hands up, they’re playing my song

sweaterfolded, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

When I finished the body of my Garter Yoke Cardi, back in the middle of June, I knew that I wanted to set it aside for a while.

(Originally, this was because I thought I’d need my 4mm circular needle for other projects – namely, both my Ishbels and the Featherweight Cardigan. Since sitting down and organizing my circs, I’ve discovered that I actually have seven 4mm circular needles, in a shockingly wide range of sizes and materials. Oops.)

Uh, I don’t know if you know this, but worsted weight yarn on 4mm needles goes super, super fast. I am pretty sure I did not think this was the case when I first started knitting several years ago, but after working on fairly fiddly, small-gauge projects for the past few months, this was like heaven. Instant-gratification heaven. I can’t believe how little time it took for me to take this sweater from just one more unfinished project to very nearly done.

Song of the Entry: Miley Cyrus – Party in the USA (Listen)

tutorial time: circular needle organization for power nerds

IMG_8255, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

This post isn’t knitting, but it is knitting-related: I sat down this afternoon and turned a binder into a circular needle organizer that suits me perfectly.

I’m a big fan of productivity blogs (I subscribe to Lifehacker’s RSS feed), and repurposing easy-to-shop for things to suit my needs, so when I took a look at my knitting shelf and thought “How the fuck am I going to get my circular needles under control?” my first thought was, “Why don’t I go to Staples?”

I picked up a few things, looked through my apartment, and ended up with these supplies:

(From left to right: 1” binder, package of 25 heavy-duty sheet protectors, ruler, kitchen scissors, white-out pen, Sharpie, pack of 60 mini (9/16”) binder clips)

Then, I used the ruler, sharpie, and scissors to trim the sheet protectors down from 8.5” x 11” to 8.5” x 8”. After that, I went through of my circular needles. I wrote the needle size and length on the bottom right corner of a sheet protector for each needle:

I tucked the needle into the sheet protector, with the original packaging if I still had it. I sealed the tops of each sheet protector with two mini-binder clips, so the needles wouldn’t fall out if I dropped the binder or flipped it upside-down, creating chaos.

And there you have it. I’m very proud of myself.