Day 30 - 30-Day Declutter Challenge . . .

Well, I made it!  Today is the official last day of my 30-day Decluttering Challenge!

The suggestions for today are: 

• Clean
• Free for All & Finalize: Catch up on areas not finished and complete your declutter mission.

I vacuumed the entire house.  With the good Oreck, so I feel like there is a LOT less dust in here.  That's a good thing.  I got all the Belleek bells back in their boxes and every box numbered.  There are six for which I've lost the boxes, so I keep those in a separate ornament box. 

They are all safe in their Christmas bin and are now back down in the basement.

Pretty much the rest of my day was spent finishing the Project Peace 2020 shawl.  Man it was slow going by the end, with rows of 480+ stitches, and I made an error so had to tink back two rows on the border.  Ugh.  And, irritatingly enough, two full skeins of yarn were not enough to finish.  It called for 760 yards, and I had more than 800 and it still wasn't enough.  I know that Socks That Rock yarn is thicker than regular fingering weight, but it really made a difference, I guess.   The color is this:

But photos of wet items taken in my basement under fluorescent tubes and on the purple blocking tiles never come out quite right in terms of color.  I did the finish work immediately and blocked it, so for all intents and purposes this is done.  I was surprised to learn that I finished only three knitting projects this year . . . this shawl, a hat, and a cowl.  That's low for me.  I started a lot that I didn't finish, though, and I did crank socks and other things for my Beginner Certification samples.  My WIP work is cut out for me for the new year  :-)  

Here is the shawl on the blocking table.  This was supposed to be the variegated yarn for the entire body and then the grey just for the border.  You can see that I had to start "fading in" the grey far earlier than the border, and there were at least two pattern repeats that wound up being solid grey.

Here is a closer look at it.  Thankfully I had some leftover black STR that I had to use for the last row and the bindoff!  It doesn't look awful, but it wasn't what I had planned.  But at least it's done!

This decluttering project has been a gift in more ways than one.  It has given me a reason to get cracking most days, and I feel more on top of things for having done it.  I'm happy to have made additional space in my home and I would recommend anyone thinking about doing this to use a calendar like I did.  It really broke things down into manageable bites every day.  

Here is amaryllis #1, teasing me with this bud about to open!  I can hardly wait!!

 And here is amaryllis #2, in all its glory, with a second bud that will open soon!  :-)  

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve.  I am so very ready to say goodbye to the dumpster fire that has been 2020. 

I don't think anyone has ever done this old tune as well as Sir Rod . . .