I'm getting clothes dirty right now.

Projects or tasks that seem to be never-ending cause me a great deal of consternation.

Take laundry, for example. I have many beefs with laundry. This is but one: It never ends. Ever. As the title of this post suggests, I'm sitting here right now, minding my own business, and my clothes are getting dirty. Not because I'm sitting in filth. But because that's how it is. It is the very nature of laundry itself, to always be recruiting perfectly good clothes into taking its dirty laundry form. I hate it.

I think this is part of why I fancy the crafting. If you are a responsible crafter, you can -- in theory -- complete something. And that's it. It's over.

Let's not split hairs about who finishes things and who doesn't, or who thought hand-quilting a queen-sized quilt was a good idea. Let's just not.

I'd like to simply go on record as saying that sometimes organizing one's supplies can be one of those endless things, and this Ravelry thing may be a very slow boat for me. It's a good thing. Just like fresh laundry is a good thing. But I think, if I'm honest, organizing and cataloguing my stash might just kick my ass.

I completely forgot I had that.

My PIC has always been amazed by my ability to forget I have things. These "things" can be anything, from food to yarn to fabric. You name it, I've likely forgotten I have it.

PIC (looking in my cupboard): Oh my God. You have a whole chocolate bar in here?
ME: Oh. Yeah. I completely forgot I had that.
PIC: What are you talking about?

She and I used to work together, and she would often come into my office and ask if I had any food.

ME: Let me look.

I'd pull out a box where I kept snacks.

ME: Oh.
PIC (dumbfounded): You completely forgot you had that huge bag of Cheetos? How is that possible?!
ME: Hmm. Right. You want some?

This whole thing is generally fine by me. I don't concern myself with it. When it comes to my things, if it's out of sight, it is very likely -- as they say -- out of mind. Then, when I see it again, it's kinda like Christmas. Only paid for already.

But every now and again I amaze myself. Really and truly. I will come across something that is so far out of my awareness that seeing it is like a walk down memory lane. Only with no real nostalgia. More like with some "what the...?" and some "oh, good lord, you're kidding."

This scarf - abandoned after a few strands of fringe - was at the bottom of a pile of yarn that I just went through last week.

As I stared at this scarf, the whole thing came back to me: the lady at the yarn store who convinced me that a metallic yarn would look "so rock 'n' roll" with the tweedy red yarn I'd selected; the 50% off sale and its judgement-impairing properties; the lady telling me to cut the fringe before I started knitting so I wouldn't run out of yarn; my knitting the scarf and having no idea why I was knitting it or who it would be for; my running out of yarn because I hadn't listened to the lady about cutting the fringe first. (Sure. I listened long enough to buy metallic yarn, but not long enough to get the actual good advice she was offering.)

So here I sat, years later, staring at this almost-finished-and-so-very-useless scarf. I stared. I thought. And then I did what I usually do in these situations: I put it back where I found it.

I figure the next time I stumble across it, perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised and only moderately disgusted that I made it. And it will be just like Christmas.

Balls are so last week.

Top yarn cake: Weren't you a ball yesterday?

Bottom yarn cake: Ugh. Why are you even asking? You know I was.

Top: I'm asking because I'm confused.

Bottom: Oh, brother.

Top: I am!

Bottom: Always with the questions and the confusions with you over there.

Top: I just don't understand why she would go through the painstaking trouble to hand-wind us from hanks into balls, only to then -- months later -- wind us into cakes. It's just very suspicious.

Bottom: Look, dude. All is know is yesterday I was a ball. I was a ball, you were a ball, and so was Yellow-Green-Pinky next door over there. Yesterday we were all balls. Today we're cakes. That's it. It is what it is. Leave it.

Top: It is what it is?

Bottom: Why are you always making trouble? Go with the flow, dude.

Top: Go with the flow? What flow? I'm just supposed to keep changing forms at her will? With no explanation? Whenever she pleases? One minute I'm a hank, the next I'm a ball, now I'm a cake. Who knows what will come next? A scarf? A mitten?

Bottom: Please.

Top: That's all you're gonna say about this? "Please"? Aren't you outraged? Don't you feel like you're just being used to satisfy her whims? Don't you have any integrity or sense of moral outrage?!

Bottom: For the love of Pete. We're easier to stack as cakes, and she's re-organizing her stash. That's all there is to it.

Top: Oh. Well. That's cool.

Bottom: Yeah.

Top: Next time I'd like to be in the loop.

Bottom: Noted.

Top: I'm still full of moral outrage.

Bottom: Yes, yes. Of course. How could you not be.

Things I'm loving

Chevron Scarf. Lumpy, but growing.

Where have I been? What is the deal with my not posting? So sorry. For a stretch of time there I couldn't even find my computer. Turns out it was buried beneath Quiltie and Articles (Quiltie and Articles -- a play in three acts -- can be seen at a community theater near you). Things have settled down here a bit, so things should be back to normal in the posting department.

So, I was gonna write a whole post about how much I love Ryan Gosling. I really was. I was going to go on and on about how I have a physiological reaction when I see him, a reaction that is truly beyond my control, and about how I found out only recently that he knits scarves, and how that information was just gravy on the already-delicious mashed potatoes of my love for him. But it became clear that, were I to write about that, it would quickly become super weird and creepy.

Kinda like it just did.

So! Hey! Here are two other things I am currently loving, that are not at all creepy or weird! Just lovely and delicious. I assure you.

First: Color combination sites.

Colourlovers is one, and the color palette above is Grapevine Marmelade.

Kuler is another, and I've mentioned it before.

As I've said before, whether you're looking to put a room together, design a greeting card or a scarf, or figure out how you want to color-code your files, these sites are inspiring, fun, and useful! Check them out.

And, second: The magic and beauty that is Hillary Lang.

Wee Wonderfuls is her teeth-shatteringly great blog. When you go over there, be prepared to view an ungodly number of cute things. If you aren't ready for cute things, or you are allergic or something, then I'll advise you to steer clear. Unless you like stuffed robots. Or kick-ass quilting. And in that case, I'd say take a pill and get on with it already.

Recently, blog people were all abuzz about one of her quilts, and for good reason. When you click on the quilting link above, it's the red quilt. Look closely to see that where she made mistakes on the quilt, she sewed on strips of fabric with words of caution/advice on them. Genius! Seriously.

There are other things I'm loving, like the 12-week old apricot poodle puppy I saw today out at the farmer's market, and the Kiwi Strawberry Hansen's soda my sidekick bought for me the other day, and the new couch we have which puts a person to sleep instantly with its cozy powers.

I think I will go sit on that new couch right now and work on the Chevron Scarf.

I bet Ryan Gosling would approve of this scarf. But that's neither here nor there.

How do you solve a problem like this paper?

There are lots of good things about having gone to school for twelve hundred and three years. Really. Lots.

Those things aren't coming to mind at the moment, because all I can think about right now is the debris that's been left behind. Seven years of graduate school makes for quite the mess -- binders, books, flashcards, articles... Oh, the articles.

While I was writing my dissertation, my wasband and I started referring to articles as my arch-nemesis Articles (pronounced ar'-ti-clees). And let me tell you something, I have got so many binders full of Articles, it's ridiculous.

As we sit here, those binders are occupying a large parcel of real estate in my home -- precious space that could be inhabited by yarn or fabric or other crafty items. How dare Articles continue to monopolize my life, lo these many years later!

I am going to gain the upper hand with my arch-nemesis once and for all. You'll see.

One small problem, though: It would seem like throwing perfectly good money away if I just got rid of them. Even if I recycled the paper, I would feel terrible about tossing thousands of dollars' worth of resources right out the proverbial window.

You know we have the internet now. You can just look stuff up if you needed to.

Sure. Yes. Ok. Maybe. But that's hardly the same. Does the internet have my very own highlighting and notes in the margins? Don't think so. Are the syllabi from courses I've taken on the internet? No. No, they're not. How about all my carefully-taken notes from classes? Not gonna be able to Google those.

Why would you need any of those things?

You never know. I might just... I don't know!

I'm thinking of scanning some of the more important articles, burning those to a CD, and recycling the rest. How does that sound? Space-saving at a minimum. Time-consuming at a maximum. But, I can't think of a better solution.

What have other people done with all their old school stuff? Do people mostly just chuck it?

I'll tell you what I will not do: get a storage unit. If Articles wants his own place, he can pay for it himself. I am not paying rent for Articles. That dude has cost me enough already.

Seriously. Any and all ideas (except for the aforementioned storage unit) are welcome. You'd think that with all that schooling I could figure this out. But you know what? It's always better to collaborate.

With the power of the internet and the pressure from my crafting supplies, together we will overthrow Articles once and for all! Who's with me? Huzzah!!

P.S. and FYI

P.S. I left a very important piece of information out of my post about wanting a craft room. I left it out because I thought, "Why include The Woman Who Never Steers Me Wrong in a rant about Pottery Barn, when I could just give her her propers the right way?"

So. To follow: propers the right way.

What would you say the chances are that you know an incredibly exceptional person? High? Not so high? Ok, well, what are the chances you know an incredibly exceptional person who has, in addition to being exceptional, also created the most incredible craft room you've ever seen? Well, I'd say the chances are quite small. That's what I'd say. So, what if I told you that the Woman Who Never Steers Me Wrong (Except For The One Time With The Knitting, But She's Not A Knitter) is that person. Seriously.

Exceptional person + creator and owner of one kick-ass craft room = the WWNSMW (EFTOTWTKBSNAK).

I realize I don't know you and/or exactly what you've seen in your life, but I'm here to tell you her room is at the tippy top of the best you'll ever see. If you like your crafts organized, woo-howdy, you will really like what she's up to.

(I'm realizing now that if I can convince her to let me take and post pictures of this room, I haven't really done the best Expectation Management here on the front end. I kind of accidently sold the shit out of it, huh?)

But her room has shelves! And systems! And dowels! And bobbins! And...oh jeez, I think I'm getting faint. Maybe she'll just let me show you. If she does, it'll be kinda like naughty pictures for nerds. Or geeks. Or people who just like their things to look real nice. Won't that be awesome?

FYI: Here's what I just realized that's hilarious. When you turn "But She's Not A Knitter" into an acronym, you get "B-SNAK." Ha HA! Guess what, ali b? You just got yourself a nickname! Well, a better nickname. One that can actually roll off the tongue (the WWNSMW? You don't even really try to say that, right?).

All hail, B-SNAK and her glorious, glorious craft room!

P.P.S. Take that, Pottery Barn.

Pottery Barn has good intentions

Ah, organizing. As you may know, I find organizing so pleasing that I've used the hard sciences to determine that it is 50% of the fun of crafing.

So, it follows then, that I would love a crafting room. It would be so dreamy to have a whole room that would be beautiful and light with dedicated space for each of my 95 (is it up to 95 now?) hobbies. Nooks for my yarn. Shelves for my fabric. Slots for my collection of cardstock. A place for my boxes of (impeccably organized) unmounted rubber stamps. Places for scissors, needles, threads, inks, rulers, glues, paints...the list, I am a little ashamed to say, goes on and on.

So, it's like Pottery Barn divined my dream and thought they'd make it come true. Match made in heaven, right? Here's the hip and casual lifestyle they themselves have convinced me I want, married with the organizing I've convinced myself I do. Just one problem.


This is weak. Weak!

Let's start with that hanging cabinet/shelf with the dowels and the corkboard on the doors. Do they honestly think a real crafter would find this useful? Look at it. It has three dowels for wrapping paper or ribbon or whatever, and a little shelf above it that looks tiny. I'm willing to be wrong, but this appears to be virtually useless for the hard-core crafter. Nay, even the medium-core crafter would have issues with this. Oh, wait. I just looked more closely at it, and there are little chalkboards on the other side of the doors. So, that makes it worth THREE. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. What?! (Yeah, they're charging $299 US for that thing. And, I'm no dummy. That's really like $300.)

So let's move on to that middle island table. Do you see how they have all of their supplies shoved over to one side of the table top? You mean to tell me that shit is not gonna fall right off the side in about half a second? And do you see how there are more rolls of wrapping paper in the side of that island? Don't you want all your rolls of paper in one place - not some in the 300-dollar cabinet and some under the table? Isn't that part of the reason one organizes - to have everything in one place?

Argh. I could continue. I could talk about the discomfort that my back already feels thinking about sitting on that barstool while I craft. I could talk about how ridiculous it is that I have so much stuff. But, I'll just leave you with my sense that someday, somewhere, somehow, someone will devise a craft room so perfect I shall go in it and never leave. And that, my friends, will be heaven. (Well, all my friends would have to be there. And my dog. And my family. But, you get the idea.)

Organizing is half the fun

When it comes to the issue of consumerism in the US, I hold a very nuanced view of the situation. Really. I could tell you all about it. It's thoughtful and interesting. It's political and quite heartfelt. But, I hope you'll understand and reserve judgement when I tell you that I also like shopping for my 94 hobbies. It's tricky, I realize. But these are tricky times we're living in, my friends. Tricky, tricky times.

So, I will humbly admit that I did just go out and buy a bunch of embroidery floss, silk ribbon, and other supplies for Hobby 94. (I think Hobby 94 will be the name of the horror movie I write where embroidery is a killer and Sam Jackson is trying to save everyone from the wrath of the floss. Don't steal my idea, now. You know it's good.)

Anyhoo, to completely honest, I think that even more than shopping for the hobbies, I like organizing them. Allow me to demonstrate.

This, for example, was this morning's stash of embroidery floss:


Fine. I mean, it was in a box and not all tangled. But, that's not organized.

Within a relatively short amount of time today, it became even better. It became this:



And then later (you can tell it's later because it's quite a bit darker), it became this:




ISN'T THAT SOOTHING??!!! (Sorry. My yelling isn't at all soothing, but jeez, that is a very calming and lovely sight to me.)

You know what else? See that cream-colored plastic thingie in the long compartment on the left? For the uninitiated, that's a floss winder that is only one of the greatest inventions ever, and costs all of a buck and a half. You stick it on the side of your little clear storage box there, load a plastic bobbin/card in it, then turn a little handle, and it wraps your ribbon/floss/whatever in no time at all! We learned about it from our embroidery instructor on Sunday. She pretty much rocked in every way.

So. Organizing! Great, right?

It would be pretty pathetic, though, if all I did was wind floss and number bobbins. Here are some shots of developments on the sampler. I think they show off the Brazilians nicely. (Did you chuckle? Did you?) The long burgandy-colored stitches at about 10:00 and 4:00 are bullions.


The lavender-ish multicolor stitches that look like little conches right at the bottom there are cast-on stitches.




No idea what this will eventually be, but so far, I like where it's headed. At a minimum, it gave me a chance to buy some items to organize.

Huh. I felt a little funny inside just then. Curious. I think that means it's working.

Well, here's your problem

I never thought I'd be quilting, as I've mentioned. Kinda like when people can't believe they're doing heroin when all they meant to do was go party with some friends. One minute you're crocheting a flower with your granny, and next thing you know, you're Bubbs from The Wire.

I blame Stitch 'n' Bitch (the book).

Chain of events, circa Summer, 2004:

1. My partner-in-crime and I learn to knit.
2. We buy Stitch 'n' Bitch.
3. Our money magically shape-shifts into knitting needles. Lots of knitting needles.
4. We see hand-sewn needle cases being sold at our local yarn store (LYS).
4b. We see they're being sold for a bazillion dollars.
4c. We notice that all our money magically shape-shifted into knitting needles.
5. We remember Stitch 'n' Bitch has a sewing pattern for making your own needle case.
6. We think to ourselves, and out loud, "We could just make our own! How hard can it be?!"

Modifications were made to the pattern (I can't remember what they were now), and here's the one I made:


It's important to note that before this project, the last time I'd sewn anything was in the summer of 1977, and it was a brown bikini made from sand-colored Holly Hobbie fabric. I was 9. (Jealous?)

(Author's note: I found an image of Holly Hobbie just now, and pasted it here for a moment to remind you of her form. But, no offense to all you HH fans out there, *that* is a very special kind of ugg, and I just couldn't bear to keep it here. Click through to here if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you.)


Ahhhhh. Soothing colors. No ducks or bonnets. Where was I? Oh, yes.

So you'll see here that, when folded, the edges of things don't line up exactly. Turns out, the bikini-sewing didn't include the "lining up" skills I'd need 30 years later for this pattern. But it works just fine. I'm not trying to sell it for a bazillion dollars or anything.



I got a little big for my britches, did a bit of math, and made a crochet hook case, too. It is significantly smaller than the other case:


About six months after I made these, I was at my LYS and saw a needle case for sale that was made using the exact flowered fabric I'd used. Someone was biting my style! Strangely, it pleased me a great deal and just reinforced our crazy idea that we should just make stuff if we thought we could.

But then one thing led to another, sewing led to quilting, and the next thing I knew, the quilting was running my life. It's a slippery slope. You'll see.