Storage Solutions

I finished my Stash Buster Afghan and have posted it over at the knitting blog and after that endeavor I was left with a ton of small skeins and extra skeins and yarn and more yarn and a MESS. For those of you, who've been reading this blog for a while know that I don't function creatively in chaos, some people thrive in it, I just don't. It drives me insane and according to the rest of my clan makes me a tad bit snippy. So what's a girl to do? Well since I bought myself of yarn winder I figured I can cake a lot of this stuff and then assess the damage, I did, spent 8 hours caking yarn, that is EIGHT hours mind you.

After caking and a cramp in my forearm, I needed to figure out how and where to put my supplies, the house is growing ever so small since my son moved back in and I lost my craft room. I work in the dining room and have a corner in the living room that I was storing my yarn but the storage containers I was using were just not working. Every time I went looking for something I needed to dig, not efficient and definitely a creative mojo cramper.

I went shopping for a storage solution that would work for me. I bought two containers that have pull out drawers and started stacking yarn in them once I ran outta room I kept some in the zipper bags that you get when you buy bedsheets, or thermal blankets. I was so happy with this arrangement, I also have a huge bag of yarn and some needles to donate to one of the ladies at knit nite, she wants to give classes to kids in her gated community and needs donations, which I am more than happy to help her with.

Old Weaving, New Weaving and Some Storage for Good Measure

For those of you who are always looking for neat storage ideas. I found these plastic storage boxes at BJ's Wholesale, they were $ 4.95 for two, they are reusable and can hold a lot of yarn. Trust me I fill both up, they're a great bargain for all that they can hold and when not being used can collapse to fit under the bed or the back of a closet with minimal space a plus all around in my book.

Weaving this last week had been slow, I was unmotivated by the warp I had on the loom I tried to experiment with the warp and it really did not live up to my expectations, I wove it off and gifted it to my Mom, she of course loved it so it wasn't a total loss, she says the colors are happy and really sunny. This was to be the dish towels to compliment the place mats I did a few posts back, but I just wasn't really into the whole thing.

I had finished the inkle straps and cut them into 13.5" lengths to weave into fabric for a summer purse. I started last night and I really like what I see.

The first pic is of the front and the second is of the back side, which was fun to see as I crawl under my loom. I read somewhere, I'm sure from someones blog that they keep a mirror with them as they weave to check the underside of the fabric as it goes along. *note to self must get said mirror* I think I will weave this fabric off rather quickly since I feel really excited by it. I'm starting to think of how I will stabilize the straps to sew the purse together. I had some great comments a while back from my eyeglass purse mishap, about using fusible interfacing to fuse my material before cutting and sewing, I checked with my mom,"super seamstress" and she has a ton of this stuff in her wonderfully over stuffed magic fabric closet. She said she told me so the first time and I didn't listen, but really I don't remember the conversation, (mother/daughter selective hearing was turn on) this time I'm listening cause if I mess up this fabric I'm going to be depressed for a month.

Ruana

Since my last post on the ruana, I thought I would finish that weekend, well that didn't happen. Instead we met with the realtor and started moving some things that the realtor thought were "too personal to show at open house" that meant most of my craft items. Since my looms, yarns, and fiber fun stuff is "too personal" I move all of it including lots of boxes, family pictures to my office, we have more room than we have office personnel to fill it and my boss was nice enough to let me have an office to put up my storage. I had one of the guys put up my loom in the lunch room and now instead of knitting on my board, I'm weaving on my loom. At my current pace I "will" be done with the first panel by Friday and hopefully taken off the loom by Monday or Tuesday, I get 45 mins of uninterrupted weaving time which is bliss, apart from the various questions from my co-workers although I have fun explaining what I'm doing and what I'm creating.