Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Socking it to Cory Booker

Went to see Senator Cory Booker last night at CCPL. He is wonderful! And not just because he held my socks. 

Which he did. I know that he's still minor according to the Yarn Harlot's rules, but he is going to be president one day (and not just of the NJ Star Trek Association), and this country will be better for it. 

Apparently I was the first knitter to make such a strange request of him. I told him that there are more of us out there, so I'd like to challenge everyone in cities along the route of his book tour to ask him to hold YOUR socks! You know you want to! 

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Another year, gone

Absolutely no idea where 2015 went. I read more than I knit, whatever that means. Probably that I spent too much time sick and fatigued. I knit 52 hats, though, and have found heads for most of them. Need to send off a few to a friend who auctions off handknits to raise money for charity, but will probably keep a few around for friends. I met my variegated yarn goal, and the mileage goal of one mile a month, but not much more. The UFO bins stayed mostly untouched, sadly. 

That said, I am off to a good start with organizing the stash. Lots of pictures taken, and much of my collection is ready to be uploaded to Rav. I've destashed a bit, because I have SO many bins of yarn it's ridiculous. My 2016 knitting goals mostly aim towards reducing my collection of yarn.

Current goals:
  • List as much stash as possible on Rav, including stuff for sale/trade.
  • Empty the back bedroom closet so I can store yarn there, as that will make the office and craft room more usable.
  • Empty some of the WIP bins, either by finishing or frogging.
  • Knit current club projects as they arrive rather than letting them languish for years.
  • Knit the bins!
  • Concentrate on using more yarn than I acquire over the course of the year. I knit 16.5 lbs in 2015; will attempt to track yarn usage by weight and see if I can decrease or at least net zero.
  • As festivals are my weakness, I need to limit my festival attendance and keep to a strict budget. 
Knit the bins plan involves seven bins and a cone:
  • One bin for yarn with designated patterns.
  • Two bins for Oooh, Shiny projects. one for sock and lace weight, the other for heavier yarns.
  • Variegated bin: Knit 12 skeins (or more) of variegated yarn - After documenting my stash, I think I should probably aim for 24 skeins. I have a LOT of gorgeous handpainted yarn. 
  • Sweater bin: Mostly I need to stick to one sweater at a time - no simultaneous sweaters! 
  • UFOs bin: Again, need to attack some of the old WIPs. Finish or frog, whichever seems appropriate.
  • Handspun bin: I need to spin some of my fiber! Will make a bin to spin, but handspun yarn may be used at any point. It's almost an Oooh, Shiny bin, but I'm not attempting to empty the handspun bin by the end of the year.
  • Undyed cone: I have a 3lb cone of undyed sock yarn, purchased to use in two-color designs where I have a tough time figuring out color combinations. This yarn will count towards stash used weights, but if I manage to deplete it, I can replace it without guilt (and without it counting towards stash acquisition), as using it means that I have also used up other yarns that might otherwise be lingering in deep stash. 
Anyway, almost finished with the first book of 2016, so here's last year's list:

Books Read in 2015

001. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
002. How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran
003. When Books Went To War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II, Molly Guptill Manning
004. Little Failure, Gary Shteyngart
005. The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo
006. Clear the Clutter, Find Happiness: One-Minute Tips for Decluttering and Refreshing Your Home and Your Life, Donna Smallin
007. Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap Stories, Randy Bachman
008. The First Bad Man, Miranda July
009. The Dream of Water, Kyoko Mori
010. The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber
010. The Girls, Lori Lansens
011. Drivel: Deliciously Bad Writing by Your Favorite Authors, Julia Scott, ed.
012. What I Did While You Were Breeding: A Memoir, Kristin Newman
013. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
014. The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Jill Lepore
015. In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
016. Cherry, Mary Karr
017. Enslaved By Ducks: How one man went from head of the household to bottom of the pecking order, Bob Tarte
018. Dragons at Crumbling Castle, Terry Pratchett
019. Kitty Cornered: How Frannie and Five Other Incorrigible Cats Seized Control of Our House and Made It Their Home, Bob Tarte
020. Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life As a Ramone, Marky Ramone with Rich Herschlag
021. Thumbsucker, Walter Kirn
022. Mistborn: The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson
023. The Girls of Mischief Bay, Susan Mallery
024. The Rithmatist, Brandon Sanderson
025. The Clockwork Dagger, Beth Cato
026. Life Itself, Roger Ebert
027. Holy Cow, David Duchovny
028. Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson
029. Robogenesis, Daniel H. Wilson
030. Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries, Peter Sims
031. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Mary Roach
032: Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition, Peter Tate
033. Delicious!, Ruth Reichl
034. Afterworlds, Scott Westerfeld
035. Mr. Mac and Me, Esther Freud
036. The Farm, Tom Rob Smith
037. The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, Jennifer Worth
038. A Letter to My Cat: Notes to Our Best Friends, Lisa Erspamer, creator
039. Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, Ann Hood, ed.
040. Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, Melissa Milgrom
041. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
042. Think Like a Cat: How to Raise a Well-Adjusted Cat - Not a Sour Puss, Pam Johnson-Bennett
043. Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy
044. The Public Library, Robert Dawson
045. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, Steven Johnson
046. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, Ann Patchett
047. The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
048. The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries: The Most Complete Collection of Impossible Crime Stories Ever Assembled, ed.
049. Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine: 1880-1930, John Harley Warner and James M. Edmonson
050. Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers, Nick Offerman
051. My Kind of Place: Travel Stories From a Woman Who's Been Everywhere, Susan Orlean
052. Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds, Jim Sterba
053. The String Diaries, Stephen Lloyd Jones
054. Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy
055. Primates of Park Avenue, Wednesday Martin
056. Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World, Mark Miodownik
057. Hall of Small Mammals: Stories, Thomas Pierce
058. Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived, Daniel H. Wilson
059. The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahahaha!, Daniel H. Wilson and Anna C. Long
060. The Gates, John Connolly
061. The Great Auk, Errol Fuller
062. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
063. The Natural History of Unicorns, Chris Lavers
064. Dodo: A Brief History, Errol Fuller
065. The Collector of Lost Things, Jeremy Page
066. The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, Charles de Lint
067. Amped, Daniel H. Wilson
068. Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, Mildred Armstrong Kalish
069. Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, Kate DiCamillo
070. The Seven Good Years: A Memoir, Etgar Keret
071. Egg & Spoon, Gregory Maguire
072. Fifty Plants that Changed the Course of History, Bill Laws
073. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything, Col. Chris Hadfield
074. Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell
075. Every Day, David Levithan
076. My Life Next Door, Huntley Fitzpatrick
077. Destroy All Cars, Blake Nelson
078. The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, James McBride
079. Between a Heart and a Rock Place, Pat Benatar with Patsi Bale Cox
080. The Boy Most Likely To, Huntley Fitzpatrick
081. Let's Get Lost, Adi Alsaid
082. Never Always Sometimes, Adi Alsaid
083. First Day On Earth, Cecil Castellucci
084. Skellig, David Almond
085. The Heartbreakers, Ali Novak
086. Not After Everything, Michelle Levy
087. Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons, George Pendle
088. You're Never Weird On the Internet (almost), Felicia Day
089. A History of Glitter and Blood, Hannah Moskowitz
090. How To Be Both, Ali Smith
091. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed
092. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
093. Mycroft Holmes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
094. The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks
095. Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink, Elvis Costello
096. Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
097. Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce
098. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes with Joe Layden
099. The Scavengers, Michael Perry
100. The Winter People, Jennifer McMahon
101. The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje
102. Visiting Tom: A Man, a Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace, Michael Perry
103. The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Authors Famous and Obscure, Larry Smith, ed.
104. Spoiled Brats, Simon Rich
105. So Anyway, John Cleese
106. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology, Cory O'Brien
107. The Jesus Cow, Michael Perry
108. George Washington is Cash Money: A No-Bullshit Guide to the United Myths of America, Cory O'Brien
109. Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, stories selected by April Genevieve Tucholke
110. Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, Blair Tindall