Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Sales & Sadism

Hey, Michelle at The Sweet Sheep is having a big ol' clear-out-my-inventory-please sale, so check that out. A very large portion of her shop is even cheaper than usual. That's always a good thing.

Speaking of good things cheaper than usual:

We got up before the sun!

Yep, Kathleen's pretty cheap. (No!! I kid!) This is me and K looking awfully chipper considering we got up at the ass-crack of dawn. What's the one thing that could get a knitter out of bed at 6:00 on a Saturday, with a smile on her face?

BIG SALE!

The first ten people in line at the LYS got a CRAZY discount, so we made sure to get there early. K was actually the first person there, and fielded increasingly frantic text messages from me en route (and, in an extra show of support, read them aloud to all the other people in line. I do love her. My arrival was even met with a smattering of applause. Wiseacres.) The doors opened and we went nuts, but quite calmly - knitters politely stepping aside for other knitters, handing each other stuff - it was all very civilized and classy.

We were there until about 3:00. I was done shopping at about 9:30. But it was just such a nice day to sit and knit and watch people scurry around, piling yarn in corners like so many squirrels, making ooh and ahh noises over each other's scores, and asking whether they thought this yarn would work at this gauge for this sweater...

My haul?

The score

Not bad, eh? I was very well-restrained, and I made up for the money I spent by purchasing a ton of sportweight Louet and Koigu KPM. Note that they're all undyed. Wonder what that means? (The reason I will dye very rarely is because this is the only way I'll be getting base yarns - I want good solid base yarns that people will enjoy working with, and I don't want to have to buy $500 worth of the stuff at a time, so I just wait for the sales and stock up for a small round of dyeing. I think Doni's used to it.)

There was also a 15-skein slip-up that will hopefully result in a sweater:

Also...

I'm gonna love me some of this sweater. The yarn is Mirasol Sulka and it is DELICIOUS.

What was the benefit to the early-morning arrival?

Why so much stuff with all the budget talk?

Off everyfreakin yarn in the store. And there may have been an additional small math error in my favor. (Which was let slide on consideration of my, um, past and probable future performance in the store.)

We had a blast, and then I got home and started trying to get my stuff in order ... the Great Craft Room Explosion of 2008 carries on. Here's some fun shots for you - keep in mind that things have progressed somewhat since this point.

So I have my shelves set up (thank you sweetie!) and I started stocking:

The new shelf

Looks great so far, huh? (That whole top row of yarns? Yeah, that's all sock yarn. I know, I KNOW!! Don't you judge me!)

Things start to get harder to take as you rotate clockwise around the room. The cedar cubbies Travis built me have shifted to the right:

The old cubbies and bookcase

These will house random skeins of yarn, projects in progress, books, dyestuffs, whatever else... and the old bookshelf will now house actual real books, the kinds that have more words than pictures.

Then...okay, brace yourself. This IS a work in progress. No more words from me, just pictures:

The chair corner

The new desk

And all the rest of it.

It'll get there. I promise. All the photos make me accountable. (Thanks for your help.) The biggest mess of it is going to be the paperwork - all the bills and house paperwork and every other bit of paper I've kept for the past three years - there have been four moves in that time, too, so stuff has tended to just get shoved in a box and I've not been as organized as I would have liked. Getting all that squared away is going to take the longest, but paper is easily stashed in the closet and dealt with over time.

Oh, and did I show you my new favourite perfect-for-me t-shirt that Jessi got me from Threadless for Christmas?

Let's crop this for my own sake

Yep, that's me.