Monday, January 24, 2011

A naye yor, a naye leben*

Sunday is International Clean Your Bedroom Day (if by "International" you mean "my house"...and I do), and yesterday the project du jour, once the laundry was taken out and the toilet swishied, was to clean out from under the bed.

No wait. You don't understand.

We have a custom built bed (if by "custom" you mean "your husband built that himself, didn't he?"...and I do)**, and there is right about 18" of clearance under our bed. My husband and I are both quite tall, and therefore so is our bed. This is made of logic. In any case, 18" deep by Queen Size wide and long = a hell of a lot of space to keep a hell of a lot of junk, and a hell of a lot of dust.

Man, was that an adventure.

So anyway, we threw out or made the decision to donate (as appropriate) a bunch of stuff we'd long since forgotten that we own, and we vacuumed out 3 metric effing-tons of dust (approx. by weight). My Harry Potter legos, I am pleased to report, are now put away upstairs, where I could conceivably play with them; AND I went through my "second string" (hahahah) yarn stash.

As mentioned earlier, I really started knitting ca. 2004-5. And, as many have done before me, I went through an acrylic stage (much like a larval stage, only with more petroleum by-products.) As my taste in yarn, let's say "matured," all the acrylic got shoved under the bed, in three banker's boxes and a big plastic tub, as the "good stuff" (read: natural fibers) took pride of place on my yarn shelf.

People, I was ruthless.

I mean, I found one unfortunate yarn that clearly wanted to be Lion Brand Homespun when it grew up... only it wasn't nearly so classy, if you are picking up what I am putting down. And sweet baby Buddha on a cashmere rug, it looked like a moldy peanut butter and jelly sandwich had been extruded (not spun) into yarn.

It was too terrible to even take a picture of. I care about my readers, and do not want to put them off their collective lunches.

Once the dust settled, and I do mean that quite literally, I am left with just the plastic tub, and that only about two-thirds full. The rest is going to a local thrift store, and may the gods bless whoever ends up with it. Everything I kept I could conceivably imagine myself knitting someday, and really that's all I ask of my stash.

Having gotten rid of so much yarn yesterday (and I don't mind telling you, even though it was all acrylic, and mostly awful, it was a bit wrenching), I received a sort of karmic reward in the mail today.

Aw, yeah.

Okay, I grant you that I actually am the one that ordered that box from Knitpicks, but even so the timing was pretty darned sweet.

What did I buy? I hear you asking. Well, I will tell you. I got a box of joy.

(Or more specifically, the new Chroma, in both weights, and some pretty charcoal grey Andean Treasure to make myself a scarf to match my new red coat. Not all of the Chroma is mine, alas. But I may have squeezed it a bit, you know, just to check and see if it is ripe.)


* A Yiddish phrase meaning "New year, new life."
** I actually adore the bed my husband made for me, both despite and because of it's... unique qualities.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I rather like my bed, which could use a cleaning-out, but you can still hide several people under it. You were pretty darn ruthless with the yarn and I am proud of the badass way you've been cleaning things out.

Re: Karma Yarms
OOoooooooh. Is it ripe?

Bekah M said...

I rather like your bed too. I also rather like my bed, which was the prototype. He got better at it the second time 'round. I feel like Shakespeare's wife.

I really have been a badass lately, what with all the dust stirring and clutter banishing. My house is becoming less funky by the day. Hooray!

It is ripe. I also took some pics for you (because I was taking some for me, and why not?) if you want to use them to add it to your Ravelry stash. I'll try to remember to email them to you tonight.

Unknown said...

Oooh, YES!

I always wondered who got the best bed.

Cindy said...

Nicely done and go you! I have a couple of those plastic drawer sets with 8 drawers between them. One drawer is "art yarn" you know, fun fur, eyelash, ribbon, etc. One drawer is cotton, most of it destined to become dishcloths or washcloths someday. Most of it is acrylic (though thankfully only a couple drawers is the really awful squeaky red-heart kind). I keep thinking I should get rid of it, but I have actually used some of it to make toys lately - like in the last 9 months. So I figure that gives some credence to the idea that it might actually get used here.

Still, we'll have to wait and see if it survives the craft room cleanup.

Bekah M said...

@ Wintermoon -- you want some funky acrylic? I could hook you up...