Spring Cleaning Part Deux: New Uses for Old Things

I have been steadily cleaning out this disaster-area of an office, and finding things that are...well, fairly useless.  Such as 5-inch and 3.5-inch floppy disks that have information I've already either archived or have on my current computer.  There are books for which I have copies in ebook form (Jane Austen books, many of which you can download free), and paperback books that are falling apart because they are literally over 30 years old and I have read them over and over again (and I hope, hope, hope that I can find them again in print or in ebook form).  Then there are papers that are decades old that surely can be thrown out, and so on and so on.  Or, there are old Windows 95 and other software manuals that are way, way out of date.


However, today I came upon this particular item.  It's made of Gore-Tex-like material, about 9 inches by 5 1/2 inches when folded.  The interior pockets are made of some kind of vinyl and are about 3 1/2 by 4 inches.  I've had it for...probably almost 15 years.

I pulled it out of a pile of stuff that I had put on one of my bookshelves to look at "later," which obviously was about at least 10 years later.  Yes, that's how long it's been sitting around.  I opened it and when John popped his head around the corner of my office to see what I was doing, and I held it up.  "Recognize this?"

He gazed at it for a second or so, puzzled.  I said, "It's a holder for the 3 1/2 floppy disks for the old PC we used to have.  I guess I should have thrown it out by now, right?" I said, laughing a little at how silly I'd been for holding onto it for so long...but stopped laughing as an idea slowly formed in my brain.  "On the other hand...I think I won't because I might be able to use it.  I could use it to--"

"Store knitting needles!" John said.

"Yes!" I said, much pleased at his perspicacity.  "Exactly--circular needles, in fact!"

The top pockets are too shallow to hold the needles without sticking out, but they're just the right size to hold a small pair of scissors, especially if you pass the velcro strap through one of the finger loops.  The clear plastic holder to the left, which normally would hold a business card, is perfect for holding a cable needle without too much worry that it'll fall out, since the opening is up against the fold of the holder.  It would easily slip into any purse or knitting bag without having the cables get tangled up, especially since the velcro strap holds them down.  Here's what it looks like with needles and accessories in it:

Just to test how secure the items were within it, I closed it and shook it (the horizontal velcro pieces on either side are "opposites" so that it stays shut when closed).  Then just to be absolutely sure, I opened it and shook it upside down.

Nothing budged!  How cool is that?

So now I have a handy-dandy circular knitting needle holder for whatever knitting project I might want to take with me when I'm on the go.  Now I'm thinking about looking for more floppy disk holders like this for more of my needles.  Each pocket can be easily labeled as to the size, and and another label on the outside saying what all sizes are within.  The holder is about the height and width of a trade paperback book, so I can put it in my bookshelf if I want to, and the spine--though thin--is wide enough to put yet another label on if I want to see what sizes are within if I do put it in a bookshelf.

Wow.  I absolutely must see if I can find more of these!  If I recall correctly, it wasn't very expensive when I bought it.  However, if I can't find any of these, I bet CD holders would work about as well, and at low cost, too.  I found one here in Amazon.  Less than $10!

However, I like the slim line of the 3.5 floppy disk holder, since it's very easy to tuck in a purse, unlike the bulkier CD holders.

I feel so frugal and resourceful!  :-)

Spring Cleaning--and Creating!

Got busy today!  I decided to clean my office in 1/2 hour spurts, which coincidentally is the amount of time wool roving needs to cook in the crockpot.  So I thought, why not dye some roving and clean at the same time? That way I'd have a few breaks from the tedium of cleaning, yet still dedicate some solid time giving away, throwing away, and putting away stuff.  Yep, spring cleaning is here!

I am glad to say that I was productive in both ways.  No, I will not post pictures of my office/library because it still looks like a tornado went through it.  There is improvement:  now a path from door to computer desk can be seen, plus I cleared off a bookshelf and put my yarn in tubs on it.  A box of books now sits in the living room, ready to be delivered to Goodwill.

However, as you see, I am posting pictures of the roving I dyed, because it is much prettier to look at.  I may end up selling the roving or spinning it...I haven't decided yet.  It's nice, soft wool: I have one set that is purely Merino wool, so very soft; the other one is a touch coarser, but still soft and has a somewhat elastic, bouncy feel. 

The pictures don't quite do justice to the colors of the roving.  Except for the primary colored one (to the left), which is that intense in color, the others are actually a bit lighter and more pastel than they look here--very much spring colors.

It's been very wet and rainy lately--I think we've had a month of rain and clouds with perhaps half a day of real sun--so I was feeling very much as if I wanted to create some spring if I couldn't have it in the weather.  I guess that's why there's a bit of yellow and green in all of the rovings I dyed today!

Since each set of colors took half an hour to cook, I guess because I have four colorways, I actually spent two hours cleaning!

I think this deserves some definitely spinning time.  After that, I'll put up some of this roving on my Etsy site.   I haven't put anything up there right now, but if you go there, you can be notified via e-mail once I do start up my shop again.