Space, Promptly Filled

It's always interesting how things "fluff up" to fill the spaces we give them. I never realize just how tightly things are packed until I've gotten rid of 10-20% and yet things are still full. Kitchen cabinets, the yarn stash, closets...

The last of the yarn I had up for trade/sell on Ravelry has left Chez Hedgehog. A nice lady from Montana emailed and asked to purchase it and so it's off for a new life where hopefully it will get used up. It's yarn I purchased with a plan of knitting it into shawls for coworkers from my job in Wisconsin. I wasn't happy with the yarn when it came--not unhappy enough to send it back but it wasn't going to work for the projects I had in mind and slowly I've been de-accessioning. It was nice to pull those three skeins out, toss them into a USPS soft pack and wave them off to a new home.

The Incredibly-Patient-Mother was up for a visit this weekend. She's planning a garage sale and asked if there was anything that I wanted to toss in. I always have a running box of things-to-go-to-Goodwill and that left with her. She also provided took some yarn that I didn't love anymore and didn't feel like going through the hassle of selling.  A full bin+ from my stash got handed over. I remembered, fortunately, to go through my Ravelry Stash page before she left and parked off all the things that have now left.

And, having shuffled around a couple of skeins, I found that there is not really any additional room. The wool all immediately puffed up to fill the space. One minute the IPM was looking at an empty bin, the next a full one. But the lids close on both of them now and that's something.

There's been a fair amount of knitting this week, almost entirely on the baby blanket. As we're nearly to April, I'm going to have to get back to The Loopy Ewe Semester 2 projects if I actually plan to get the semester done. But the baby blanket requires less thought and so it's been project  of choice of late. I'm on Rectangle 7 of 12 I think. Of course, they're getting much bigger, each row is over 100 stitches now and that adds to the time.  Still, while I'm on my re-listen to Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (All the little angels, rise up, rise up) it's coming nicely.

Of course, it would assist in the creating more yarn space if I'd knit from stash rather than purchasing new yarn every time I come up with a project. Summer should be a break from Loopy Academy and Laura from TheKnitGirllls is talking about doing Stash Dash again, which is her summer vacation/summer sprint through using up stash. Last year I got through around 3K and what I deemed a "reasonable heap" --I'd be very pleased if I could get through another 1.5 sweaters this summer. I've worn both of the ones I made last year several times and with positive responses.

Hmm, I wonder what the official start date for Stash Dash will be. If it is before TLE Semester 2 ends, which it might be, that could put me at 1.5K right away. Not really helping with deep stash, I know but still, success could be mine.

I'll have to inquire about that.