Organized Chaos

This is a post I am writing because I have too much yarn!!! Yes I do......

I wanted to get some books during Knit Picks 40% off August book sale, so put a few in my cart and was content with that. As I waited I noticed that the Chinook shawl kits were labeled "Last Chance" which meant they would not be available any more, so into the cart went the purple and the green colorways, with much hand wringing about not getting the neutral. Oh, and I might as well get a hank of the new Stroll hand painted sock yarn in a brown and pink colorway. What harm is one little hank of sock yarn going to do! And they had the new Zephyr acrylic points up on the website so I put a 6, 7 and 8 in my cart along with the perfectly adorable holder. (My DH, ever the total supporter of my knitting obsession, actually asked why I needed more needles). The total blew my mind so out came three of the books and in went the order.

I needed another skein of yarn for Serena's leg warmers as I came up just a teensy bit short so off I went to my LYS and there in the sock corner were all these new colors and yarns for the fall. Had to pick up three new skeins of the On Your Toes sock yarn and a beautiful hand painted yarn in reds and yellows. Then I needed buttons for the eyes on the Fuzzy Mitten Bat that I am making for Serena and happened upon some Red Heart sock yarn (yes Red Heart) with aloe and again beautiful color combinations, two pairs of socks worth. In a matter of two days I had purchased 24 skeins of yarn. When I went to put them away I realized there was no more room in the bins, in the closet, on the floor or in the baskets of my craft room for any of the new stash.

Well, let's get better organized, I said to myself. Yesterday I tidied up the craft room, removing some items I will never get to (old sweaters that I was going to take apart and reuse the yarn). I took all of the orphaned projects that have been stashed in various places around the house and put them all together in a big basket in the craft room. I checked them all to make sure I still felt the love and wanted to finish them. I will bring one of these out as I finish a project.

By my knitting chairs I have the Bat for Serena's birthday that has to be put together, the "Afghan that Will Never Get Done" with 19 more blocks to go, the Lizard ridge afghan that needs to be finished, the Blue cabled cardigan that is going to be my next big project, and the Dinosaur afghan for Chiara that I would like to finish for her birthday. Oh yes, Monkey socks and the vanilla socks out of the lime green and orange Red Heart yarn will be my travel knitting this weekend when we go to Hammondsport for a few days.

This is one half of the closet that has my yarn stored. The other half has bins full of yarn and two containers with enough sock yarn to make (gulp) 40 pairs of socks! OMG!!!

When I saw this, I actually got light headed. If I make nothing but socks, it would take me a year, at least, to make all these socks. Maybe I shouldn't have counted it.

I went on to Ravelry and organized my queue so that I have the next five projects I will tackle at the top. Of course that doesn't include the knitting for the kids birthdays. We have Dante and Nathan in September and Jordan in October, but they should be very quick projects that I already have the yarn for. Oh shoot, Christmas knitting!

So I have to face a hard reality. If I want to get all this knit up I have to stop buying anything new for the next few months (years?) and concentrate on getting a handle on what I have already.

I do go through it periodically and there is nothing in this stash that I don't still love.

One of the phrases that I used to use at work when we were facing a monumental task was:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

So that's how I will tackle this. Stay focused, stay off of all the yarn and pattern sites, or at least

try to resist temptation, and knit, knit, knit. I'll also use my blog to keep myself on track, I'll call it "Reality Check".

Do you have a passion that sometimes takes over your good sense?

Reality Check:

So for August: Finish the Lizard Ridge Afghan. Finish Serena's Bat. Start the blue cable cardigan and the blue sweater for Little Dante for his birthday. Nathan wants the Fuzzy Mitten Penguin for his birthday and fingerless gloves.

Sock Journal: Serena's leg warmers took over for my sock knitting for the last few days. They actually look really good. I just hope they fit!