It is the time of year where all the sweaters need to be washed and put away in plastic bags for the summer. I usually end up using only one or two all spring and summer as my go to things, but the rest of the sweaters and large shawls are all in my sweater chest, there, should I need them.
I started washing them all in one fell swoop last year after I got the nifty drying rack. At the house I dried all the sweaters on the rail by the stairs, so I never needed a rack. At my wee house, I dried them on the backs of spare chairs. After moving here, I picked up the rack because there is nothing spare here. Last year the rack was under the window in my bedroom and it was set up fully open, but this way, braced on the wall by a simple hook, carrying the weight of things on its own legs, it allows me to open it up only halfway. This way it stays in the laundry corner, completely out of the way. Unless I am doing laundry, but even then, I simply drop the support for a moment and then pop it back up, sweaters intact.
This is round one. Round two is in the wash tub soaking and round three and the rest will happen as the week goes on. It only takes a bit more than a day to dry each set, so by Friday I will be done. Scarves and shawls that I have worn this year are getting washed and blocked too as well as a couple things that have never been properly blocked. It all is going to get done. Spring cleaning of the wool.
The other woolly thing I did yesterday, was go through needles. Our town has a town wide garage sale the first day of May each year. Town wide so that more people show up and many many people come just for it each spring. They stop by the bakery and the sausage shop to for some really great stuff as well, but the garage sale is a draw.
These are the needles that I do not use. There are also glass vases with dpns on the shelf and the shorts, that do get used a lot, but the tallest is seldom ever moved from its place on the shelf. Most of them come from way back in the dawn of time, when I tried to knit for myself and my boys but had no confidence in what I was doing. The grey needles don't have a tip that I care for. If I have to use a straight needle, they are not the ones I use. The pretty bright coloured needles were a gift from Scott, and are lovely to work with, beautiful, cool lit tips, but again, I just don't use them. My pretty bouquet of needles is going to go.
All that remains are these. The silvery needles are a custom made set of gansey needles from a maker in California, for when I knit myself a traditional gansey style sweater. There is a set of swing needles, from a maker in Nova Scotia. Swing needles have a ball as a stopper if you want it and are meant for single direction knitting. Nowadays, it is generally done with circulars, but these and the gansey needles are how it was done before. The gold headed needles I have to size but they are going in the bin to sell. And my very small collection of regular straights in metal with a tip I do like. These actually do get used for straight knitting on occasion.
I've already gone through knitting books and cookbooks, and have a box of those ready for the sale. And the yarn was gone through a month or so ago. I might go back and give the whole stash another quick look in case I missed something that I just don't see me using anymore. I never did go through the sock yarn box and I do have a lot of sock yarn.
So, come this Saturday, 9 a.m. to my house in Mundare AB. There will be wool, significant amounts of wool. There will be books. There will be needles. And household items and so many other things too. Actual address should show up on the town garage sale page. Or just by driving around town. It's not that big of a town that you wouldn't drive all the streets anyway.
Or just come and share a coffee with me. I am always up for that.
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