Spring finally slowed down, cooled down, and I’ve had a chance to line up with the season again. The house still needs a deep, very deep clean – there’s still dust from the bath reno underneath the furniture, and I don’t think it’s ever had a lift-up-the-rugs-and-wipe-down-the-walls cleaning yet. And the windows could do with some clarity and de-dogslobbering.
A couple of weeks ago I sadly had to say goodbye to the best little vacuum cleaner I ever had. When I left my first (technically second, but the other was brief) professional job out of grad school, my fellow co-workers chipped in to give me an incredibly generous gift card as a going away present. I treated myself to the vacuum cleaner, channel lock pliers, and a fancy saucepan. It merrily sucked away in my old squirrely apartment, our first house, our shitty but adequate apartment, and this house – for a lifetime of about 15 years. I even bought a few new parts for it a year or two ago.
N got the same model a few years later, but it sucks – not good vacuumy sucky, just doesn’t suck enough, suck. So I can still clean, but it doesn’t look like I did.
But the woolens come first, and all of my neck things are freshly washed and tucked in plastic bags for the season. Some of my sweaters are still needed at the office, but the others are mostly washed and tucked away now too.
Though I still have a fairly small closet by US standards, it’s bigger than my last, so the rest of the hung up woolens can stay and just be moved to the hard to reach side rather than encased and crammed into another closet on another floor that was always an avalanche when opened.
I still have some things (nostalgic and/or supplies) in boxes and tubs – I think all have been consolidated and I know what’s in them now, but I was happy to finally find a few things I thought were lost.
Those scissors were nearly new before they were packed up – in a place I thought would be memorable and handy but wasn’t – and I’m over the moon about that spool pin – it goes to my Red Eye Singer 66 that I recently turned into a hand cranked machine.
I whipped out a quick knit for a gift, and forgot to photograph it in its finished state…
But it was another Turn a Square in 2×2 charcoal and grey-green stripes.
And I finally tackled the mending pile – some things of mine, some of N’s.
I keep thinking I’m going to unravel this cashmere hoody that is one of my favorites, but is a tad too short, and I blew out one of the elbows. But I knit up a patch from leftover yarn and it’s good to go again (as long as I’m wearing a long shirt underneath it).
And lastly, it was time again to toss the stash – I never incorporated the yarn from the errant box I found last year (hell, that was two years ago now), and I’m maddeningly missing a small niddy noddy that has few places left to be hiding.
The niddy noddy was not there, but everything was in good shape, is now entirely organized, and in a reduced number of boxes – it’s a good stash now, not too overwhelming (though it could still loose several pounds), and enough to keep me busy with enough variety for some years to come.
And now I have a raging case of startitis…
ASTITCHMATISM 