Twisted Loops

This is the big weekend, Stitches Midwest Market is here, and it’s just a short drive away.  Just about everyone from KTog is going, but not me.  I’ve attended the event for the past three years, since I started knitting, and had a lot of fun while I went.  I’ve purchased some wonderful yarn, and found some fabulous deals.

Over the few years that I’ve been knitting, I feel that I’ve become smarter about my yarn shopping.  In the beginning, I used to just buy yarn in whatever quantity I felt like.  This style of shopping lead to a lot of single balls or two balls of a yarn in my stash.  Every time I wanted to make something, I found that my stash of yarn that was not enough to do anything with on its own.  Long before Ravelry came along, I started using a spreadsheet to track my yarn inventory and patterns on my wish list with yarn requirements.  I carry this list with me every time I go shopping.  I try to by yarn that I can associate to a project on my wish list.  While the yarn is not always used for the intended project, at least I know that I’ve purchased enough yarn to complete a project. 

The frightening part of the process of photographing the stash for Ravelry was finding yarn that isn’t in my spreadsheet.  That surprised me.  I thought that I was fairly obsessive about tracking my inventory, but somehow some yarn still slipped through.

While I’ve had the yarn in the spreadsheet, I only look at the spreadsheet when I’m starting a new project or when I’m going yarn shopping.  It’s very easy to not pay attention to the details contained within the file.  Photographing and uploading the stash to Ravelry has forced me to confront my stash (it’s not all there yet).  As I work with it, I realize that I realize that I have a lot of wonderful yarn.  It is more yarn than I can knit in a long, long time.  There is enough yarn to make multiple shawls, multiple sweaters, lots of socks, and some more left over.  The only possible projects I don’t really have yarn for is a baby blanket type gift project, since most of the yarn is not machine washable.  Also, I’ve been dreaming of a fair isle sweater, and that yarn doesn’t exist in the stash either.

In the end, I’ve come to the realization that when I visit my stash, I just don’t feel the need to acquire any more yarn.  There is a tiny twinge of guilt for not using the yarn yet, but it is mostly contentment with the yarn that I own.  I know that if I visit Stitches, I’ll find another deal that just can’t be passed up (like the Rowan Denim at $2/ball from two years ago - still sitting in the stash).  When it comes to a deal on something I know I’ll use, I have very little willpower.  So, I decided that I just won’t go.  I hope everyone has fun this weekend; I’ll be looking for your stash photos and your stories.