Cliffs of Moher and Kitten Prevention

The vote was unanimous – pick one of the photos of the Cliffs of Moher. Ok, so The Vote was what AwesomeE said to pick. Y’all gotta step up if you don’t want her to let the power get to her head.

After some careful deliberation, I settled on one of the images and made my start. Let me tell you, it is fantastic to have so many more colors to play with now. But it also means I realized I needed to separate the colors I pulled out into groups, each in their own baggy, or my desk was going to fall into total chaos with fiber sneaking under the piece and getting needle felted to the back. Um… there may have been close calls with this in the past when I had far fewer handfuls of fluff floating around. I wasn’t confident I’d catch it in time with the increase in opportunity for mishap.

Let’s be honest – the sky isn’t the most interesting bit, but I needed to get the basics out of the way. The ocean though – that’s going to be a challenge. I am really glad I have some proper teal and turquoise in my “paint box” now, but I still mixed in extra green. It’s not there yet, but I think it’s a decent start. I’m going to get the other areas sketched in a bit, because I am extremely aware that neighboring colors have an impact. I don’t want to tune the sea to perfection, only to find that the colors of the cliffs and grassy cliff top change how I perceive it.

The other thing I did over the weekend was wrestle my stash back into order. I received the last of my Clan of Igor for the year (wrap up of the Clan of Igor 2020 to come) and realized as I went to hide the skeins in the closet, that the skeins were starting to spill out of the bags, and the bag of fiber on top of the shelves had fallen down… and all in all, it was way too easy for the Fiber Fiend to steal a skein or two if given only a few seconds access to the closet. So while both kitties were safely sleeping in the bed room, I pulled everything out.

There is no doubt the stash has grown since we arrived. I mean… I’m not surprised it’s bigger. But it’s good to be reminded of just how big it is. A little stash tossing is usually a good thing to reacquaint with what you have to work with, give it some air and light (helps prevent moths) and remind you why you’ve already met your yarn budget for the year, and that the budget wasn’t just about money. And now it’s much more safely bagged and put away. I wouldn’t say 100% secure from kitten raids, but it should slow him down a bit.

His interest in all things yarn has not abated. I even had trouble photographing my progress on my modular knitting blanket. He has slightly slowed his attempts to steal yarn while I’m actively knitting, but the bag had better be pulled tightly closed before I leave it unattended!