I finished that hat that I had started on the train to Florida. I seem to be good at getting projects to come out larger than I picture in my head. I know there are many things I can do to prevent this, but since most of my projects aren't for a specific person, it doesn't both me too much.
I had planned for this hat to be for a kid, but it fits me just fine. Since I was just trying out the pattern from a picture, I count this as a success. I might try again to see if I can make a kid hat.
I've moved the long list for my Project Pan to it's own page. It was starting to get a bit long and I felt like it was starting to take over the post. It also didn't change much each time, so I felt like it also wasn't adding much to each post it was in. It can be found here. I've added food and beverages to the bottom since I'm still pretty proud at how I'm getting through those things too. I'm also not going to go overboard and record anything I use, only things that take some time or have been sitting around a bit too long.
I got some funny looks on my way in to Wegmans on Saturday, but when the ladies were starting to go through the bags, there were a bunch of 'Ooh's and 'Ahh's. A bunch of things disappeared really quickly. I'm glad that people looked at those things with so much excitement.
I'm still plugging away and have found another 106 skeins of yarn, and that is just a rough count. If there are too many skeins in a bag, I just either count general lumps, or try and count labels. Even after just typing that, I found another 6 skeins.
I'm pretty sure that I have pulled everything that will be going out of the items from the basement, but since I was so successful with that, I will be doing something similar with the bags I have in my crafting storage room and the overflow in the guest bedroom. There are a lot of those that I haven't looked at in quite some time. All of that will free up some space and I can start moving some of the things out of the corners of the other rooms in the house and then we should start seeing some real progress.
This is my set-up to dry the first batch of washed yarn. I have been soaking them in a bucket with enzyme soap made for pet stains for a while, then soak again with more pet soap and some laundry detergent. Plenty of rinsing to make sure all the soap is out and a quick spin in the washing machine before being put in front of the fan. I find that while washing the yarn in the washing machine would be a bad idea, putting it in for a spin cycle gets most of the water out quite quickly.
I was moving the last of some boxes that I will need to go through when this little friend landed on me. I carefully walked upstairs and we both went outside. I was worried that he/she would fly off before we got out, but they just enjoyed the ride.
I've also almost finished the green leafy dress. All I need to do now is to sew on a button, and block it. I'm now working on my purse hat while I'm trying to figure out what size I want to make the leafy cowl. Donated:
Poly-fil: 4 24oz bags
Yarn: 60166 172 skeins
Discarded:
Poly-fil: a few handfuls
Yarn: 7 skeins
With the demolition of the basement walls means that I need to deal with all the things I have stored in the room that will be my craft room someday. I didn't want to think of it because when we got some mice in the house they loved all the soft things in there. Most of the yarn was in bags, so they weren't affected, but I was starting to organize some to be put into my cube wall, so not all yarn was protected.
I'm going through and pulling out all the clean stuff first. I'm also using a part of the KonMari method of cleaning. Her style tells you to gather all of one style of item you have and then go through them all one by one and see if any bring you joy when you hold it. I'm not gathering all of my yarn together, but I am looking at my yarn as I pull them out. If I don't want to start knitting with it right now, it goes. I'm up to about 60 skeins in this picture.
The dirty stuff will be delt with on a case by case basis. If it looks too dirty to be worth trying to save, then it goes in the bin. I already had to throw one out because it looked like it had been made into a nest. If it doesn't look too bad, I might try and wash it. Also, before anyone worries, I have read many websites on how to keep myself from catching any mouse cooties.
I'm super close to finishing the green leafy dress. I think I'm going to start the green leafy cowl right after I'm done. Though I might also work on a summer bracelet that I have planned out.
I know Hailey (Just Buy The Makeup) mentioned on her video about how people will use the Project Pan idea for things other than makeup. I have started using it for food and beverage items. I used to make one kind of tea one day and then another on another day. Then I would get something new and forget about everything I had already started using. I have also been working my way through a large container of oatmeal because we forgot a few times that we had some and bought more.
It feels good to get those things finished too, especially since I have not been doing my best to work on my Makeup Project Pan items. I used to wear more makeup when I worked my retail job, but since the cat doesn't care about what I look like, I have been wearing a lot less while working from home. At least since I have all the items I want to use up in a separate bin, so I am using them more than might over-wise.
I also finally got the video I took at the Tiny House Festival edited and uploaded. Not sure why it took so much effort, but after re-saving the file twice and using two different browsers, I finally got it to upload. I'm pretty proud of this one and I also forgot how much fun it was to edit videos about events or going places.
I had planned on just using the same kind of decreasing for the bottom of the leafy dress, but then I realized that it would not give me the effect I wanted. I wanted to give the effect of the dress being of one pattern and then these leaves are sitting on top of them. So it wouldn't make sense for the background to cover the leaf, so I had to rethink my decrease style. I took out about ten rows and tried again. It isn't perfect because the new edges look really flat and not slightly rounded, but it looks a lot better. I'm thinking of trying to make a cowl with this similar pattern to try something else. I'm thinking of a center decrease.
This might seem like an odd picture to show on here, but it is something that I'm proud of doing. I have had these for at least five years since I got them at SaladWorks. I had plans to use them for salads at home since they are a combination of bowl and plate. This is the first time I have touched them since I had brought them home and washed them off. I have been using a mixing bowl to eat my giant meal sized salads out of because it is also easy to mix them up in there and then I only make one dish dirty.
Yesterday one of my friends brought me a bunch of purple items that had a fun glaze finish on them. I had no idea where they could fit, then I realized that the place they would fit into the most was the cabinet with these plate/bowls in it. The only problem is that there was no space to fit them in. I started pulling some things out and when I got all of these out of the way, there was a perfect space. These are now destined to head to the recycle center and become something new.
Bill is having some fun in the basement now. It has been longer than we had planned, but we are finally starting to tackle the basement. Some of the things that were done down there are quite interesting. The walls extend up higher than the ceiling and in some places they put some boards over top of the dry wall. It will be interesting to see what other things we uncover along the way.
