Day 2: Yarn or Project
Day 2: What comes first yarn or project?
I have the bad and very common habit of buying yarn and worrying about the project later. It was how I ended up with a large pile of sock yarn and no plans to ever make socks. They came in handy for making shawls and gloves this past year and I have been lucky enough to usually have the right amount of yarn. Something that was especially important when I think about the fact that I have had yarn for years before working with it.
The number of times I’ve pulled out a yarn where the band was missing or that I had purchased from shop that had gone out of business; bought the yarn from a shop that was in another state or discontinued happened too often for me to think about. We don’t even want to talk about dye lots.
So having recognized that I have of course started to pick patterns first, of course. Did anyone believe that? No. Sigh. It likely doesn’t help that my ravelry queue is over 500 projects. So there is a good chance that something in my queue would match my purchase. I just have to find it.
And well I do now own enough smart devices that I could check my queue in the yarn store; but let’s be honest, I need both hands for the yarn. Instead I just accept my yarn purchasing reality. Also why I have given up on the yarn dieting as I just end up splurging every six months or so ( see is it your birthday ) so I just buy pretty things in reasonable amounts when I feel the need. Which has at least been less often then when I just point at the yarn and say no repeatedly.
~400 yards seems to be my standard for yarn that I don’t actually know what I will be doing with it. Since I tend to buy lace, fingering, and other lightweight yarns this tends not to be a problem and I will have enough to make a shawl, cowl, gloves, hats, and such things. Even sweaters to an extent fall into this category as I have enough Eco-wool to make two more sweaters and not patterns in mind yet. Whistles.
I’ve decided its easier to accept that I am a yarn first project second knitter. There are surely worse things in the world to be.
And another random photo of pretty yarn:
Some Madeline Tosh Pashmina I don’t remember buying. I did an overhaul of the stash, finding tons of yarn I want to play with right away and much too much yarn I look at and say ‘I bought this? When?’
