My Big Feet - Again!

The stay home orders have given a lot of us extra time to do things we'd normally put off.  Some people are writing.  Some people are decluttering.  Some people are painting walls.  Some people are painting paintings.  Some people are sewing.  Some people are crocheting.  Some people are knitting.

I have a not-so-secret vice - buying sock yarn.  I LOVE knitting socks.  Socks are interesting to knit and super portable, plus, when you're finished, you get to wear them!  I don't know that I'll ever have the time to knit up all the sock yarn in my stash, though.

Crazy stripes and interesting colors are my favorites.  I used to wear my hand-knit socks to work - meetings and all - sort of my little bit of nonconformist belligerence.  Nobody could see them under my slacks, but I knew they were there, and that's what counts!

Anyway, I've worn through the toes and heels of a few pairs, but lately, it gradually dawned on me that when I wore my socks, the ends of my big toes ached at the end of the day.

I knitted all my socks exactly per the pattern's directions.  But...

I HAVE BIG FEET.

So why the heck did I make my hand-knitted socks the standard women's size?

Maybe they were too short?

Well duh!

I tell you - NO BRAIN.

So I started knitting my socks longer in the foot, and that fixed my problem - no more sore toes!

EXCEPT...

There were still four pairs of older socks that I absolutely REFUSED to get rid of.  I liked their colors and designs, and I still wore them, but at the end of the day, my poor toes ached.  I kept avoiding wearing them, but I couldn't get rid of them, either.

After ruminating on the problem for several weeks, a plan emerged - I'd make the socks longer!  Because they are knitted from the cuff down, I cut off the last couple of rows of knitting at the toe of each sock, found the end of the yarn, tugged at it, then unraveled the entire toe to the place where you start shaping the toe.  I rolled the loose yarn into a ball, picked up the stitches, and started knitting.

See the black toes!!!

When the raveled yarn ran out, about two rows into the new toes' shaping, I attached black sock yarn and continued to the end, adding about an inch to the length of each sock.

So here's the result!  Four additional pairs of COMFORTABLE socks, with a minimum of time and effort.

Now, to the yarn stash!  Gotta start making more socks!!!

First World Problems - Too Much!

There's too much STUFF in my house.

Too much yarn.
I have an entire closet and a large cedar chest STUFFED with yarn.

I have a thing for sock yarn.  And cotton yarn.  And variegated yarn.  And eyelash yarn.  And wool yarn.  Oh, me (as Dad would have said).  More than I'll ever use, I'm afraid, but I'm going to give it the old college try!  I'm working on a pair of socks right now.  I figure if I alternate knitting a pair of socks with doing some other yarn project, I might make a dent in the stash. 

Eventually. 

Maybe by the turn of the next century.

Too many pots and pans.
I have all of Mom's, all of my great-aunt's, plus all of MY Revereware.  I almost added some more from one of my friends when she was cleaning out her mom's house, but I restrained myself with great effort.  I did give some to That Girl, and some more is packed away for That Boy, but I still have more than I can comfortably store.






Too many cats.

Four.  I've already documented THAT hot mess here, here, here, and here... 

Heavy sigh.






Too many clothes.
You'll notice there aren't any pictures associated with this part of the post. 

Too. Much. Shame.

This is the WORST.  My clothes won't all fit in the walk-in closet and dresser.  I don't wear most of them.  I can't even SEE a lot of them, so they get forgotten.  Time to release them back into the wild.

I looked online for decluttering ideas. There are zillions of sites dedicated to getting rid of excess STUFF. Obviously, I'm not alone. I think Nike's "Just do it" tagline is probably the best advice, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with decluttering.

Following the instructions from one site, I did a quick and dirty closet and drawer inventory (a project I’ve been putting off for some time now). I discovered, to my great dismay, in my wardrobe inventory (excluding underwear, shoes, outerwear, and accessories, I have a whopping 367 items in my drawers and closet.  OUCH.

Here are the counts: Athletic/Athleisure 172, Casual 102, Better/Business Casual/Church 86, Professional 0, Date Night/Girls Night Out/Dressy/Formal 8. Wow.  That’s a boatload of jeans, t-shirts, and running clothes. I knew I had a lot of clothes, but who knew??? And I forgot to go count the storage box of too-small/special/holiday clothes.  Surely those don't count. At least I'm not counting them this time around.

Then, upon further reflection, I found I’d forgotten about the clothes from the recent trip to Florida!  So I counted those. Oh, my. Now I have 398 pieces of clothing. Actually, there are two more items in a gym bag I keep in the car for emergencies, so I guess I’ll just make it an even 400.  Just too many clothes, and almost all in the Athleisure and Casual classifications. How sad is THAT?

Well, at least it fits my so-called lifestyle.

I'm chipping away at the overflowing closet.  I've donated four big bags of perfectly good clothing, but the closet doesn't look any emptier.  Everything was jammed in there, and now it's not as tight.  At least it's an improvement.  I've only attacked one wall of the walk-in closet so far.  Maybe I'll make some real headway during the next stage of the purge.

What do you need to declutter? What is your shameful story of Too Much?