Purge and Progress!

Knitters by nature horde and I'm certainly no exception. I've got tubs full of yarn hidden under the bed, bags stuffed with unused yarn or unfinished projects and basketfuls sitting by the couch. Today, while cleaning the house and being in one of those merciless purging moods, I was going through the baskets and found a whole lot of unusable stash. Some of it even has evidence that a creature has been using it as a teething toy. Plus, and I can't figure this one out, there was a lot of sand scattered all over the stuff, so I have no choice but to toss it out. I have no regrets. I'm never going to use it and it never did look very artful beside the couch.

Just as a conversational note, see that natural or wheat coloured ball of yarn at the top centre of the bag? That's actually a ball of possum fur yarn. Yep! POSSUM! I knit my aunt a vest several years ago with it and was pretty proud of the result. I had to special order the yarn from Australia and it wasn't cheap. Besides unusual yarn, it was an unusual design and the most complicated thing I'd ever knit. I was proud of it. The sad thing is it was too itchy for her and she ended up pulling it all apart and had a friend knit her a scarf out of it (unbeknownst to me). Of course, that was also too itchy, so she unravelled that and handed the yarn back to me one day and asked me to knit a teddy bear out of it. I was so stumped I had to laugh, but needless to say I have not reknit it into anything. As if!


Other news: I've been diligently working on the shawl and I'm determined to have it finished by the end of the weekend. See? There's just a little ball of yarn left to go. For a long time I thought that ball of yarn wasn't getting any smaller and I was locked in knitting purgatory, but there's definite progress now. I'm getting pretty anxious to see how wide the shawl will be when it's off the needles, and I'm also getting itchy to start something new.