JIT Stash

Many knitters and crocheters (and sewers) have the habit of buying more yarn (and material) than they can ever hope to knit or crochet (or sew) in a lifetime. I found myself heading down that path, but I am not a natural hoarder nor am I a collector. Also, I live in a small house and I get claustrophobic when the walls close in, even if they are walls of yarn.

So I make up stash rules, like a yarn purchase must be for a particular project. But what about sock yarn? One hundred-gram skein or two 50-grammers will make a pair of socks, and a pair of socks is a project, right? Never mind that I currently have enough yarn for at least 5 pairs of socks. Maybe that is why I feel compelled to always have a sock project going, so I can use up the current sock stash and buy some more.

Several times I have visited an online source of sock yarn, loaded up my virtual shopping cart (it's all on sale! except that gorgeous cherry red), then stopped short of completing the order. Must Use Stash is my mantra, because it doesn't take much stretching of the stash rule before I'm buying yarn like it will never be available ever again.

But even though there are plenty of non-sock projects in the queue, I nearly broke down when I came across this shawl. I downloaded the pattern and filed it with the six million other patterns I have downloaded, and I went to a website where they sold the yarn in smaller-than-one-pound-spools and I started filling that shopping cart... BUT all the colors I needed were not available, which causes a stutter in the process, enough of a stutter that I did not complete the transaction.

While taking deep, gulping cleansing breaths, I calmed myself by thinking how that shawl will make a nice winter project.

So I'd better finish up everything else by then!