I am happy and  It is cold in Seattle, extremely cold.

There were snow flurries this past weekend and it has continued on and off through the week. The cold is my major motivation for casting on a new project. I am really trying to maximize my stash, my queue, and patterns. Surprisingly it is not limiting, in fact, it is oddly freeing. I picked projects and yarn and I am finally getting a chance to enjoy them.

I am going to out myself here and admit that I have a couple of bowls of yarn in my living room that just sit there. Most of these house partial skeins. I don’t really photograph them, but I think eventually I will use them. Funny thing about my intention to do this because I just haven’t followed through with it, the yarn just sits there. These partials have too much to be thrown away and too little to be used on a one skein project. This seems to be one of the downfalls of my colorwork knitting. I always seem to think that when I have about 70-100 yards, I should save the yarn for colorwork project I will do later.

The amount I had saved was perfect for casting on Izel. It is a pattern by Veronica who co-owns YOTH with her brother. It has been in my queue for a while and I paired it with some gradient handspun I have along with a skein of Heather Aran I bought last September when I visited Jamieson’s in Shetland. I am going to trash what every remnants (I see this as progress) I have left after this project and then I am contemplating using some Shelter by Brooklyn Tweed (in the bowl filled with yarn) and casting on another hat. I figure that 2 projects out of 4 skeins should make it look like I made the tiniest dent in the bowl currently housed in my living room #winning.