Yes - that's me. I didn't mean to do it ... and I'm really sorry .... but somehow it all got away from me .... but what's a girl to do? You know - you're happily knitting away and suddenly you're bored - that snazzy new ball of yarn winks at you - or maybe the subtle mixing of colours in the stash catches your eye - and before you know it, you're flirting with a new relationship - you vowed it would never happen - that you'd be faithful until the last seam was sewn - but now you're dancing with a new partner and your old love is lying discarded in the corner .... how did it happen?
I didn't mean to confess - but the enormity of my sins became apparent when I started to rationalise my knitting supplies in preparation for the move. Well, that's not quite true - it really started when I was rationalising the toys in the little Fleas' room - deciding how few dolls ' beds we could survive with - how many bedtime stories were past their use by date - how many toys, how many boxes of old calendars and Christmas cards, old wrapping paper, assorted pieces of ribbon, foil, pieces of cardboard, half used vials of glitter, toilet roll inserts, empty cardboard boxes (all for drawing and snipping, stamping and glueing) etc, I could palm off on my eldest daughter and the littlest Flea. And there, in the wardrobe, were two boxes of yarn I had totally forgotten about - odd balls of cotton that I had left in the house for TV knitting of washers and kitchen cloths. The rest of the stash had been secreted in boxes wrapped in garbage bags and hidden in a large cupboard under the house when we were pretending to live a life of elegance and ease while our house was being sold .....
So, leaving the little Fleas' room in total disarray, I decided to investigate the other places where I knew knitting things to be, with a view to finishing a few UFOs and tidying things up in readiness for packing into boxes for the move. Note that this is not stash we're talking about - that's another story - this is the accumulated baskets of projects etc that seem to multiply in corners at night. What a mistake. Mea culpa, mea culpa. How could one person have so many baskets? and how could so much stuff fit into so few baskets? And how could one person have started so many projects without finishing any? Of course, it isn't really my fault - no, I blame Grandpa Flea. If he hadn't had the temerity to RETIRE, I would still be happily knitting all day until about 5 o'clock, at which point I would run around and start the dinner and make like I'd been very busy all day - well, I had been, hadn't I? just not with housework ....
So, here it is - the results of my investigation - mind you, it may well take the next ten posts to document it all ... but it may spur me into action - well, they do say, while there's life there's hope .....
Some of these photos are not too good - but they tell the story ... first, the relatively empty looking basket in the study:
How did all these things come out of that basket?
My Montse Stanley book (I've been looking for that), numerous printouts of downloads from the internet of things I'll(never) make one day , a ball of mohair (I wonder what I'd been doing with that?), an odd coathanger waiting for a cover (part of my plan - the first part, actually - to cover all the wooden coathangers in the house ), an old Guild newsletter and .....
a bag of yarns I keep forgetting to give to a friend of mine so she can knit herself a shawl ... OKAY! I'll put it near the front door so I remember to give it to her - better still, I'll ring her and ask her over for lunch and so I can't forget, I'll ask her to remind me!
Now, while I was in the study I remembered that the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet had a few things in it ....
including:
a half-finished bag knitted in the back of the car in Western Australia about five years ago after I saw a sample in a shop in Albany - I lost interest when it didn't look like I thought it should ... OKAY - I"LL FINISH THIS ....
the beginnings of a mitred hat. I think the pattern was in a Knitters' magazine - we know what's going to happen to this, don't we?
a small jumper I was knitting for THE SHACK's street stall. A friend gave me a lot of yarn to use for charity knitting when she was moving - OKAY - I"LL FINISH THIS ....
and some crocheted squares started to use up some left over yarn from a granny rug I made for the littlest Flea when she was tiny. This new rug was going to be a capsule cover but I forgot what size crochet hook I was using and the squares are two different sizes - and now I have NO idea what size hook to use - BUT I'll finish this by turning into a rug for one of the doll's beds I'm giving away ...
and another half-finished capsule cover started out of sock yarn in the stash after I decided that I would never master the art of sock knitting... hmm - this will either be finished or become another doll's blankie ...
and some little squares that I'd started to do for a back-pack ... looks like a Barbie sleeping bag coming up ... or a doll's cushion ..
and a scarf being made to use up some donated yarn (for The Shack again) - not that I can imagine anyone buying it - that's the problem with a lot of donated yarn - it's useless/horrible/too little/etc. Maybe I'll finish this one, or donate it to the rubbish.
And that's only scratched the surface of that drawer - it's like the Magic Pudding - cut and come again. I know you can hardly contain your excitement, but you'll have to wait until another day for the rest of the filing cabinet drawer to reveal itself. Just in case you're in lorikeet withdrawal here's a more cheerful sight to finish with:
and a Mother's Day gift from my eldest daughter - a vintage needle gauge -
At last, a UFO which is nearing completion - as I knit the edging I keep breaking into that Johnny Cash song - And the Road Goes on Forever!. I still have about a quarter of the edging to do, but it's not the edging shown in the pattern photo - it's off another jacket in the same book. 
