Destash goals

It's been a while. I've been working at the retail establishment about 20 to 25 hours a week, plus another 40 at my full-time job, so things have been a little hectic. My house is gross, my husband is hungry and lonely and I don't have knitting time.

Okay, enough complaining. So the other day on my "Selfish Knitters" forum, someone was talking about destashing. The last time I wrote, I talked about knitting for the York Fair, but destashing sounds like a much smarter option. I have a new mitten kit, but I also have an old sock kit that I never touched and a whole bin full of sock yarn. I probably have more than $500 worth of unknit sock yarn in the house, which is bad bad bad. And that's just sock yarn. The worst part of it is, when I went to buy new yarn for a hat I want to knit for my cousin Sydney, I got another $5 store credit from my favorite online yarn store. Really, that's just asking to be used. It's kind of a bummer because it covers shipping and about $2 from my order, but I'm still tempted to shop some more. I really want some yarn from Sanguine Gryphon. I guess my store credit will just sit in my account until I use up some more of my yarn.

GOAL: Do NOT purchase ANY yarn for ANY reason next year. Needles and patterns don't count in the destash goals, as they facilitate appropriate yarn use. The only possible exception would be to purchase cotton for christmas dishcloths, but that's stretching it. I have so much cotton yarn it's not funny. (Side note: we wrote behavior modification contracts when I was in 9th grade. I should write an official one for myself and my yarn habit.)

I'm happy to report, though, that my few projects that I have going now are going really well. I'm almost done with the brown baby sweater. I have both sleeves finished. I messed up on the collar last night, and I still need to buy some buttons, but for the most part it's getting there.

The gray hat has not progressed. I've been focusing every knitting moment on the baby sweater. The sweater's due date is sooner than the hats, so it gets all my attention. I want to make another pair of baby socks as well to go with the sweater. I have one pair done, but it's a little feminine.

I got some Malabrigo Bulky to make a hat with earflaps for my cousin, Sydney. Earflap hats are in style amongst the young'uns. I saw several on the Justice for Girls website (including one with SILVER SEQUINS!!!) I hope I can make one that passes the approval of a tween.