Goodbye yarn

After hearing rumours a few days ago I cleared things up for myself today - my favourite yarn store is closing down. There are many memories attached to that store...childhood memories of yarn shopping with my mum for my next fall sweater...my mum getting me my very first yarn to knit with there (which I still have somewhere...hm)...and in the past few years, a lot of happy time spent browsing their yarns by myself, thinking about projects to make for friends. Their yarns were sorted by colour, which was sooo pretty. Still is, of course, but things are selling out fast now (everything is half price right now).
I talked to the owner, and I fully understand why she's taking this step - rent has gone up far too high. And she won't be opening a new store somewhere else, because she decided she wants to take things more easily. She's moving to Carinthia, and will most likely be holding weekend courses for things like wool dying with plants etc, and she gave me her phone number so I can check up on what's going on, so if everything works out right, I'll some day be learning to dye my own wool (yay, finally!) at some beautiful place surrounded by green stuff. (Another of her reasons to stop - she wants to get out of the city...another notion I sometimes understand all too well.) But still, my yarny needs will have to be filled by the other (three?) yarn stores we have.

Anyway...I didn't get what I came to buy, because everything red and violet had already completely sold out...so of course I had to buy some other stuff. Lots of other stuff.

That's 18 balls of yarn right there. And I'm probably going back Monday. Yeeehaw!

Random Acts of Mending

The beginning of this WR run was, for me, marked by doing some mending (3 pants fixed and once again wearable! Ditto one jumper and a dress) and some finishing (weaving in ends on two scarves I knit, sewing the perfect button to my Calorimetry 2). I also pulled a few more refashion-designated items from my wardrobe.
What's on the line right now:

- Fixing, or having fixed, the very ripped and sad-looking lining on my once-and-for-always-favourite jacket
- Deciding about a couple of unplannedly felted wooly things
- Fixing the pocket on my winter coat (and anything else I might find wrong with it before putting it away - it's getting so much warmer!)
- I'd love to make a few simple headbands, if I find the right materials in my stash.
- And, of course, to continue knitting!

Not included in WR per se is jewellery, *but* I've finally begun to take apart the big bag of cheaply-sold beaded things which I got on Etsy more than a year ago, which I want to remake into things more suited to my taste (or that of my friends, whichever). I also grabbed a couple of necklaces (my own) which I had designated for remaking but now decided I still want to wear them as they are.

I wanted to write about something else, but forgot what it was. If a new post follows minutes after this one, so be it.

Old news, new things

Old news are good news?

- I won Nano again. I even finished my story. And a couple of nights ago, my head solved a problem I had with the ending of the story, so I'm all motivated to go through the wholething again and make it a better one.

- I spent most of the time since Christmas which I was not working or lazing around moving in with my boyfriend. By now, all my stuff is here, my room at home has been taken apart and painted afresh so that my brother can move in, and I have finally MOVED OUT completely.
Now I just need to find a way to store all my craft supplies... :D


New things:

- I just messed around with my blog a bit, since I want to change things a little in the future, and while looking at my links, I decided to sign up for Wardrobe Refashion again. This will include:

Sorting through my wardrobe for things to give away
Sorting through my wardrobe for things to redesign
Finishing some of my knitting projects, which I was already trying to do anyway
Using up some of the fabric which I have amassed (people with *real* fabric collections would smile at my pile indulgently, but it's still too much for my current storing capacities) over the past few years

- I finally signed up for my PhD. :D I'll begin work as soon as my workspace here is cleared up, which will still take the putting up of a shelf and some serious reduction and sorting of paperwork. But - excited!

- My best friend, who finished her studies in October and has been searching for a job ever since (and received nought but nays) finally got a job she really wanted yesterday! I felt so happy for her, I spontaneously made her a pair of celebratory earrings, photos of which will appear soon.

- My head is simultaneously playing around with 3 or 4 story ideas, and has been thus for the last few months. In a time not too far away, I will start to put them onto paper.