I am a packrat about certain things – fabric and yarn being at the top of the list.  For me, those Hoarders shows are cautionary tales that remind me to keep my tendencies in check, lest me or the cat die one day from being buried in a heap of Malabrigo or batik quilting fabric.  Truthfully, I *am* that person who finds a small 2″ x 2″ square of fabric on my floor and thinks, “I could MAKE something with that!” and throws it in a bag, where it will sit for three years.  I understand this affliction, is what I’m saying.

(For the record, I have no problems parting with much else, and I hate dolls and porcelain figurines and have a “one cat per-person” rule.  So don’t call TLC just yet.)

But I’m moving this summer, and that means I have to start culling.  I started last week with those leftover balls of yarn that accumulate after larger projects.  I’m pretty sure most sane people just throw it away, but knowing what I spent on the yarn to begin with it’s hard to throw it in the trash.  Plus, y’know, austerity measures and all – waste not, want not.  Luckily, my brain synapses decided to fire and I realized that when I went on that baby knitting book binge, every single one of them had patterns for wee little things, like hats and mittens and booties.  And, voila:

The hats and mittens are from 60 Quick Baby Knits – verbatim, except for the turquoise hat, which I added some white in.  The booties are based on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s pattern “Cutest Booties“, which I bought from Ravelry.  (I don’t think you need a Ravelry account to purchase, but if you did it’s free to get one.  It’s like Facebook for knitters…except I rarely use it).  The bootie pattern is written in garter stitch, but honestly?  I’m not a big fan of it when worked in the round, I find purling on those little sock needles tedious.  So I added a little seed stitch at the top for ~5 rows or so, then just knit, and used an i-cord for the ties.  Quick and satisfying little projects.  Plus, I killed two balls of leftovers, which I’m pretty pleased about.  (The white yarn is fingering weight and, much like that Celine Dion song, will go on and on….and on.)

Today, I’m contemplating a jaunt to the yarn store and maybe using my gift card to buy yarn for a sweater.  For me.  But even my math is not so bad as to not see that buying 6 or 7 balls of yarn after using up just 2 still leaves me with a storage deficit.  This might be more difficult than I thought…