A bit of a sort-out

There isn't much visible organisation in my house, as anyone who's visited will know; but there are a few tiny pockets where order prevails - the CDs and DVDs go in alphabetical order (by artist for the CDs and title for the DVDs, with boxed sets in a separate sequence below, in the unlikely event you were interested); and the bookshelves have an internal order of sorts. My knitting books were reasonably organised, but my knitting patterns were all over the place. About a month before Christmas I realised I'd downloaded and printed the pattern for the Serpentine Mitts not once, not twice, but four times... I exacerbated the problem at about the same time by vandalising my Interweave Knits, Vogue and Knitters pile, and scalpeling out patterns from those where I only wanted to make one or two of the patterns, but then didn't have anywhere to put them, so they sat in those loose-leaf plastic things, periodically avalanching from the bookshelves onto the floor in a slick puddle...


When I was in Tesco yesterday, they had extra-strong (and wide-enough-for-US-letter-paper, as it turns out) pocket protectors, and files at three-for-two-quid. So behold, the four coloured files on the right of the "tall" half of the books... "Accessories and Home", "Hands and Feet", "Lace" and "Sweaters and Kids' Knits".



The remaining mags now fit onto the second shelf down along with my notebook collection...



The other half is here, on a shorter shelf...




(I'm saying 'half'. In fact there are another couple of feet of knitting books and magazines upstairs, old Rowan books, 80s Phildar collections I can't bear to throw away, that sort of thing... but this is the presentable bit of the collection...)

And these are the new ones from Christmas. I haven't really had a good look at them yet, but am looking forward to having a very good read.

I did manage to get photos of one of the knitted and both of the crochet items I received for Christmas, but will take pics of the remaining one for tomorrow's post.

Meanwhile, I have finished the first sleeve of St Brigid. This is momentous as I think I last knitted on it in 2007. I'm determined to finish this this year... It's not a particularly difficult knit - but it does involve sitting down with a series of charts which don't lend themselves easily to remembering (the large ones, anyway). I turned away to get the camera to photograph this event, and when I got back...

This is the Bug's "what could you possibly want?" expression...

But I shall have my revenge. She was sitting under the daylight lamp (which gives off a welcome shred of heat in the otherwise unheated dining room). As I snapped the shutter for one shot, she stared directly up at the light, and her ridiculously luxuriant neck-ruff startled the camera...