The Knitting O(para)lympics

So - I was going to do the Knitting Olympics. Really was. Picked out a pattern, yarn, needles - and used things I already had on hand, so I wasn't even spending money. (That took effort - I almost gave in and bought yarn for a new project. But I managed to talk myself out of it.) Did a swatch before the Opening Ceremony. Cast on and started the project during the Opening Ceremony. Knitted away the next morning while I watched the games. Ripped it out and cast on with fewer stitches later that night, while I watched the games. Knitted away and watched the games pretty much all that week and the next. Knitted almost all day the last day, right up until the flame went out.

Didn't finish.

Totally not my fault.

See, I was handicapped. I had another project that had to take first place.

The Birthday present.

This? This is a knitted Dalek. I made it for my brother's 11th birthday (He thinks it's pretty cool, so kudos to the pattern designer). See that 2nd line of Bobbles from the bottom? That's how far I was when the Olympics started. That might seem far, but that was barely a quarter of the way through. (The base wasn't there yet - I knit that last, after stuffing.)

Also, each of those rows of bobbles took me a good 2o minutes. For one row.

I hate bobbles now.

So, needless to say, the birthday present had to be done. No question. So a lot of that Olympic Knitting time was spent on the Dalek. But I didn't finish the Dalek until only a few days before the Closing Ceremony. (alright, it might have been 6 days. Maybe.) So now, I only had a few days to finish my socks. I hadn't even finished the leg on the first one.

Yep, wasn't going to happen. Knew it. Didn't stress about it.

Instead, I'm a Paralympian now. I'm giving myself until the Flame goes out at the Paralympics to get these socks done. That means I have until the 21st. I can handle that.

And yes, I will be working on these socks in between. Honestly, that's not cheating - these socks are a tough project for me. Lots of chart reading and cabling. I'm lucky I haven't dropped stitches more than a couple times so far. And I totally used a life-line on the heel. First time I'd done a heel flap and gusset, too.

So, I don't mind too much that I didn't finish. I am totally in awe of those who did, however. Especially the Yarn Harlot - holy crap did you see what she did?! Total. Awe.

I didn't do that. Can't imagine doing it in a million years. But right now, I'm saying - yes, my project isn't even half done. No, I didn't give the Knitting Olympics my all. But I have a chance to try again, and even though I was handicapped, I can still be a champion.

Isn't that part of the reason we have the Paralympics?

Gold Medal, here I come.

Stash

So I've been reading Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter lately. It's an awesome book, and I'm laughing at almost every page, so that's good.

I'm reading the section on stash right now, and it made me think. How much stash do I have? and what kind of stash is it? I know that I don't really have a lot of stash - I haven't had a lot of spare cash to spend frivolously on yarn that I don't have an immediate project for. (Ok, so that doesn't always cover sale yarn - but it's on sale!) Considering how much space I have, though, I do kinda have a lot.

My yarn bin I bought year ago has been full for, well, years, although yarn has come and gone from it's shelter. Right now, I have yarn stashed in and around that bin (which is crammed unhappily in my closet. And yarn in my bag of current projects - most of which I do actually intend to work on soon. And there's yarn stashed in about half of my new dresser. One of those drawers is rather packed.

At one point, in the midst of Christmas knitting, I temporarily shoved yarn (carefully, mind you), in my underwear drawer, to get it out of my hair while I dealt with all those Christmas presents I had to make.

And I do try to use my stash - I've been pretty focused on looking for projects that I can make and use up some of my stash - because if I don't get that yarn out of my stash, it's hard to justify buying more.

Still, I have over 30 types of yarn in my stash (Ravelry say 28, but I haven't actually added all of my stash into there, yet). Out of those, only 12 yarns have plans. That's right, 12, out of 35 or so.

Now, I know, compared to other knitters, this is still really small beans. Especially since, for most of these yarns, I have a skein or 2 at most. But on the other hand, even with my making an effort to find projects for all of these yarns, less than half of them do. And hardly any of those are actually on the needles, or going to be anytime soon.

And, on top of that, there're slightly more yarns that I have no idea what I'm ever going to do with them. I bought that rather scratchy pumpkin orange acrylic to make a hunting hat for my brother-in-law (which I finally did, this Christmas), but I bought extra, thinking I might as well make hunting hats for my uncle and his 2 kids while I was at it. I don't think I'm going to bother with that, so what on earth am I going to do with more than 637 yards of pumpkin orange yarn? My brother-in-law said I could make him fingerless gloves or something, but that's still going to leave me with an awful lot of yarn. Sure, I could make knitted pumpkins, but that seems pretty silly. And I have 2 skeins of eyelash yarn, in different colors, that I thought were going to make pretty skinny scarves for 2 of my cousins. Only you need more than 1 skein of this yarn to do a scarf, and now I'm not sure they'd like scarves like that, anyway. So that's going to sit there for ages, most likely.

Logically, I know that this could develop into a big problem, if I don't try to stay on top of myself and curb things now. But I don't think that's going to happen, unless I stop knitting. Because I know I'm not going to stop buying yarn, and even yarn bought with the best of intentions sometimes ends up as stash instead of a completed project. And so far I haven't bought much yarn just because I had to have it, but the more I get to real yarn shops, and fairs and things, the less that's going to be true.

And can you imagine when I decide to learn how to spin, and start buying fiber? Or undyed yarn so I can dye my own? I know that'll probably happen sometime - I'm already intrigued by the idea of learning how to spin, although I've been able to fight the urge so far.

Honestly, though, I don't really want to do anything about my stash. Sure, there're a few yarns I want to get out of there, because I don't know what to do with them and they're taking up space, but I like digging through my yarn, rediscovering things I'd forgotten I had, and just feeling up all that lovely yarn. And that feeling is only going to improve over time, as I add more yarn, especially real yarn, not fake acrylic stuff.

Really, I just need to buy a bigger bin to keep it all in, that's all.