De-Cluttering, Part 1

Be proud of me. Be very proud! I went through all the clothes in my bedroom and I’ve gotten rid of maybe 1/4 of it and there is more room in the drawers. OK, so I actually took quite a large bag of t-shirts upstairs to the studio for assessment. If I “remodel” them with my serger, they will look much better on me. Or if I don’t get to them by, say, the end of November, they will join their brethren in the trash. Yes. I also “rescued” a bunch of cotton and wool (commercial version) socks that may (or may not) become Stupid Sock Creatures. They have until January 1st to become something or likewise they will find their little corpses out in the alley. I have spoken. It will be so.

Meanwhile T-Man has only done a portion of his clothes, but I will encourage him to finish. Soon. Next up is the front hall closet. There are more clothes in there. And shoes. A warning — this is merely Stage One of our newly-declared Winter 06/07 Blitz. This house isn’t very big as these things go, yet there are corners where an amazing amount of junk lurks. We’ve been here since 1978, for goodness sake! Though we’ve tried to pawn stuff off on the kids when they moved out, we couldn’t convince them to take everything. Then of course we bought more since then. After all, the youngest has been gone almost 9 years. Even for us, stuff wears out eventually. Or just gets old and gungy and out of style. Now I know why other people move so often. It makes a great excuse to re-evaluate. Unfortunately you can’t make me move, so I’ll just have to do this the hard way. At least there’s no real deadline except the one in my head. Spring. I’d like to have it done by next spring. Wish me luck.

Since I haven’t shown my Little Squares Sweater knitting for a few days, for some crafty content I’d like to talk about the “dip stitch” pattern. The pattern repeat is simple: knit 4 rows stockinette with the handspun wool, next row switch to ribbon yarn and work “dip stitch” across (see notes below), last row knit with ribbon yarn (causing a purl bump on the knit side of the work). Repeat these 6 rows forever. As I’ve mentioned previously, the reverse stockinette side will be the public side, just because it’s prettier. But the pattern counts from the knit side which is the side we're working on in the photos. Here’s how you do the “dip stitch”. It’s kind of fun even though I actually have to look at it. First knit 3 (I knit an extra stitch at the selvedges as the pattern suggests), then dip:


1. Go down 4 rows below the one on your left needle, insert your right needle there and bring up a loop. Note: when you have more rows of dip stitch you’ll be going into the ribbon stitch just above the last row of dip stitches and in line with the previous dip stitch.

2. Knit the stitch from your left needle normally.

3. Lift the dipped loop over the knit stitch.

4. Now you’re ready to knit 3 stitches again before the next dip.

Can’t you just envision a bunch of variations on this? Different yarns, different numbers of rows, staggering the dips, etc. Will the right-side be public or the wrong-side? I say it needs some serious swatching. BTW, I got the pattern from Sally Melville’s “Book 3: Color” but of course my yarns didn’t match her gauge so I’m doing a larger size with longer lengths. Except for the sleeves. My arms are short and sleeves are always way too long so I shortened them considerably. I’d rather have them a bit short than down over my hands or having to be turned up all the time, at least in this kimono-shaped sweater. The back piece is currently getting larger and heavier and harder on my hands. Plus I’m running out of handspun again so it’s back to the spinning wheel this afternoon. That’ll give me an excuse to listen to some more podcasts. I’m particularly liking Lime & Violet these days, as well as my favourites Cast-On and Craft Sanity. Listening allows me to actually get some work done because it leaves my eyes and hands free. However, I do get some funny looks if I comment or laugh out loud while out in public. Don’t know why — it seems like it's ok to yap loudly and incessantly on your cell phone anywhere anytime.