Every night before bed, I make a to-do list. It helps me to feel less anxious about all the things I have to do. I've tricked myself into thinking that if I take the task undone and materialize it (i.e. write it out), then the task is just as good as done. I don't have insomnia. I sleep well.
I think, however, that I need to start making a do-not-do list. I should list things that I should not do or stop doing.
If you haven't noticed, I've been absent in blog-land; my absence is caused by all of those things that I have to do.
So, starting today, I'm adding something to that do-not-do list: DO NOT reskein yarn.
I know that a lot of sock knitters like their yarn reskeined; it's looks prettier to some folks. But lately, I've been admiring sock yarn that isn't reskeined. I think it shows off the colors more. I know that's my opinion but...
I actually had a moment this weekend where I thought I should give up dyeing yarn. I was really overwhelmed by the mountain of yarn that needed to be reskeined. If I spend all day reskeining--morning until supper time--I will have only reskeined about 20 skeins. (I do it by hand because my electric skein winder is CRAZY! It can skein from cones, but reskeining makes the electric skein winder mad!) These are days that I could be spending cleaning, writing, reading, working on the dissertation, updating my etsy shop, dyeing more yarn, going to museums, going to movies, taking walks. There's so much life I'm missing out on, so please understand that my desire to stop reskeining is wrapped up in my desire to live.
I actually felt as if I could breathe again when I decided to no longer reskein yarn.
What you're seeing in the picture above is some of my kettle-dyed sock yarn. I have six skeins that will go up on etsy when I update. Isn't it pretty? Oh, and kettle-dyed sock yarn looks like a hairball mixed with vomit when it hasn't been reskeined. So maybe I should reskein it...oh no, oh no, I said I would not do that.
