Fearless Fibers Yarn

Yarn Overload

As promised, I have an update to share with you on one of my projects. It's the zipper-front sweater from the Vogue Knitting 2004/05 Winter Edition.

I frogged the back and one side down to the armholes to correct an error and reknit those portions over the course of the past week. With the end suddenly in sight (sleeves are already finished and waiting) my enthusiasm for the project resurfaced and I motored right through and finished the collar as well. In the photo, it looks as though it still has a line across the armhole stretch (that's where the mistake was previously). That's just an illusion though. Every little stitch is in its place now. I'm not sure why the line shows up in the photo. It might just be where I folded the piece to set aside. Or perhaps my tension switched up a bit there when I reknit. Either way, all is well with the stitchwork now and any last vestiges of a funky line should disappear once blocking is done.

Next step will be to add a crocheted edge along the front sides and collar, and then to sew in the sleeves. From there, it's just a matter of weaving in a few ends, blocking, and finding someone to put a zipper in for me and it will be done. (I can't be trusted to put a zipper in! My sewing skills are non-existent.)

The ripple stitch throw is also growing. It's now over three feet long. The finished, unblocked piece will measure somewhere around 3.5 X 5 feet (and will grow a bit with blocking), so I'm well past the halfway point now. I can't say with any certainty that I'll finish it before the end of the year, but I'm going to do my best to get close.

For the moment, I'm still sticking by my plan to focus on these two projects (that have taken me way too long!) before I start anything new, but I don't think that plan will last much longer. Not only is the itch to cast on something new very strong and difficult to resist, but I'd also really like to make a few small things for some of my new neighbors for Christmas. They are all just so unbelievably nice!

The couple across the street invited us for Thanksgiving. We weren't able to join them, as we were knee deep in preparing for the big move, so the wife baked us a loaf of pumpkin bread and brought it to us - still warm from the oven - while we were busy working on the new house. Another neighbor up the street brought us dinner our first night here. Enough Swedish meatballs, homemade mashed potatoes and biscuits to feed us all the way through the weekend! Then there are our neighbors across the way, who stop by from time to time to check on our progress and who have been so welcoming and happy to have us join the neighborhood that one wonders who on earth they expected to have move in here? Actually, I know the answer to that question: The big fear in the neighborhood was that three or four families would all move in here together, with a half a dozen cars and perhaps an old sofa and refridgerator in the front yard! Although the house isn't huge, it does have four bedrooms and the garage is quite large and could easily be converted to living space. There's also the huge shop building out back that could easily house a small family. The entire neighborhood seems to have let out a collective sigh of relief when just my husband and I moved in!

We still have tons and tons of work to do on the house, but I am now at least settled in my new, temporary workspace. I'm using the upstairs of the house for my workshop until the time comes that we're ready for my husband to build me my own building. (He has taken possession of the workshop building for his woodworking.)

Ready for yarn overload? OK. Here goes:

That's the laceweight to worsted yarn, except for sock yarn.

The one above is the wall of sock yarn. You can also see some of the undyed yarn in that photo. There are various shelves scattered about housing undyed yarn.

Of course, that's not all. There is so much undyed yarn that it's rather overwhelming to think that I'll be dyeing it all and cycling it through the inventory in fairly short order.

This still remains to be unpacked and housed away:

And this also:



(Yes, that's roving. And no, I don't sell roving. And no, I don't spin. But hey ... that doesn't mean I can't have 80 pounds or so of roving hanging around, does it?)

Since I took these photos a couple of days ago, another 200 pounds of yarn has also arrived. All in all, I'd estimate that I have around 700 pounds of yarn at the moment. Wow. Wow. That is *a lot* of yarn!

Now it's time for me to get back to work. Today was my first day actually dyeing in my new space. I'll have to take some photos of that workspace soon. It's quite funny actually. We did nothing to remodel the upstairs yet, since it's just workspace for now. The only things we did were to remove the old carpeting and replace it with the rather ugly workshop floor you can see in the photos above and also to remove the sink in the bathroom and replace it with a large double-basin work sink.

When we made these changes, I didn't think much about how the workspace would look. I was focused on functionality. It wasn't until I moved in that I realized that the room where I actually dye is painted a very bright pink. Add that to the mottled brown floor and you have the ugliest workspace on the face of the earth.

And so now I'm off to create beautiful yarn in the most uninspiring space imaginable! Great day to all!