The dark heart of the stashing knitter
Turns out that even if you are only going to move next door, you still have to pack. It seems at first like you don’t, but then you get to thinkin’. In your mind’s eye, you see yourself as the central figure in an absurdist tableau in which you are walking from your current house to your new house with a brass candlestick in one hand and a ball of yarn in the other.
Seventeen days later, you have a Richard Nixon bobblehead doll in one hand and your original copy of Frampton Comes Alive! in the other. A fistful of broken rubber bands in one hand and an accordion under the other arm. Excruciatingly, you are still carting these items from your old home to your new home.
No, there’s nothing for it but to pack.
I have to admit that I am a downright, stone Marine drill sergeant when it comes to moving. I find myself making announcements to Alex like, “Everything in this house must be sorted and all items that are clearly trash must be thrown away! All items that are of some value but are not being used at this time must be given to Goodwill! No unnecessary items will be moved next door!” (I draw the line at actually addressing him as “soldier,” but it has crossed my mind.)
As is well known, if “unnecessary items” are moved next door, a plague of locusts will be visited upon us and the Lord will smite us by killing all of our sheep and goats. There’s a lot at stake here, people!
Alex hasn’t packed one thing. If the past is any indicator, that situation will persist until 24 hours before the move at which point he will panic and start throwing his own things willy-nilly into boxes, many of which will never be sealed and some of which will contain poorly-packed breakable items that may not survive the trip from one house to the next.
Inevitably, some of these things will be “unnecessary items.” Naturally, this pains me (not to mention what it does to the goats), but I have learned not to become too emotionally involved in his method (if his approach is indeed to be dignified by that moniker) of moving. He has his ways and I have mine.
Anyway, this weekend I sorted through all my clothes (and, to be honest, some of Alex’s), the non-clothes items in two closets, and packed up all the decorative objects in the house. I also decided that this move was a good excuse to organize my stash.
I hasten to point out that I never intended to get rid of any yarn, however. Yarn is in a “protected category” and therefore never to be deemed unnecessary. Soldier.
Here I am in the midst of “Operation Stash and Awe”:
Well, hello there, cashmere!
A partial-stash shot:
This excludes yarn in opaque bags that is slated for particular projects, “core” stash yarn that I’ve had for twenty years+, and five balls of gorgeous periwinkle silk that I recently sneaked into the house and have not yet come to terms with having bought, even though I got it at a steep discount and there was really no way I could pass it up and…
Remarkably, as soon as I had taken all of my yarn out of its various natural habitats and placed the entire array of it on the bed (and at auxiliary locations around the bedroom), my first thought was, “You know, I really don’t have that much yarn.”
Right. The same way that the American South doesn’t have “that much” kudzu.
Oh, by the way, Marsha, sadly blogless, had a very fine idea in her comment on my sister’s last post: in the event that my sister cannot finish Rumpelstiltskin by June 21st, our mother could wear Icarus to the wedding. That is, if she is planning on wearing something that harmonizes with pink. Oh, wait! She was angling for the Handsome Triangle. She obviously has no problem with pink. (And I mean serious pink!) So…consider the offer made.
But I still think Sarah can make the deadline. I have faith.
May 15th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I love the picture! You are the Queen of all you survey. And nice stash! [bg]
I have the deepest sympathy for Alex. My own packing for moving (or a trip) pretty much consists of his method, except with moving I do frantically throw stuff away; half of which later I wish I hadn’t. However, a tip, which you’ve got a head start on there with your stash surveying: have him put everything he’s going to pack on the bed, the last day *before* you move. This concentrates the mind wonderfully, as in our procrastinating little hearts, we know we’re going to have to collapse into sleep sometime the night before the evil day…and if the bed’s still covered in stuff, we may have to attempt to sleep standing up. Considering we know what a bloody exhausting job moving is, we also know we’re going to need all the sleep we can get to survive it.
Not that this necessarily works, you understand, but it’s at least a *plan*. ::snicker::
May 15th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Yikes, moving is never easy. I love the two different styles you and Alex both have. Lovely stash too . . .;-)
May 15th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
You do NOT have too much yarn. I loved the mental picture of the absurdist tableau; I think there’s a name for that–The Bald Soprano or some such thing.
It does feel good to get rid of the clutter and unnecessaries, but alas, the reality is that those mostly belong to the others we live with and they aren’t fond of us getting rid of all their stuff.
Best wishes for both the move and your upcoming nuptials.
May 15th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Hey there, do you know about Freecycle? Not for the yarn mind you, I’m not dropping hints that you have too much (because I KNOW you can stop any time you want!) but for stuff you need to give away. It’s easy; you join the freecycle mailing list, then when you have something to get rid of you post an “Offered” email. Choose a recipient from the respondents and set up a time for them to come pick it up. I usually do the passive pickup when I put it out on my porch and let them come when it’s convenient; to dodge potential burglars I always say something along the lines of “I’ll be in and out all day, why dont’ I just leave it for you.”
Goodwill is great for some things, but they don’t take everything, and sometimes it’s nice to know that your item will definitely be used, instead of wondering if it’s still languishing at the store, weeks or months later. Also, the recipient comes to you so, one less errand. Anyway, thought you would like to know about it – I see they have several groups in your area: http://www.freecycle.org/groups/usnortheast/#Massachusetts
May 15th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
There is no such thing as “too much yarn”! Other things we can live without; like dishes, pots and pans, a closet full of clothes, furniture even, but not yarn, for God’s sake! We can eat off paper, buy takeout, rotate 2 or 3 outfits, and sit on the floor. But come to your senses, woman! A day without knitting? Impossible!
May 15th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I confess to being an Alex sort of mover, despite my best efforts at a less procrastinatory approach. And personality differences on this do seem to run deep. I have a good friend who, six years later, remains deeply, personally offended that she once caught me dumping a desk drawer of odds and ends (my own, not hers!!) directly into a box, and taping it up with nary a thought to all the Unnecessary Items I had failed to extract!
May 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Thank you so much for the pictures of your stash! True story – While my husband was reading his paper, I was reading your blog. I got so excited when I saw the pictures that I excitedly called up to Tom and said, “Honey, This is great! You have to come in here and see this!” Well! There we were together looking at both pictures of your stash! “See, honey! Isn’t her stash beautiful! Look at all the colors – all the textures – cashmere too! He looked at me. He looked into the closet of all the containers of my stash. He sighed. He turned and as he was walking out the door of the room he then suggested that maybe there should be a support group for yarn stashers : )
May 16th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Periwinkle silk?
I get right to the heart of the matter, you see.
And really, it’s a modest little yarn collection. Very reasonable.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Yes, we do have a bit o’ the kudzu down here. Just enough to choke pine trees and strangle anything that sits still longer than ten minutes!
I saw some mighty fine yarns in that stash, mmm Trekking. I always console myself with the thought that my yarn fits in a skinny three drawer tower, two fat drawers, a tub in storage, and my knitting basket by the couch. That’s not much at alllll. I have about 56 pounds of dishcloth cotton. I got hooked when the MDK book came out, hehe. I have cones of the stuff. But it’s not much. 😀
And I totally feel the need to organize and purge everything in your house. I moved about 10 times as a kid growing up, and I purged every time because it always seemed that we moved somewhere smaller! We didn’t, not really, but I felt that I needed more space and less junk. 😀
Happy packing and organizing, Drill Sergeant Ma’am!
May 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Re: Alex hasn’t started packing…. we’re not moving for a month!! It’s not like it is happening next weekend or something.
(And note that we do, in fact, have an accordion, though no Nixon bobblehead to my knowledge. And for the record, in fact, the easiest way to move an accordion is to just pick it up, rather than pack it. Because accordions are only easy to move if you wear the straps properly. Like a man. An accordion playin’ man. Like me. So I consider the accordion packed.)
May 18th, 2007 at 6:46 am
See what I mean? “We’re not moving for at least 28 days or so…why do anything until there are 24 hours left? It’s not like you’d need to be discriminating about what you move or anything.”
You see what I’m dealing with here?
May 18th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Alex, I am with you!! (Despite the very odd machismo of your post.) However when I made the “but they have WEEKS!” argument to my mother (who also regularly enjoys this blog), she literally gasped in horror, and then started reeling off a scary list of all the things you have to do. Maybe you should consider going ahead and packing some dishes now…
May 18th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Oh, no! Alex and Kate are egging one another on in their shamelessly irresponsible moving style!
This will never do. Someone, please, send reinforcements! Or more commentators like Lacey. Now there’s a woman knows how to move!
May 18th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
WEEKS, I say!! WEEKS! Now when it is DAYS then I’ll mobilize, not, as Ellen claims, when it is HOURS! Big differences in time!
As for the machismo, well, we’re talking about my accordion here. I need all the machismo I can get in such situations.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Are accordians effeminate?? I didn’t know! I think that might make me like accordians better. Like David Beckham wearing a sarong. Very hip.
May 27th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I now have stash envy 😀