Re-Org

Every time a Bead Purchase Event (I go to a bead show or my local bead store has a big sale) occurs and I succumb, I have this problem of where to put the new stuff.

In an ideal world I'd just immediately sit down and start beading and use what I just bought, but said ideal world would not include lust-based purchasing on a grand scale (which is what happens in this not-always ideal world) but sensible purchases in quantities just enough for one more project. Of course this would then preclude the notion of a stash, which is actually in my opinion a very useful and indeed necessary thing, simply because having a big and varied enough stash means that if inspiration strikes, one isn't hampered by lack of raw (ish) materials.

Be that as it may, in my little world, my stash usually grows faster than it shrinks, so I'm continually having to re-organise how my beads are stored. This may involve something like four instead of three little drawers of bronze and brown and gold seed beads, which means that something is getting evicted, and I either have to consolidate elsewhere, or buy more storage thingies.

Last time I tried to do this, I had to return the storage thingie because the drawers were too short for tubes of seed beads, and of course that just won't do. This lack of new and useful storage meant that something that I don't use all that much had to move to a less convenient location, and in this instance, all the Czech size elevens in their sorted-by-colour little drawers moved to a large communal drawer just above the drawer with the earring-sized boxes for online sales (this is in the equivalent of a side-street or alley-way in the neighbourhood that is my beading area).

As I was performing the move, I noticed a number of too-small-to-be-useful quantities crying out to have Something done with them, so I started some tubular netting, hoping inspiration would strike.

Well, it sort of has, in that I've decided that the rope needs to be long enough to go twice around a neck comfortably (right now it's closer to choking length), and will have some sort of removable beaded thingie that will be both decorative as well as functional in terms of effective wearable length.

So far I have a not-quite-long-enough rope with yet-to-be-trimmed threads.

It'll get there.

And when I'm really brain dead, I just settle in to making more and smaller mitred squares in the hope that this mess of concertina-ed knitting will eventually be the right size and shape to be a skirt.

I'm probably about twenty percent of the way there. Optimistically.

You can see my very innovative way of dealing with yarns that I do not want to cut, and which there is in fact no reason to cut, since each different colour/yarn will form a diagonal swathe of ever-decreasing mitred squares that will shape the skirt.

I use safety pins to keep that last stitch formed by the final sl2-k-psso which I prefer to keep live rather than drawing the yarn through and making a hard little knot. Then when I start the next square, that left-over live stitch is the first of the next square.

Most diagonals/colours so far have either two or three squares, each two stitches (that's one per side) smaller than the previous square, and when all diagonals have three squares, I'll be at a decision point. I'll need to figure out whether this is the appropriate rate of decrease, and if not, what it should be, and once I've fixed on that, whether it'll matter that it's changing.

• If I keep the same rate of decrease until the hips (I have a long way to go as the skirt will be longer than knee-length, and I'm perhaps six inches/fifteen centimetres along) then it'll be a smooth slightly a-lined shape, all very well and good.
• If I start decreasing faster after three squares (I'm imagining somewhere in the seven-to-ten range, the last two of which will definitely be decreased faster to shape the top), it'll be slightly flouncy with fullness around the hem which might look funny with the handkerchief edging.
• It probably will look a bit off, but if I keep the same rate of decrease and it isn't enough, there will be all the fullness around my area of greatest fullness (spelled H-I-P-S) which isn't the most flattering thing in the world.
• On the other hand, wool is so very blockable and I may well be able to steam the hell out of it so that I don't have any pleats or gathers.
• On the other hand, if I decrease too slowly, I may run out of yarn.

See, this is the sort of stuff that keeps one awake at night.

Actually, what kept me awake for a while last night was a nasty dream in which my very unintimidating friend Fred had turned into some sort of flesh-eater (I've seen too many previews for Legion) and was trying to eat me in his very quiet and understated way, which made it all the more horrifying.

Luckily I still have nothing to do at work, so my lack of sleep is hardly interfering with my productivity.