Author Archives: Elka Bolhafner

YOP#10 Week 7

Posted on by Elka Bolhafner
Cubbies!

The cubby system is starting to get filled. I can already tell I have grossly miscalculated how much yarn I need in my life and how little space I need to store it. The top row is basically just one tub of lace weight yarn. I have at least another but believe, due to what I am not seeing in the grays and whites, there has to be 2 tubs. I have already moved the reserved for a specific project onto the Original Cubby System and these are just for shopping my stash.

Calypso is waning but still being worked upon in spurts. Now that I have missed the deadline I am no longer feeling like I must work on it diligently. Of course my knitting time is being taken up with playing with yarn which is an altogether different hobby.

I also realize that I have been suffering from a mild case of the blahs or, as my youngest puts it, Meh. I didn’t mention this before but the same weekend that my middle child moved into his new digs my eldest, who is expecting, brought up all the reasons she was concerned about parental units visiting. Which I read as don’t come.

So, of course, the need to finish Calypso in a hurry so that I could resume wee garment knitting was taken away. And the whole rush to finish wee garments so that they would be ready for Labor Day -literally due on Labor Day!- is also taken away since mailing instead of dropping off. What is a week or two wait to mail a package? Does that sound horrid? Well regardless there is a big difference in knitting 3-6 month old sized outfits to hand over upon birth and mailing 3-6 month sized outfits to arrive within 3 months of birth. At least in my mind.

Clearly my knitting mojo has been lost again. And my organizational mojo is currently more entertaining. I am shopping for desk chairs and knitting chairs and thinking about clear bins so I can see what I have vs organza bags to group together yarns for a project vs impossible to find locally purple bins that will maximize stuffing yarns into cubbies.

As an apparent digression, my mom, who lives in Miami, has been in Chicago for several months visiting my sister and I just received a call that they will drop by next weekend to visit. My moving a few items from one room to the next and deciding where it should go before gathering another item is now not cutting it. I am going to have to hyperdrive the supreme mess created by combining all of the items in my office/youngest child who visits a weekend here or there bedroom/yarn storage room with all of my middle child’s left behind stuff; a larger more comfy bed, a couple of nightstands, bookshelf; items he thought youngest child would appreciate into a, if nothing else, clean and semi-tidy room. My close friends know that I am not particularly neat and tidy although I do think I am clean given the confines of lots of yarn and books which require more picking up for dusting than I do to be actually ‘clean.’

All of this is to say there will probably be zero knitting content at all next week and probably no yarn organizing either. My tag line of the past 16+ years will most definitely not be happening at Casa de Elka. Doesn’t keep me from wishing you all:

yarny days and knitterly evenings~ Elka

YOP#10 Week 6

Posted on by Elka Bolhafner

I missed last week–argh! I kept thinking I am going to post *later* and then never did. There wasn’t much to report. The test knitting was due on Tuesday and I am not quite done. I did start a week later and rip out multiple times and still give my color work the side eye…. which angers my husband. He has assured me many times, as have you, that the colors look good together. There is just a niggle that something is slightly off.

Anyway I am finished with the body to underarms, done with the back and onto the front post underarms and just eyeball it instead of knitting. I want to rip back and flip colors around. :-(. Pattern releases on 11th. It is a beautiful sweater with a well written pattern.

Last weekend my husband assembled my Kallax cubby system and now I need to organize. Sadly no purple bins at my Ikea. Since I had the wall free I went with the largest available size. I cannot reach the top of the unit so no dusting for me.. evil plans and all to avoid housework. Yarn organization obviously does not count as housework.

It is tax free weekend here so I must avoid stores at all costs. Schools have been delayed for my kiddo so I don’t have a list and there is no reason for me to face the throngs. There are always throngs this weekend. Electronics, school supplies, clothing and shoes are automatically less due to no state, and in some cases municipal, taxes and the shops typically run sales so that you choose their store over another. .03 cent notebooks have had me walking into places I normally avoid in the past. I don’t even want to shop for groceries. I did however offer to shop for my Tyler who is settling into his new apartment but he assures me he needs nothing.

And that is how my last two weeks have gone and where I am right now. Facing a blank canvas to fill up with colorful yarns, no plans on additional shopping, and resisting the urge to restart a sweater that is TBH at completions edge.

OH! That reminds me–I am thinking that perhaps the reason I am incapable of finishing a sweater for myself in less than a few years is that I don’t knit sweaters for myself? Like I angst over is it perfect. Maybe I should just knit myself sweaters instead of anything else and see if I am right about this slowing down near end mentality. I am wondering do other people do the same? If you normally do not knit shawls or socks or mittens or what not do you find yourself second guessing yourself throughout the process and then dragging your heels to put in in the FO pile? And by dragging, to be clear, wanting to redo instead of not wanting the process to be over I am ready to be done with the stocking stitch. Thoughts?

yarny days and knitterly evenings

Elka

YOP#10 Week 4

Posted on by Elka Bolhafner

I suppose I should swing around and take a picture of my yarn room in midst of arranging but no.

Anybody who knows me should have seen what was going to happen. I moved my cubby system I purchased oh 15 yrs ago into the room and then started to pack up yarns which led to …..

My wanting to not knit what I was currently knitting -Calypso Crop Top- or anything for my super adorable grand daughter in utero aka The Box and play with other yarns. I even cast on a sock from The Box #3 and then ripped it thinking what am I doing. Yes, I have a box #2 and #3 and maybe even #4 planned. These are mainly yarns I have wound or projects I have stopped midway and need handling of some sort i.e. finishing or ripping or rethinking how to continue.

I did have the genius idea to arrange my yarns by Assigned for project vs Unassigned and put the Assigned in my current cubby system and the unassigned in the Kallax I plan on purchasing. While I dithered on how much or many Kallax in what color I would need the 5X5 apparently sold out. In the span of 2 days. I do want to swing by Ikea with the husband just in case the whole out of stock nonsense is because I cannot order to be picked up or delivered. For the record I doubt a 5X5 will hold all my yarn which led to the initial pause in ordering.

Oh okay I swung around:

The Original Yarn Cubby

The doors slide so usually I have prettily arranged, or colorful, yarns in view and plain, aka white or garfblobby, yarns behind walls. Right now you see The Box in 2nd cubby on far right and they Vovo yarn for Calyspso in 2nd top row. Finished baby projects and what would be The Box round something or other in cubby next to The Box and then there is an actual, slightly bigger, box on top along with a blue bin which would make yet another box. Oh and upper right hand Cubby behind door has yarn purchased for specific projects that I am trying really hard to ignore since I do have deadlines. The yarns that were stuffed into cubby system pre moving it into this room are in boxes alongside the left. And a bag of yarn I am slowly collecting for a specific project hanging on the doorknob. I am looking for two discontinued colors of Rowan Kid Silk haze for that and am thinking I am doomed.

I did knit, but barely, this past week. My eldest finally sent pictures of her Baby Bump even tho they are not the ‘official’ Baby Bump photos. She knew I was anxious. She also shared that she is concerned about visitors when baby arrives due to Covid. Perfectly understandable since wee babes do not have an immune system but still hard to hear.

Finally I want to thank all my commenters last week who reassured me about color choice. I apologize for not responding. I am certain that when it is done the big picture will be a nice cohesive whole 🙂

As always, wishing you yarny days and knitterly {or crochet-y} evenings

Elka

YOP#10 Week 3

Posted on by Elka Bolhafner
Calypso Crop

Okay I finished typing this post and realized it went from cheerful to depressing. Just a heads up.

The Calypso Crop Top test knit continues. I have finished the fun color work portion and am now looking at stocking stitch with shaping going forward. Well there is a fun breast pocket which I love the look of but may not knit. It does have a wee bit of color on it tho so …..

I posted this photo on Instagram even tho my Instagram account is almost all food and tagged it appropriately If you look at the other examples I am one of 2 that didn’t go with a grayish background so I am worried it looks too colorful. Did I did mention ordering some black and gray for the red portion last week? Either way I like it and I think the red will not pop as much in the entire garment. Plus the picture looks brighter than in real life.

This raises the question of stash and buying yarn in general during these businesses being closed times. I wanted to use the Vovo yarn because it was one of the yarns the designer used. In fact the wide green background stripe is the same color she used in her wide stripe. I didn’t want to use the gray background because my last sweater was gray & because it looked warm on all the websites that had pictures of the yarn. I did not want a beige-y gray sweater. Black was unavailable everywhere at the time of ordering.

Regardless there I was buying yarn and going to various stores that sold it online, blowing up pictures, trying to figure out if the color leaned warm or cool etc which is hard. The first yarn I picked was the doubt inducing Red. The yarns are sold by color # not by name as best as I can tell because site one, The Yarn Scout, listed it as Blood Red and it looks like a rich burgundy. The second color, which is my background color is listed as Burgundy and does not begin to look as purple as it is in real life. The second website, Yarn to Cable, just has the colors and again the suspect red looks like a deep rich almost rusty red and the background looks a wee smidge more purple taking it from red into the burgundy to oxblood range. It also, conveniently enough has them pictured side by side but one looks slightly more blackened than the other on my monitor. The third site I checked out, Knotty Lamb, lists the colors as Deep Red and Burgundy again. I did not in any way expect this reddish purple I am using for the background nor did I expect this red to be so red.

I did luck out with the yarn having such a lovely handle and generally being stellar. I further lucked out in actually liking all the colors I picked and I believe they work together. I bought enough of both the “Blood/Deep Red” and the “Burgundy” to use as background because I just wanted a cool red for background. BUT I certainly can see the benefits of shopping from stash especially when you are buying yarns you have never seen in real life before. Which leads me to:

My last living at home kid moved out this weekend. I am so sad. Really, really sad about it. I mean I am of course happy for him to be getting his first apartment and moving on etc. but I feel a bit lost. I spent the last 25 years thinking of me as a mama and now I don’t have somebody to mother at home anymore. Yes I know I am still going to be mom but it is just oddly disquieting. This fits into my yarny life because I will be rearranging the apartment to make my office/yarn room/guest bedroom into a guest bedroom and the kiddos room into a office/yarn room. I am thinking of getting a Kallax system with purple bins like fellow YOP-er HighlandHeffalump. There is an Ikea a few miles from my home so that might be happening soon. And then my stash may be sorted and within reach. I haven’t been able to say that for 14 years which is when I separated from the kiddos’ father.

Also in the sadness front, I am oversharing, this week marked the 15th anniversary of my fathers death. So yeah back to being kinda glum. Here is hoping the project of organizing gives me something to focus on instead of dwelling on family changes. Given my current state my signature feels slightly forced and faux cheerful but honestly I wish you all

yarny day and knitterly evenings~ elka