Spring cleaning commences

What is it about spring that makes us want to go through and air out everything, to dig in the backs of closets to discover what's lurking inside?

I don't know either, but I figure I should take advantage of it while I can.

Last weekend we went to Ikea and while they were out of stock of one storage unit we wanted to get, we were able to get one and replace an old thing that didn't work so well.  We also got some zippered containers to house my yarn.  The white tower to the left of dh's desk is the unit we bought, it replaced a small chest of drawers.

 

This is in our den, where it seems like all the stuff that didn't fit anywhere else ended up, so it was time to rectify that. 

The stash, which is quite substantial, is in 8 of those bins.  There is one for lace, one (overfull) for sock weight, and the rest are everything else.  I am amazed at how much less space yarn takes up when you smush it into something and can zipper it closed!

For reference, it looked something like this before:

 

That pic is 2 years old, so the yarn was almost all different then, but it still looked about the same, with an additional giant basket in the living room full of yarn.  I guess I finally decided that as nice as it is to look at, it's getting dusty and it doesn't look very neat, and it would be better enclosed.  The only problem is that now, with the exception of the lace and sock yarn, I don't know where anything is! 

I tried to organize it, but I definitely didn't do it the right way, I may go back  and organize it by color, at least that would prevent me from having to open ALL the containers to find what I'm looking for.  Thank goodness for Ravelry, at least I know what I have!!

I also pulled everything out of the closet to make sure I didn't have anything hiding in there that needed to go, of course I did, this is what it looks like after.  (It didn't occur to me to take before pics)

 

You'll just have to trust me, it is better!

Here is my poor sewing table, holding all the stuff that needs a home now, hopefully next weekend Ikea will have the unit we wanted back in stock. 

 

The little dresser is empty already and prepared to be jettisoned as soon as we have the new unit.  I'd do it now but the printer needs to live somewhere.  The magazines are going to be gone through and the projects I want to keep are going to be ripped out and scanned in so I don't have to store all that anymore, and most of the stuff under the table, a bunch of cross stitch and beading supplies, is going on ebay (eventually).  I decided I wanted it all OUT in the room, so I couldn't hide in the corners and forget it was there.  Whatever doesn't fit in the new unit is going to be sorted through until it does fit!

We are doing our best to live on the surface of things in this house.  We have one more bastion of stuff in our storage space outside in the basement of the building, that is mostly stuff leftover from when we sifted through dh's mother's house, and that will stay there until he is ready to go through it. 

The combination of being responsible for going through and disposing of her things and moving out of our house in NC with a garage, an attic, and room under the house to store things, let alone closet space galore into this house with comparably little closet space and no storage at all to speak of (though for a city dwelling we actually have a decent amount of closet space), really made me leery of collecting too much stuff. 

If I'm not going to use it, I don't want it!

In knitting news, I've been making little hats for a coworker who is expecting.  It is hard to take pictures of infant hats without an infant to put them on, but here goes:

And for some reason typepad refuses to right this picture no matter how many times I try.  I can't be the only one who constantly gets into fights with typepad.

This one is in the newborn size (it's a girl, just in case that was in question).

Next, the pumpkin head!

 

On the candy jar, so it's a bit misshapen there.  Two more left, one the birthday cake hat - I thought the white base for this was boring, so this particular birthday cake is teal.

 

I have one left to finish, the snowman, he still needs his eyes, nose & scarf, so I will update with pictures of that when I finish it. 

And one more thing, we are finishing up the reservations for our trip to Belgium (but it's still 2.5 months away, sigh).  We are trying to travel relatively light, with one suitcase and each of us will have a backpack, so we went to LLBean yesterday and I got this one.

 

I am excited!  This is first tangible thing I have for the trip, we've talked about lots of things, thought about buying lots of things, power converters & such things, but this is the first thing I can play with - so now I want to jam it full of stuff just to see how much I can get in there...but I'm not going anywhere. 

That's okay, my mother and I are going on a quilting retreat in two weeks (have I mentioned that before?  it's very exciting!) and I can use it then.  

I am off to enjoy my rainy Sunday, I have a Pi Shawl that needs a few more repeats!

ETA - Pi Shawl, what pi shawl?  Can I interest you in a snowman hat instead?

 

This was the fiddliest by far, but it is also my favorite, seriously, can you stand the cuteness???

Comments

[KathleenC]

Love the baby hats! I've had a rash of babies being born (ooo... alliterative) among my friends and acquaintances lately (and I'm sure there is a bad joke about rash and babies in the same sentence but I'm getting way off the subject).
I've made them all fruit/veggie hats... an apple, pumpkin, orange, strawberry and holly berry so far. It's a lot of fun and the parents all get such a kick out of it. (And they don't realize that their children are now part of my plan to build an army of fruit headed babies to take over the world with! Because no one can resist the cuteness that is a fruit headed baby! Muwahahaha!)

[Nancyd]

Those baby hats are just tooooo cute. Your friend is going to be beside herself when she sees them.

[Jocelyn]

Those are some seriously cute hats! One of my students just made two baby hats -- a Yoda one, and a Totoro one -- and I'm starting to wonder whether I'm missing out on something here... The organization is looking great! I'm feeling a closet-clean coming on myself. Someday I'll be home long enough to do it :)

[turtle]

a trip! how fun!
luv the punkin head!
ll bean backpacks are great, i always have had one (though i admit some women love pocketbooks, i am a backpack ho!)
I haven't seen the zip cubes at ikea! will have to look!