Books, Books, Books

I've been on a cleaning frenzy the last week or so - it's worse than when I was 7 months pregnant and nesting! Among other things, I've been cleaning up and organizing all my knitting books. I gathered them up from Miss S's bedroom, Miss M's bedroom, the end of the hall, down in the basement, up in my room behind the bed, all around my knitting chair, the closet, etc. I went out and bought a bookshelf to be dedicated to nothing but fiber arts books and magazines.

I also sorted out the stash that was in the corner behind my bed and the stuff around my knitting chair. Then I cleaned out 3 knitting bags and sorted and stored my knitting needles. This is altogether too much cleaning, neatening and straightening for any real knitting to occur, but that's just how it is.

So, I got all the magazines in one place (well, not all of them, but an awful lot of them). Then I had to sort them out by which was which - all the Cast-On's in one pile, all the Interweave in another, all the Knitter's in a third. Turns out that I had like 9 different piles when I was done with that, and one pile had several different mags in it. Then each pile got sorted by date - oldest to newest. Then they went on the shelf - they took up one whole shelf on my new bookshelf which is a problem because I need space for the books! Gonna hafta get rid of some of the old mags. And I didn't even figure out which subscriptions are still active yet . . . . . maybe tomorrow.

Then I put all the books on the shelf in alphabetical order by Author (or editor or publisher). The books filled two shelves completely up with absolutely no room for more books. I have too many knitting books. So I tried to figure out which I could part with and I couldn't part with any of them. Next, I made a list of all of them, book name, author/editor/publisher and the isbn number . . . . . but I gave up on the isbn number about halfway thru cuz it was too much trouble. And then I typed them all into a spreadsheet on the computer and sorted them.

Now I did this only with the knitting and crocheting books. I will add the few weaving books and dying books and crewel books that I have later (they take up less than 10" on a shelf and that includes a bunch more knitting booklets). There are still knitting (and crochet) books on the floor and some are missing in action - I know I own them but dunno where the devil they are currently living. I'm embarassed to say that I have almost a hundred books on that shelf . . . . the list is over 2 pages long . . . .

I still have to make a list of all the magazines I own. Then I can trade them or sell them.