Cleaning House

Many Americans are familiar with the idea of Spring Cleaning. Spring is a time for new growth and new ideas and fresh activity. However, New Year's is a time for resolution and it is my opinion that Spring Cleaning ought to have a New Year's sister cleaning as well.

While it's true that in the northern hemisphere, it's an inconvenient time to have a garage sale, it still is a convenient time to set up for a garage sale. Search out the tchotchkes and have them ready when the last flake finally melts.

For me, it's less about getting rid of junk (we live in a very small apartment after all so efficiency is the name of the game) but about finishing what we started and reorganizing what we have.

Among my 2012 goals is the resolution to finish or frog all my UnFinished Objects and Works In Progress. To start this, I really do need to figure out what they are, where they are, and where I stopped. Here's one:

I just started this project a few days ago. I'm quite positive I can finish this shawlette this month as it's going faster than I could have hoped for. I'm really thrilled to be working with this yarn from BlackSheep Dyeworks. It's amazingly soft, but it has so much stitch definition (clearly not evidenced by my whack photography skills) and I have yet to split the yarn even once. The pattern is Pleiades and is quite well written so far.

Now let's move on to, oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. This was supposed to be finished back in 2010. Can you really blame me though? Look at all those ends! It's a nightmare! What was I thinking? I hate weaving in ends and seaming. This one will be a chore, but even though the little girl is a little bit bigger, I still think it's large enough and will eventually be nice enough that she'll still get some joy from it.
And this? I don't even know WHAT it was originally supposed to be! It's pointy at one end, and it's clearly some sort of stuffed item. A mouse's head? A rotten turnip? An armadillo? I don't think it was originally supposed to be an acorn, but I think the shape and color fits, so that's what I intend to finish it into.
What other sad lonely little projects will I find while tidying up?

Spring Cleaning! ... More to come... ugh.

BEFORE:

Really? Just a box full of yarn? No rhyme or reason at all.

More boxes? And plastic shopping bags? Really?

Are those hanging strands? That's just a sad sorry tangle waiting to happen!

I am not now nor have I ever been a particularly tidy person. Yet even I have to admit that a little bit of organization goes a long way towards inner peace. Thanks to the inspiration of one Argus Filch of Hogwarts fame, I picked myself up, dusted myself and my pantry units off, and started organizing.

Kevin and I have both long called this the "yarn tower" and rightly so. It is the tallest thing in our apartment. Literally 3 inches more height at it will be holding up the ceiling. It's a bit intimidating.

How did I do it? ZIPTOP BAGS! They are a miracle. Not only do they keep yucky things off the yarn, but they hold the yarn in tidy groups and you can press some of the air out to make the yarn more compact. Genius. Anyway it took a solid 12 hours of work to get it from that up there... to this down here!
Good lord I can even see the floor again! Hallelujah! Not all of it fit I must admit. I ended up hiding away some roving (I don't know how to spin yet) in the closet and since we have a flat screen now, I placed a couple boxes of "iffy" yarn back in that empty space where the not flat screen used to take up. Those iffy yarns may or may not be hitting the road. Only time and my very whims will tell.