A Fair Assessment -- Sisterhood 2007 Anyone?

Well, a little biased as I'm making it of myself.  Ahem.  I get ideas.  I'm pretty good at planning for them, although I rarely allot enough time to execute them -- especially new ones.  For instance, the party for 40 I give every year between Christmas and New Year's Day?  I have a pretty good idea now of how long it takes to prepare for that evening -- food, cleaning, decorating.  I also now know the resources likely to be required to entertain at that level -- food for about 40, drinks, serving pieces.  Experience is the key to approaching large projects with equanimity.  Oh, and a deadline.  That's helpful -- they'll all be at my door at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday the 30th.  Yikes, by the way.

A new idea I had last spring was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Stash.  Fill a box with stuff I know I won't knit with, but with which others may find inspiration.  Send the box to a bunch of of people who promise to replace what they remove from the box in like numbers and kinds of yarn.  Surprise them -- be the keeper of the names and pass the names and addresses out one to each gal that gets the box so she can send it on.  Blog about it.  Send the box on to the next secret recipient.

Simple.  And in all fairness, the box came back to me.  Success number one considering the current swap fiasco over at the Yarn Aboard exchange -- Yay, Sisterhood -- the box made the rounds of 10 cities, 12 recipients.  Success number two -- there were only two of my original skeins of yarn left.  All the rest of the yarn that came back to my house is new to me -- Yay again, Sisterhood. 

Here we come to Problem the first -- all the yarn came back.  Um, didn't remember to plan for that!  And I'm not complaining, mind you, not at all... just surprised.  I had cleared out an 18"x 24"x 30" box of yarn out of my stash, filled the void over the summer and fall -- yarn stash is apparently like elemental gas, it expands to fill all available space.  And what happened last week?  An 18"x 24"x 30" box of new yarn (to me) arrived at my doorstep.  Gah!  And, of course I did what any self-respecting yarn hoarder would do... I dived right in.  Claimed about a 4th of it as stuff I really needed, stuff that wasn't really close to yarn I already own.  Then I called Bridgett over and she pored over it -- she took much of what I didn't need.  And I still have quite a bit left which I will assimilate somehow.  It's a burden.  Sigh.  (smile)

I guess what I'm getting at is this:  Let's do it again.  I've filled another box (holy crap) and I've mailed it off to Julie.  That would be Problem the second.  Julie joined late, but joined nonetheless and I ... gulp ... somehowdidn'tgetheronthelist.  There.  Said it fast, like pulling a band-aid.  And I was planning a new Sisterhood for the new year -- so this is it.  If you want to play, send me an email and I'll send you the rules (simplified:  you get the box, you take what you want, replace it in number and kind as much as you can, you send the box to the next gal.  This time it cost me $21 and change to mail it.)  First 12 to respond are in.  I think, even if I'd been just a sister and replaced yarn and sent it on, I'd have gotten way more than $21 worth of yarn -- worth it I think and kind of fun to watch.

Which brings me to Problem the third.  I need to be more disciplined about posting about the Sisterhood and about babysitting the recipients (well, you know, emailing them the new addresses and the like) and about enforcing the "posting about what you take out and put in" rule. 

So -- Sisterhood 2007 anyone?

Comments

[Kelly]

Sounds like fun!

[Ruth]

Why not? 2006 was fun.

[cecily]

You know I'm in. :)

[i.d.d.a.]

What fun! I would LOVE to do this! I am blogless, can I still play? Have lots of wonderful skeins of every natural thing you can imagine!

[Jocele]

Sign me up!! Of course, I still haven't knit up what I got last time around, but won't let that stop me.

[Lori]

Definitely! I had a great time with it last time.

[Rabbitch]

If it's open to Canadians, I'd like to play, but the postage might be prohibitive.

[Karen]

I'd love to join in the fun!

[Jody]

I want to play - is it to late? Dam cold kept me off the computer for days & days & days. Just now cathching up.

[La]

In view of your successful first run, I'm in....if there's still room. I'll email you

[Mary Beth]

If I am not too late I want in! I think I may finally have stuff worth putting in the stash....LOL.....It was fun keeping up with it this last go 'round!

[Amanda]

Not to be a pill, but Saturday is Dec. 30th.

[Nell]

I'm in! If there's still room. I just emailed you.

[Christy]

IS it too late to sign up. Heaven's knows there's some sock yarn I can part with!