A little gift to myself

So I have a policy.  I do not work on my birthday.  This has become a really, really important policy the last few years as I tend to work insane hours at this time of year.  Forcing myself to take a me-day, with zero guilt, is possibly the only thing that prevents some sort of tragic event occurring before the end of the year (between my team and I, my daughter and I, just in my own head...).

This year I have a cold.  Which is actually better than last year when both my daughter and I were home with colds.  Not exactly the calm, me-first, relaxing day that was supposed to be :(  Also, the cold gives me permission to hibernate rather than feel obliged to go out and be social (sorry BridgetJ).

After spending the morning wandering about on Ravelry I am now actually going to do something even more fun:  <drum roll> I shall now organize my stash!

My kind aunt paid attention to my wish list and bought me hanging closet organizers from IKEA that, quite conveniently, fit the width of my tv room closet perfectly (doncha love it when that happens?).  The virgin closet looks like this:

I have also made the wonderful discovery that standard photo boxes fit perfectly into the compartments, which is lovely as I have been using them as project boxes.  This will be helpful when the bookshelf they are currently housed in gets reclaimed by my wasband.  Then again that may happen approximately at the 12th of never...

So off I go to photograph yarn and partially completed projects for uploading to Ravelry before fitting them into their lovely new home.  By the end of the day the stash may be the only organized thing in my life, but it's something!

PS same kind aunt spent rather a lot of time trying to hunt down a set of small 4" Hiya Hiya interchangeables at a bricks-and-mortar store for me from my grandmother, but had to settle for mail order.  Otherwise the stash organizing would probably be taking a back seat to me attempting to learn to magic loop :)

What are the odds this will stick?

So I'm feeling the need to share, more than just through Facebook status updates, and more solidly than with a Twitter feed.  Oh, and maybe with not quite so many "friends".  Since I've recently begun knitting and crocheting again and have consequently joined the Ravelry universe I am also feeling the need to journalize my yarn-based activities.  They're also nominally more interesting to others than my job (Manager, Fund Taxation - enough said) or the rest of my life (single mom) and, well, less likely to result in oversharing.

I'll probably work out how to add pictures pretty soon, and so as not to bore you all will see if I can work out how to separate the technical journal part from the somewhat more interesting commentary. [Oh who am I kidding - there are none of you, only me...does this qualify under the old "talking to yourself/answering yourself" crazy test?]

General journal:
I added a bunch of stash to Ravelry.  It is possible I will figure out how to use this to search the pattern database soon.  Can you even do that?  I find myself asking the question "I have this yarn, what can I make with it?" a lot these days.

I realized I really, really need to get out the camera.  My Projects and Stash sections look pretty weak with so few pictures.

Project journal:

"A Little Piece of Peace?"

I bought yarn last week to make baby blankets for a couple of co-workers who are expecting in the coming months.  The first one is going to one of our in-house lawyers, a young gentleman named Shalomi who is, or rather whose wife is, expecting his second child in December.  There is not a chance in hell I will have this project finished before the kid arrives, but maybe by the time it is big enough to notice textures...

I'm using a couple of Leisure Arts booklets I've had for 15+ years that between them have 126 crochet blocks, all 8" square.  I made a full-size (59"x75") afghan a looooong time ago for myself from one of these books and quite enjoyed it.  The blanket is still in use - tucked around my feet right now in fact - so it must be "enduring".

At any rate, I'm going to select blocks that fit my rough criteria - not too open, not too time-consuming - and make 16 to 25 of them depending on time.  That will give me a finished size of 35" to 43" square which should be sufficient.

I am using three colours of Loops & Threads Impeccable - Aqua, Rouge and Butterscotch - which are a riff on the primary colours.  I haven't decided what to use to pull them together (there is a common colour used to border each square, sew together and do the edging), but it will probably be the yellow.

So...tonight I started the first block using the red and a pattern called Exchange Stitch.  I had to move to a way smaller hook to get gauge (4.25mm vs 5mm recommended) and the resulting fabric is very stiff - no stretch in either direction - so I'm not off to a great start.  I was hoping to keep to softer, drapier feels.  Well, I'm too stubborn to abandon the block so I'll finish it, but maybe, yarn quantities permitting, I might make a few extra blocks and this one will end up in the reject pile.

I would like to point out, mostly to myself, that I could probably have finished a whole block if I hadn't spent the first two hours of couch time on Ravelry instead of with hook in hand...