Fiber Event Catch Up #3: Three Irish Girls Trunk Show

September 17th saw friend from Stoughton, have to find out if O.K. to mention her name on blog, and I went to Chicago to attend the Three Irish Girls Trunk Show at Windy Knitty.  We started off mid morning and had an enjoyable time driving down.

Hard to believe but this is all that came home!

Lunch was at a Thai restaurant not that far from Windy Knitty and then on to the trunk show.  If you have never seen/felt Three Irish Girls yarn, you simply must!  The colors are wonderful and it was hard to resist purchasing oodles of yarn but I only purchased a three skeins of yarn and a scarf minder (hee hee just thought of it Three Irish Girls, 3 skeins of yarn...).  I know I know the restraint but I'm trying to change my yarn buying habits.

From there, we went on to Ikea.  At Ikea we had a quick snack as my blood sugar was getting low and my friend needed to rest and then shopped around a bit.  I found curtains for the living room which were totally not something that I thought I would ever buy and large beverage glasses, as the ones I had been using are rather on the small size.  She found the mirrors that her daughter-in-law wanted and a few other items.

Once we had our purchases for Ikea loaded up in the car, we headed home.  There was a quick stop in Janesville for diner at my favorite Chinese restaurant and then continued on to Stoughton.  We did some switching around of things from her car to my car and I returned totes she had loaned while moving back in July (terrible how long it took me to unpack some things).  

All in all, a very fun day and one I wouldn't mind repeating (hint, hint).

What do you knit?

My UFO bin runneth over

Back in September I was at a local yarn shop browsing and the clerk and I were chatting, when she asked me "What do you knit?".  You have no idea how much that question gave me pause as it seems to me that I am great for starting projects, as evidenced by my UFO bin, but completing them is somewhat problematic.

With the New Year, people make resolutions, set goals, etc., which is one of the reasons this blog was started.  But just like my other projects, the main reason for starting this blog (reduce the amount of yarn under the bed/in my closets, now cupboards) never has seen fruition.  This year instead of setting big goals, I'm setting small goals and rewards which will hopefully result in a reduction in the amount of fiber hiding under the bed/in cupboards.

The work on my 2012 resolution/goals actually started in October 2011, when I took all of my yarn stash, UFOs, WIPs and made a pile of everything on the living room floor.

Stash October 2011

At first, I was sorting things out by fiber type/color but it became readily apparent that this was not going to work as it was the same system I had been using.  Instead, I started a much lengthier process of going through the yarn stash and sorting everything out by yarn weight.  Once everything was in bins according to yarn weight, I then went to Ravelry opened up my Favorites and Queue and started matching up yarn with projects.

The result was going from a Queue of 1.5 pages (roughly 45 projects) to a Queue of 7 pages (189 projects) long.  Don't know how many bins all that yarn was in but I'm down to two bins and one chest (that doubles as my coffee table) that are looking for projects.  The yarn in the chest I'm not anxious on having projects for immediately as it is the "good' stash yarn and I'm fine with waiting for the next viral knitting project that sweeps the knitting community like the Clapotis.  The bin yarn I will go through today and see what is in there and see what projects I can find for it, though I'm thinking some of it would be very interesting to weave with.

Earlier today I drafted out my goals and while they may seem strange, I think they will result in much knitting/reduction of the stash.  I will explain in my next blog post why they are all monetary

2012 Rewards

1. Every 20 knitting podcasts or iTunes university I listen/watch while knitting, purchase 1 audiobook.
2. Every project completed, put $5 in savings towards a rigid heddle loom.
3. Every 20 projects completed, purchase 1 item from my Ravelry shopping cart (contains patterns that are probably in the queue).
4. Finish 4 adult sweaters, purchase yarn for a sweater in queue.
5. Every 10 blog posts, purchase 1 movie.

There may be some tweaking of the rewards during the year, but this is a very good start.  I plan on doing a comparison photo in December 2012 to see our things have progressed.  Let me know what you think of my goals and if you have any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate them.  Hope I didn't send you into shock with my yarn stash pile (believe it or not, there is one bag of yarn missing!) and wishing you a healthy and happy New Year!

Rosie was exhausted after watching the sorting of the stash