Yarn Stash

I am relatively new to weaving, so I have been buying yarn and using it directly in the projects I am planning. I wonder with time how this will change. I've read a number of blogs about people's stashes of yarn. My house has one closet. I barely know if I have enough room for the looms, so I think occasionally about how to store yarn. We are in the middle of a renovation that could be influenced by those thoughts. Anyway - it's a wondering time. Then I read Theresa's blog Camp Runamuck entry on creative ways to reduce her stash of yarn. She was offering some leftovers of yarn with some rules. Pay her the postage to ship it and then make a donation for what the yarn is worth to me to my favorite charity. She had Noro yarn that I've discovered in my wedge weave class, so I asked for it. It came in this weekend and I already know I've got the yarn bug. This is opposite from my previous yarn adventures where the project comes first and then the yarn. This time I just have yarn with a vague thought of what to do. It's 4 skeins and I'm already dreaming up ways to use it. As far as the charity donation, the local grocer was taking food donations for Easter to be sent to the local food bank. My husband and I shopped around the store with our remote checkout scanner and filled the cart. As we transferred from the cart to the buggy for the food bank, my husband looked up at me and grinned, "This is cool!" We then started all over with our groceries. It was a convenient way to get the job done.

I wasn't completely distracted by the yarn, because I did start a new adventure this weekend. I have a simple piano and on Christmas my husband had bought me the tools to tune it. I was a bit overwhelmed, but with tuning the harp, I began to really think I could do this. So I opened the top and started with middle C. In principle, it's rather simple - take rubber wedges and damp two of the three strings. Tune the remaining string with a chromatic tuner. Remove a wedge and tune by ear the second string to the first. Repeat with the third string. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the first octave is tuned and then tune additional octaves by ear to the first. I tuned another octave to the first, but found that tuning steel strings does take a little more strength than the nylon strings on my harp. So we'll do this in stages. Not to mention I think my ear was beginning to get tired to listening to the subtle differences!

The wedge weave is still growing, but I only completed two wedges this weekend. Even with Friday off, there was still much to be done including spending Sunday with family. One thing that I'm particularly proud of with this weave is that I'm getting the tension consistent in the weaving to keep each wedge flat on top. That took me nearly all week in class and I'm glad to see that it stuck with me!