Damselfly: 10,000; M*ths: 0

Whoo-whee! That was a stinkin’ amount of work. I’ve totally cleaned out the front entry hall. The (remaining) woollies are taking an Arctic Vacation alternating in the freezer. The upstairs attic spinning stash is all sorted, inventoried and completely insect-free. Yay! Let me tell you, I was biting my nails hoping that the evil little critters had not found their way into the Stash! I’m still not completely convinced until I go through some more yarn and fabric stashes, but the bulk of it is done. This time I used my Evernote account to inventory it all and it works a treat! Check out these partial screen captures:

 

So exciting! I made excellent use of my iTouch, Ruby, and photographed each item into Evernote as I hauled it out. They aren’t the greatest photos ever (January light levels being what they are), but they serve to document what I have and it’s all tagged for easy retrieval. While I was at it I also set aside the ingredients for the next couple of spinning/knitting projects. Plus I realized I have definitely reached SABLE – Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy. I will be shopping the stash from now on. There is NOTHING that I do not already own. At least in the spinning department. There are ingredients in there for a lifetime’s worth of projects!

So why did it take me so long to use Evernote in this very useful way? It took until very recently for the software to advance to the point where it’s truly painless to add photos with your phone (or in my case, my iTouch, which is basically an iPhone without the phone). Then I go in with my desktop app and edit to add the tags for easy searching. I love that you can access Evernote on virtually every platform and from anywhere where you have internet access. Mostly I kind of use it for a private Pinterest-type board. But I’m discovering that it has many more uses than I first imagined especially as the programming improves and I haven’t even advanced beyond the free level yet. And speaking of advancements, my cable tv/internet provider now has a huge series of connection points around town freely accessible to account holders. My dream of universal access just got a little boost. YAY!

So what else?

I found this old sweater in the attic. Handspun 2/ply and dyed with acid dyes, circa 1980’s. It doesn’t fit either of us and although quite a complex knit, it’s scratchy adult Romney wool. I was thinking about frogging it and reusing the wool but, the armholes are steeked so No Can Do. Not worth it for the amount I would get that wasn’t all short ends. The pattern I believe was one of Meg Swanson’s from one of the first issues of Knitter’s magazine back in the day. Just goes to show you that steeking, although it is a very cool technique and allows you to knit in the round for the whole garment, makes it impossible to reuse the yarn later. Waaahhh… I’d rather knit back and forth. Unlike the goddess EZ and her disciples, I don’t actually mind purling at all. However, this vest is going into the salvage pile and hopefully someone else will adopt it as theirs.

So very sorry as I apologise to anyone still living in Winter. I do feel for you all as I picked a small selection of salad greens from my garden:

That’s corn salad, baby mizuna and arugula. Some is from the greenhouse but the corn salad is mostly out in the garden. It conveniently plants itself for me and survives our mild winters with ease. My rosemary in the greenhouse has not only survived but is starting to bloom now. The weather has been quite lovely for the last while and not too cold, apart from the morning fogs that cause the boats in the harbour to Wake Me Up! Noisy boys.

I’m not done with the mucking out and inventorying yet. More anon!