This is all Sharon’s fault! I’m referring to Sharon of Creativity and Family. Yesterday I woke up to find that she had posted a long, chatty list of all of her WIPs and projects for the coming winter months. Oh, my goodness! The woman has big dreams and a diverse (and endless) number of projects all lined up. She quilts, knits, crochets, sews, is doing something mysterious with scrabble pieces, and even makes her own yarn from tee-shirts. If you don’t already follow her you should check out her post.
The other thing that I discovered when I woke up was that my wrists, ankles and knees hurt. Like the tendons. Like there is no way that I am going to be knitting anytime in the near future.
This is so not fair! I am just entering the final pattern section and bind-off of the Drachenfels. One more day (or two) and it would be done. I want it, I want it, I want it now!!! <snif>
Whatever. It’s getting warm again outside and I won’t be wearing a shawl for the next 10 days or so. Lots of time to get it finished. What I decided to do was to channel Sharon, go play in the craft room and shop the stash. If I can’t actually knit, I certainly can organize things, match patterns to yarn/projects and try to create a queue of my future crafting for the coming cold weather months. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

I pulled out several boxes of yarn into the main craft room and then discovered that it hurt my wrists to snap open and shut the latches on the boxes. Well, isn’t that special! Lucky for me I’m an old pro with wrist tendinitis. Years ago I had carpal tunnel surgery and spent months in braces. For a few years after that I still wore my braces when doing wrist challenging activities like moving books in my classroom or organizing boxes in the garage. I had to go on a hunt to find them, but eventually my wrist braces were located in a drawer of my desk in the office. I just needed to create some padding to go under them because I have edema in my arms these days (thank you scleroderma!!)






This was just fun to do. I moved yarn around and got things reorganized to create the project bins. I copied patterns from books and magazines with my printer/scanner so that I could slip the pattern into the bin with the yarn. The big bins contain the yarn and patterns for two sweaters, and the smaller bins have 1-3 projects each. I sat down (on the floor!) with my stack of boxes and the laptop computer and then entered everything into Ravelry to create this queue. In addition to the two sweaters I have 5 shawls, 2 long mitts, 3 socks and 2 hats. I thought about trying to put everything into the actual order that I will do the projects, but that is just crazy thinking. At least I have things into the queue and can move items around as I actually get started. Check out my queue if you want to see what I have lined up. 🙂
Since I was working in the craft room with the sewing machine it was a little hard to ignore the stack of projects on the shelf next to it. I pulled them down and discovered more to do. I had actually forgotten some of this…




Well, that’s it for now. I have organized and pulled to the front of the pile lots of projects and ideas. I’ve been wearing the braces for two days and my wrists are feeling better. I think that if I protect and rest them for another couple of days I will be good to go with the Drachenfels and hopefully it will be done by the end of next week.
If not I guess I’ll keep the braces on and get the garage cleaned out!
Have a great weekend everyone.
Hooray!! I’m glad that I am now officially not the only totally and completely mad woman out there! You have sooo many projects in your queue. I need to get my head around Ravelry and start using it more.
I’m so sorry to hear about your joints, that’s really tough. I hope they soon improve. I am having to slow down on the crochet at the minute because my neck is really playing up, I think I’m going to have keep things really varied. (at least I have plenty to choose from) 🙂 xx
This morning I got up and the joints were much better. Kind of crazy, but I’m just rolling with it. I think it’s best for my mental health to just take these things as they come, adapt to the new situation and look for something I can do. I’m lucky I have so MANY crafts! 🙂 I just started really using Ravelry a couple of years ago, and this is the first queue I’ve made. I think it will be helpful. Kind of daunting to see the list. I have more ideas than time.
I hope your neck improves. How annoying! Unlike my wrists it is harder to protect.
How fun! I’ve also got quite a few projects that are just dying to be made. *sigh*. 😉
I hope you feel better soon
Today I am better! I knitted 3 rows and then put the braces back on. It is obvious that swelling in my arms is down.
Good!
You leave me in awe, but at least I now have a better understanding of how organization really works;-). Good luck getting more knitting in soon.
If only you could see my garage… I am restoring order slowly to my home after a few years of neglect that occurred while I was still working and not yet diagnosed. 🙂
One cleaning frenzy at a time…that’s all any of us can manage…
Your organizational skills are amazing! Sigh, if only I had a fraction 😀
I have to do something as I’m kind of drowning in projects (and ideas).