Postcards From The Stash

There are a couple of bright spots to be found on car-maintenance day.  You just have to look for them.  Otherwise, all you can see are the dollar signs sprouting wings and fluttering out the window like a very not-funny cartoon.  I like to think that I have mastered the art of ignoring the flappy dollars in order than I might find my happy place when this most depressing time of the year rolls around.  It is a time for not only seeking out pleasurable ways to pass the time, but to also give serious thought to working with what you have.  Since the dollars seemed to be flying away in the direction of the mechanic's pockets, it was clearly time to shop from the stash.

This was my mission.  Find the happy.  There were ample opportunities; all I had to do was look, darn it!

For example, my corner of the world is pretty heavily populated by Franco-Americans.  Not quite like it used to be...but there are still many older people in my town who speak with this wonderful French-Canadian accent that is so very comforting to me.  The shuttle driver who ferries those of us who have to leave our cars at the dealership for service is just such a fellow.  I adore my travels with him.  I love hearing of his grandchildren, the exotic locales he has visited whilst driving his magical shuttle that day and how he would never, ever move to Florida because the humidity is just too much for him.  I like how he moves the shuttle when he realizes that he has parked us in a puddle instead of making me do a seated long jump from the passenger's seat.  He is a gentleman of the olde school.

Also, without a car, I am stuck at home.  It is the perfect sort of day to drag out the NASCAR crockpot, the one people think I am kidding about owning, and dye up a pot of merino.  It looks like soup.

But it's not...

This is but a small portion of the fleece Cathy sent me last summer.  I made some headway on it back in July and August, but it was set aside once the school year started.  It's rather nice to rediscover it during the dark days of winter and remember what it was like to have open windows for venting the smell of vinegar.  

But dyeing only takes up a small amount of actual have-to-pay-attention time, especially if you use a crockpot and there is no way it is going to boil over or anything.  As I was still trapped without a car and almost maniacally committed to finding pleasant ways to spend a car-fixin' day, I sought out new entertainment.

Spinning comes to mind.  Louet from Lorrie!  Yeah...that'll do it!

At least it did until I got a stiff neck.  That seems to be happening more and more during spinning time these days.  I think I need a new chair.  But this is not in keeping with my "working with what I have" theory and I didn't really feel like dragging furniture around to find something more comfortable.  So I had to come up with another plan.  Nothing big.  Just something to get me out of the uncomfortable spinning chair for a little bit so the neck could rest.  Hmmm....whatever could I do???

I thunk and I thunk.  And then I got it!  There's this yarn.  It's sort of haunted me since it came to live here.  Wait.  That's not quite right.  "Haunted" implies that it moans a lot and is scary.  And that it's maybe sort of transparent.  It's none of those things.  It is soft and has a sort of shimmery quality to it that is kind of ethereal, but not like a ghost or anything.  I've thought about this yarn a great deal.  

Now, I knew that I couldn't be starting a new project.  That would be wrong.  I have a second sock on the needles right now and really want to get that finished before the week is out.  No.  I can't be knitting anything with this magical yarn.

But there was no law that said I couldn't wind it.  

Yup.  Winding the pretty Mind's Eye Yarn that Anne sent me was a perfectly lovely way to bring on a little of the Stash Happy.  And doing so was a wonderful distraction from the stiff neck.  It even filled up a little bit of the time spent waiting for the truck to finish healing.  Even after it was wound into the pretty, little yarn cake, I could still spend a few blissful minutes thinking of what it wanted to be when it grew up. 

 

See?  It is possible to work with what you have.  It is even possible to use what you have to distract yourself from the sound of cash register bells clanging away from the direction of the mechanic's garage.  By the time the charming shuttle driver came to pick me up, I was in quite the fine mood, I must say.

Spinning was spun, wool was dyed and a yarn cake was born.  But the yarn was not for knitting, only for looking.  I resisted the urge to cast on with the pretty, shiny, oh-so-soft yarn...

Or did I?

SA