Stuff in, stuff out

I’ve been thinking about stuff (and stash) for quite some time. What’s enough, what’s too much, what do I need, what do I want? This house move has encouraged me to come down on the side of LESS. I love our new flat – the windows, the airy space, the lack of clutter. Oh, I have to make the lack of clutter happen myself!

So, I spent most of April getting rid of stuff. And this time, it felt easy. I don’t need paper books, I love my kindle Voyage. I don’t seed 8 sets of bed linen, two perfect ones are perfect. I don’t need my two childhood dolls, my niece can have them. I don’t need four sets of interchangeable needles. Right? And bizarrely, that became the hardest part of the project. I had the old Addi Clicks, a set of lace Clicks, a set of wooden knitpros, with common sizes in metal and a set of small sized Karbonz. Which I love best. So, I decided I had to choose, and I set the Addis free.

Or rather I gave them to Chris and Alice. I’m not selling any of the things I get rid of, but Chris asked if she could give me something, and I thought – Hmm, Rachey has asked me for Endless Rainbow – a Martina Behm shawl which needs a lovely contrast colour. Chris found this is her stash:

Which is both perfect for the project, and my definition of perfection.

And then she made me a project bag that is large enough for a small jumper – a size I was sorely lacking. And it’s perfection. Not just pretty on the outside, although it is very pretty on the outside,

But look: it's lined with elephant fabric!

And it’s monogrammed.

Utter perfection. And now I’ve let go of things that were not serving me and have things that I will use. This is the life I am trying to craft. Clutter free and full of things I not only like, but use.

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Unravelled wednesday and WAYRN - the one where I prepare

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Slowly slowly

I haven’t posted about my actual knitting for a while. This might be because not much has changed since the last time I talked about my knitting. This is the edging of my Village Sweater Wrap: The picture fails to capture how much further there is to go. I'm just past the first arm hole, so just over a third of the way through. It’s 47 stitches of relatively simple lace. I’ve been knitting it since Monday two weeks ago. It’s quite pleasant, and slowly growing but I can’t quite work out why it’s growing so slowly. One reason I know is that the first week I was knitting it during Good Beer Week, so I didn’t take it out and about with me. I knit other things, and when I’m knitting two things it makes everything feel like it takes forever. But the main reason, I think, is that this is just a slow knit for me. I love the needles I’m knitting on ( Karbonz of course) I love the yarn, I love the way the lace looks. So really, what’s the rush? I’m not going to be cold...

What I made, by Sharon

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