Keeping the Balance

It's not an official scale, but at the top of my Ravelry stash page and project page are numbers. Those numbers keep track of the projects I have finished, and the numbers of skeins (with multiple skeins grouped together as one) of yarn I have yet to knit. My goal is to keep these relatively balanced for now, to avoid adding to the yarn stash so it exceeds my time and ability to knit, and ultimately to increase the number of finished projects so it skews the balance in that favour.

I made a step in that direction this weekend -- actually one step was intentional, and the other by accident or oversight. Apparently I had forgotten to note one skein as used in a pair of socks, so that brought down my stash total by one. Another two skeins were added to the donation pile (for a friend whose wife works with newcomers to Canada, teaching them how to knit). While this doesn't officially count as knocking down the stash (mainly because these two skeins were never entered), it does make me feel somewhat virtuous!

As for the intentional step in maintaining balance, my attempt to knit a pair of socks was foiled by the cables in the design. The cables ended up drawing in the sock so it was no longer easy to pull over my heels. These were NOT thrown back in the project bag with an overwhelming sigh, but instead became a pair of fingerless gloves. Modiifcations to ensure the cabling pattern was showcased on the back of the glove as well as the palm, and the thumb gusset appeared as naturally as possible were successful.

Next on the list (so I can guiltlessly cross these off the stash page) are finishing two sweaters. One has to be sewn together and the neck band added -- you wouldn't think that is a big deal, but it's just getting to it that has posed the challenge! And the second sweater has the sleeves almost done, then it's on to the body (knit top down). It's been languishing since summer, so needs to be done so I can wear it in a few month's time when I need to balance the blah greys of winter with  perky pick-me-up of warm spring yellow!

After all, it is all about the balance!