Now that the Ikea Expedit cubby baskets are completed, placed, and filled, I have had to venture into the yarn annex to begin work on the next phase of my organization efforts: identifying and doing something with the ghosts of projects past.

It is a task that fills me with trepidation as there is so much yarn to untangle and so many decisions to be made, but I made myself venture in, and after I had tired of disentangling strands of yarn and had made as many decisions as my brain could muster, I emerged from the annex with a few projects from my past.

One of them (this blanket):

was even finished.

Made for a much beloved dog who has since passed away, I had diligently worked on the blanket during many weeks of lunch in the cafeteria of the school where I was teaching at the time. The stitches of this blanket helped soothe my nerves so that I was ready for an afternoon in the classroom.

What was most amusing to me was that the same students who found my math lessons incomprehensibly dull and were unable to either sit still or listen during class would request permission to gather around the  table to watch me crochet at lunch.

The next project I found was this small wall hanging and one of the flowers that will grace the finished piece:

As this detail of the flower shows, there were lots of small pieces and color changes:

At the time, I was still fairly new to crochet and overwhelmed by the number of ends to be woven in. Now that I have discovered the magic that is the Clover bent-tipped yarn needle, my hope is that I finish it before it is time to begin work on my state fair project.

Another end-intensive project I unearthed was this start of this baby blanket:

While I was a more experienced crocheter at this point, I still had not come across Clover bent-tipped yarn needles, and I had had to abandon it in favor of a baby blanket design I could finish before the baby graduated from high school.

One incomplete blanket led to another, and I found this orange and white ripple afghan I had begun work on using vintage yarn I had gotten at a flea market:

By far the most interesting (to me) pieces that I found were these motifs:

along with this rainbow topped chrysanthemum:

of which I was also able to get this more detailed photo:

These are some of the pieces of a much larger project for which there are even more pieces.

I am still far short of having the house organized, but each strand I untangle, each piece I unearth brings me closer to making my crochet empire a more crafting friendly place.