattern by Wendy Johnson of WendyKnits, who is ALSO fabulous, and she wrote this pattern up just for the knitterly Plurking population. The pattern isn’t available anymore, but isn’t it fabulous? I LOVE this banana yellow Regia Silk that I found at The Woolie Ewe in Plano, and it FEELS SO GOOD in my hands. Needles are US 1-1/2 Crystal Palace DPNs (b/c I don’t have Sz 1-1/2 Circs… yet,and I was getting BULLETPROOF fabric at 12 st/in on sz 0s. Apparently Ms. Wendy is a looser knitter than me. Well, different strokes. That said, I went up a needle size or two and they’re MUCH better now. I’m knitting the medium size,and I’m already up to the heel flap, which I also decided to go off-pattern to do – it’s a heel flap knit just exactly as if it were on a top-down sock – heel flap, short row heel cup, pick up stitches then decrease for the gusset. This puts the double-thick fabric under the heel instead of behind it, which is where I need the reinforcement, and it makes the gussets look different, but in a good way. I find that this construction is more comfortable on my foot, so I’m a happy camper.

In any case, I’m breezing along pattern free at this point – the stitch pattern is pretty simple to remember (as long as you remember to knit a plain row between each lace row (I had a d’oh! moment when I realized that little tidbit! and then a ripping session. WEE!)

Anyway, I’m really enjoying it and I think my nanner socks are coming out fantastic – love the stitch detail in the solid yarn, love the laciness, love, love love… It’s a lovefest over here at chez knotty, but not in a weird way (unless loving a sock is weird…. don’t answer that. Just.. don’t. :-D)

Domestic Goddess, I ain’t: Wherein the author learns an important lesson about regular cleaning and repents her slovenly ways.

Wherein the author learns an important lesson about regular cleaning and repents her slovenly ways, but not in that order.

Yes, you read it right, folks. I cleaned. and cleaned. and cleaned. The outcome? A clean bathtub, commode, bathroom sink, spot treated bedroom carpet, and vacuumed mattress. I have pictures, but I didn’t dry out my bathtub after rinsing it the last time, and it looks like I’ve just taken a picture of a bathtub after a bath, which is weird. So I’m going to skip that one. I also (finally) cleaned up all the paint spatters from when the painters came and painted the bathroom ceiling (in a different color from the walls), after the Great Bathroom Flood of ‘08 (wherein the upstairs neighbor’s toilet raneth over and down through the floor (and a/c vent, yummy) and into my bathroom, in great streams of (fortunately clean) toilet water. The scoury side of a Scotch Brite sponge will take paint spatters off of the side of a fiberglass bathtub, did you know that? Painters: May I suggest a drop cloth? Seriously?)

‘But Miss Knotty!’ I hear you cry. ‘You’re a slooooobbb.’

Correction. I was a slob. I’ve turned over a new leaf. Fortunately for my apartment (and my meticulous roommate), it was the leaf of this book, highly recommended by my friend and sister Rockstar, Jennifer B. over at YaRN KNiTa.

She bought the book and talked about cleaning her place, and really sang the book to the heavens, so I got inspired, got the book, and followed suit. Yes, I’m a follower sometimes, but in this case, it is, as the very imitable (and mockable; Exhibit 1: SNL, Exhibit 2: Mad TV) Ms. Stewart says, ‘a good thing.’

I’m going to spare you the ‘before’ pictures. Because I forgot to take any. I did take a couple of ‘before’ pictures, though, for your reference, and to give testimony of my conversion to the [Target generic version of the] Magic Eraser Sponge. Oh. My. Clean. People. I had some bad scuff marks on the wall from where my black floor lamp had a run-in and scraping experience along the wall and I took the Eraser to it.

Exhibit the First:

The offending mark(s):

Eraser magic (damp)

With lamp back in place:

Exhibit the second:

A scuff where my (purple) CPU hit the wall. Sorry for the poor quality here – my cam is very arbitrary about flash usage and I was zoomed, so it’s not a good pic, but you can see the dark scuff spots.

Post erasing:

Dry, and the scuff is GONE!.

How much do I love this sponge? It has saved my deposit. You can imagine the Eraser love I’m feeling right now.

In other news: has anyone ever vacuumed their mattress? I did. I took out the brushy-upholstery brush thingy and vacuumed where the mattress stitching was (not that kind of mattress stitching) and cleaned out the lint and dust (I know, EW. Lint and dust in my BED). But, according to The Book of Clean, as I’ve come to call it, it gets in there, and it can play havoc with the ole sinuses. Well, that’s about the last thing I need when the trees are already blooming and giving me the stuffy-stuffy, so I took the mattress pad off and vacuumed the mattress. I’ll let you know if my allergies improve as a result of this action. I also spot-treated the cat’s ‘uh-oh’ spots on the carpet (mostly from her getting upset tummy or that time of the year (when they shed. Infer at will.)) and they’re drying now. I’ll vacuum over them when they fully dry.

My chief complaint at this moment is from my gloves – I think I’m going to have to go get a latex-free variety – my hands are feeling very dry and hurty from wearing them – yeah, it’s supposedly a ‘foam lined’ latex, but I’m still feeling my hands saying ‘oh no no no, Miss K, you don’t like the latex. Oh no you do not.’ Fortunately for me, they had latex-free sensitive skin gloves at the store, so back I will go (or maybe I’ll wait until I’m at the store and think of it, or make a list after the next time I clean (aka next week). Can I tell you how great the cleaning calendar is? Can I just sing its praises? I’m going to probably go make some copies and turn it into a little checklist or something so I can tick off the chores as they happen, and have a wonderfully clean home. So yeah, I’m feeling the cleaning love. I still have much packing to do. I got more boxes, woot, and so I’ll be packing away this evening. I still have a 5-box quota to meet tonight, so I’d better get to it!

Oh, by the by, the Important Lesson I learned about regular cleaning is that if you do all this cleaning on a regular basis, instead of once in a while in a giant fell swoop, the back, she does not hurt so much at the end. I’m going to take a Doan’s and watch a movie (after I pack 5 boxes. Seriously.)

Oh! One more thing:

I was gifted this lovely skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino (Colorway is Fall Foliage) by the lovely Blogless Libby, for watching her kitty babies over Easter – don’t you just LOVE those colors? I sure do! Thank you Libby! I see socks in my future!

Have a great Saturday night!