New Year's Meme

New Year's Eve -- do you like to stay in or go out? In
Do you like to stay up or just go to sleep? Up
Any special plans this year? Nope
What's your favorite New Year's memory? Searching for an open grocery store to find food to cook for dinner with my new boyfriend who's now my husband.
Do you make New Year's Resolutions? Kinda, it's more like guidelines.
Feel like sharing them? Knit more, Spin more, buy less...
Do you do anything special on New Year's Day? On New Year's Day, I like to have the house clean, and things in order -- it sets a precedent for the rest of the year.

Every year for the last 8 or so, I've spent the first weekend of the year at the Quaker Center in Ben Lomond with the South Bay Knitters and friends. This year there was a storm making the trek a bit difficult. Our party didn't make it past Los Gatos -- 17 was closed due to mudslides so we went up the next day. See Vivian's entry for a map of the road we took here. See Lisa's entry for the barriers we hit here. We didn't have power all weekend and in the end we left the Quaker Center via the route that stopped us in the first place -- right under the tree that fell being held by a high voltage wire -- it was like that the entire weekend.

End of an Era

I owe you a meme, among other things. But I can't really focus right now. I just got back from my lys which is closing it's storefront tomorrow. The Rug and Yarn Hut opened it's doors in downtown Campbell in January of 1997. I was a new knitter having learned just months before and I joined a knitting group that started meeting there. I learned to spin there, taught by none other than Karen herself, the owner. With her encouragement I taught myself to weave. She sponsored classes where I met Lily Chin, Margaret Stove and Judith McKenzie McCuin. A lot of my stash came from that store. I bought my first wheel there -- I bought my last wheel there (well, the last wheel I bought was from there -- I have six and while I'm not currently entertaining the thought of buying another wheel -- I'm not ruling out the possibility). There are lots of knitting stores in the bay area, so it's not so much the yarn I'll miss, and some stores are now carrying fiber so I won't miss that either. What I will miss is being able to just go and plop myself down and knit. Since she moved to her new location that became even easier. When I lost my job I'd stop by in-btwn picking-up or dropping-off the kids. Anytime I was out running errands and the store was on the way, my car would veer into the parking lot of it's own accord -- the kids would laugh, "What? It's not me it's the car!" Karen was always there with a smile. There was a relationship growing in the last 10 or so years -- and it's ending. I'll have my memories but I will miss this store.

Holiday Trimmings

Over the holidays we baked,









peanut butter blossoms,









chocolate chippers,

clockwise from top:

coconut macaroons,

lemon poppy seed, and

pfefferneusse.

Happy New Year!

Stash Reduction!

I picked up the manos and the free pattern during the yarn hop. It's now a hat for my hubby -- our new dog, Elsa, ate the last one. Well, at least now we know that she likes wool -- no laying handknits around -- or balls of yarn, for that matter. And yes, that would be me in the picture -- glamour shot taken a very long, long time ago. Stash Reduction: 1 sk

Here's my Clapotis! This is a lot of fun. I started out using markers but removed them (purling the dropped stitch on the stockinette side, instead) to make this more portable. Yarn is Cherry Tree Hill wool/silk in one of their "potluck" colorways. Twice a year Cherry Tree has this big sale, one on Labor Day and one on New Year's Eve. Projected Stash Reduction: 4 sks

Finally, I finished a One Skein Wonder for K. She had a formal dance to go to and a summer dress that she wanted to wear so we had to "winterize" it just a bit. I finished this in 2 evenings and 1 lunch hr. Started it on a Wednesday eve to be worn that Friday eve! Stash Reduction: 0 sk, sadly this yarn wasn't in my stash...it was in K's!

The Stash

It's uh, getting a little out of hand. You can't see all the stash in this picture. Most of the stash is in plastic tubs. This is, um, just the new stuff that doesn't fit in the tubs. Basically what happens is I buy yarn, add it to the database, put it in a ziplock bag and throw it into the left side of the stash room. Oh, did I mention I have a stash room? It's a room built in the garage. It's 14'x10' and has 4 book shelves, a big work table, 4 organizers for my rubberstamps (3 of which you can see here) and tubs of yarn and fiber. I used to be able to walk around the work table, which is now also piled high with bags of yarn.

I can't buy more tubs. They won't fit in the stashroom. But I can't get to my rubberstamps w/out wading through the sea of yarn. More importantly I can't find any of the "new" yarn. I needed a "temporary" solution. Something that I can use now that can be easily put away when I don't need them anymore -- you know like when I knit up the yarn in the tubs, right? So I bought a bunch of these. Cute huh? It's a laundry bag (Walgreens). And it pops open to one of these! I needed 8 and I also bought 4 laundry baskets (same idea, different format) for all the yarn on the work table. They hold a lot of yarn -- probably more than a tub and you can stack them, sort of. They're super light (when empty) and you can see through the netting (if you look closely). It kinda solved the problem. At least now I only have to move a few of these as opposed to all the wading. And I found the yarn I was looking for (Sea Silk for a WIC shawl). The next thing to do is figure out what's in each bag/basket, label it and add that "temporary" location to the database.