Sunday, August 19, 2012

Where Brilliance and Madness Converge

By now I'm sure you've figured out I'm not quite right in the head.  I'm still coming to terms with it.

Sitting in my studio this morning I got an email from a student having issues reconciling a stitch count against one of my charts and so, I replied that I'd knit up to where she was in the chart to figure out what was going wrong and get back to her ASAP.  I set aside the hours old, newly designed test sample I was knitting for my next class and grabbed the class knit-along sample so as to answer her question, then I glanced around at my work station and realized just how far gone I really was.  I decided I really ought to conquer some of the storm that is my studio first. And so, I took this picture.  Sometimes I need to be reminded.  I'd love to say this photo was staged, but it wasn't.

On my desk I have class materials for three different classes, test swatches and samples for three designs - six actual on-the-needles items, a class sample, yarn that needs to be wound, charts that need to be digitized and notes and tools and books and tools and notes and and and... Holy crap!  I know where and what everything is, but it occurs to me that if I were to die right now an investigator might calculate this mess as part of the cause of death.

I have no real reason to organize any of this.  It's all out where I can see it and I know the status of each item, but it occurs to me that I might have just a little more mental peace if it wasn't all in riot.  So I took 5 minutes.  I wound, stacked, put away and behold... more space for more projects!!!  Okay, so that wasn't the goal, but I wasn't aiming for clinical sanity, just a reduction of insanity.

When was the last time you took 5 minutes to organize your forest so as to see the trees?

Monday, August 13, 2012

2012 Mileage Goals - Update!

As many of you may remember, I set a goal at the beginning of the year to knit 6.5 miles worth of yarn in 2012.  That's 11,440 yards.  If I were to knit my entire goal in Cascade 220, let's just say, that would be 52 skeins or a skein a week.  When you start breaking it down it seems, well, crazy.

Today I noticed I hadn't been keeping up with my mileage record keeping, so I dropped into KnitMeter.com and added my most recent projects.  Low and behold, my mileage to date is 4.44.  I have just 2.06 miles left to go, or approximately 3625.6 yards.  I'm about 650 yards AHEAD of schedule!  This would probably be more exciting if I were an Olympic athlete and I was 650 yards ahead of my competition, but seeing as I'm only competing against myself with yarn... it's probably not so impressive.

So what is the plan?  I'm working on a shawl right now for the class I'm teaching that will end up being about 306 yards, I have another shawl planned that should be about 750 yards, I'm planning a project that will consist of 4 pairs of socks - there's another 1600 yards, plus there is a project on the needles that is a test knit for a new pattern that I think will run about 500 yards.  Once that test is done I'll have to knit the final version, another 500 yards.  I've got a hat I need to knit - guessing another 200 yards, plus one pair of socks already on the needles - about 400 yards.  All that brings me to... 4256 yards planned.  AND I have 2 hats and a shawl to knit this fall for other classes I'll be teaching.

I think I can see the goal line!  Actually, it looks like I might end up knitting about a mile past it.  Sweet!

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