The Diet

I've mentioned being on a yarn diet several times since the New Year rolled around and just about every time, someone has called me crazy, or mentioned how they'd never be able to stick to a no-yarn-shopping policy.

Recently I mentioned that while I had not come close to emptying a dresser drawer full of yarn, I did manage to use up a shoe box sized drawer full of little bits of left over yarns.  I received lots of Yays, high fives, You Go, Girl's and many, many Congratulations! Now you can go yarn shopping!'s.  And I appreciate the accolades, but...  I just don't feel right about it.  The goal was to use up a 'real' yarn drawer full of yarn, not that little shoe box sized drawer.

So, I'm going to stick to my yarn diet a while longer.

While the yarn diet is somewhat horrible, it's also somewhat fun.  I have to admit, I get a kick out of using up stuff.  Maybe (okay, probably) I'm nuts but...  squeezing the very last tiny bit of toothpaste out of the tube, using the last bit of ink in a pen, watching an over-stocked pantry dwindle down to emptiness...  It just makes me giddy.  I get The biggest thrill out of finishing things.  (Make note that I like to finish 'things' not projects.  Projects are Not things, which explains my UFO pile.)  So, as much as I am dying to make a LYS run, I'm enjoying watching my yarn supply slowly decrease.

And by slowly decrease, I do mean s...l...o...w...l...y decrease.

But besides watching my yarn supply get smaller, I'm also enjoying the resourcefulness of 'shopping' my stash pile.  I like having the 'use it up' attitude.  I guess that goes along with the thrill of having to use the hairbrush handle to push the last of the toothpaste out of the tube...  Whatever.  I'm enjoying using up my yarn.  I'm enjoying the creativity required to keep knitting 20/7 (I do usually get about 4 hours sleep a night) and only using what I have on hand to do so.  And of course, my bank account doesn't mind either.

So I'm sticking to my yarn diet.

And my diagonal striped scrap yarn blanket is helping me do that.

And all that garter stitch is the perfect accompaniment for a good book.  I can't remember who recommended it, but I finished and Loved An Affair to Dismember by Elise Sax.  I struggled with it in the beginning.  I had to read 20 - 30 pages before I felt like I knew the characters enough to care about them but once I got to know them, they had me laughing out loud.  In fact, at one point, I was sitting alone in a restaurant, eating and laughing out loud, laughing to the point I had tears streaming down my face.  Good grief!  Eating alone in public makes me uncomfortable enough, but to be sitting there, alone, and hysterically hyena laughing, out loud....  Mortifying!  But the book was great despite my embarrassment.

And now, I've moved on to Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.  I'm hoping this book will help me get past my ridiculously shy, introverted awkwardness.  We will see.   After my public humiliation with An Affair to Dismember, I don't think I could have picked a more perfect title to read.

Three on Thursday

Today's Three on Thursday list may not be the most exciting list you've ever read but count yourselves lucky.  I was out running errands last night and racking my brain trying to think of something to write about for today's post... and all I could come up with was my three favorite trees.

Trees???

So here's my knitting stats for February instead.

1.  I've knit 13 out of 52 hats for a score of 19% complete.

2.  My Ravelry Challenge shows me as having knit 16 out of 60 items, for a score of 27% complete.

3.  The yarn diet.  I cheated one day in February and purchased yarn.  Technically, my yarn diet could be over.  The original, lone "rule" was no yarn purchased until I'd emptied a drawer full.  Technically, I have met that goal.  I've used an entire shoe box sized drawer of tiny bits of scrap yarn on my mitered squares and diagonal stripes blankets.  But the shoe box drawer was not what I meant when I set the "rule."  I meant a chest of drawers drawer full of yarn.  The yarn diet will continue.

Hmmm....  maybe a list of my favorite trees would have been more interesting.

Join me over at Carole's place for today's Three on Thursday link up.

Three on Thursday - A Month in Review

Wow!  I can't believe it's February already.  Where did January go?  What they say about time passing faster as you age must be true and I must be ancient!  It feels like January lasted all of 20 minutes.

But it's February now, and it's a Thursday, so you know what that means...

It's Three on Thursday. 

And since it's the first of the month, I wanted to recap January for posterity's sake.

1.  52 Hats Challenge:  So far I'm keeping up with my goal of a hat a week.  I've knit four of the 52 hats which puts me at 7% complete.

2.  Besides the hat challenge, I also signed up for Ravelry's project challenge.  My goal is to knit 60 items in 2018.  I know! I don't know what I was thinking.  But the 52 hats are included so it's not quite as bad as it sounds.   According to Ravelry, I'm at 7% complete there also.

3.  Back in December, I challenged myself to go one month without buying any yarn.  I met that goal and decided to carry the challenge into January.  Now I've decided to continue it.  I'm not going to come out and say that I won't be purchasing any yarn during the entire year because, seriously!  Who am I kidding?  Currently, so that I don't freak myself out too badly, I'm going to take it one month at a time.  And Etsy shop custom order yarn shopping doesn't count - but those purchases have to be for real Etsy custom orders, not just something someone might want at some time in the future.  Anyway....  I failed my challenge two days in January, or 6% of the time.  And while that sounds bad, I stuck to my yarn diet 29 days or 94% of the time.  Yay me!

And to take my mind off yarn shopping....

January 31, 2018 sunset

Yesterday's sunset.  Although pretty in the photo, it was SO much more glorious in real life.

Join me over at Carole's to read others' Three on Thursday lists.

Pat me on the back!

I am just so proud of myself!

My daughter's laptop is on death's door so she took mine to school with her today.  Being computerless, I had nothing to do but clean.  Well, not clean so much as purge and organize.

Remember my December pledge not to buy any yarn?  And my decision to continue the yarn diet until I have an empty yarn storage drawer?  Well, I don't yet have a drawer, but I have an empty storage box.  If I empty one more box, it will equal a drawer's worth of storage space.  There's new yarn in my future! 

I'm pretty proud of my recent lack of yarn shopping.  Out of curiosity, I looked at my records to see when I last bought yarn.  With the exception of one skein I needed for a custom order in late November, I have not purchased yarn since November 3rd!

Temperature scarf

Besides being proud of myself, I'm also pretty dang excited.  There's going to be a lot of light blue in my future.  The deep freeze we've been experiencing lately has finally broken.  And as is typical of a Virginia winter, we'll be going from the high temperature being in the low 20's to up into the 60's later this week!  It's currently 41 and raining.... and it feels practically balmy!

Join me over at Frontier Dreams to see what others are creating on this gloriously warmer #Craftingon Tuesday.