It's National Crochet Month

It’s National Crochet Month so I thought I would write about yarn all month. Last week I showed off what I’d made from some of my stash of yarn. This week I thought I write about how people like me end up with an unwieldy amount of yarn.

All the crocheters and knitters out there probably already have a good idea of how I accumulated bins and even plastic waste baskets full of yarn. But I’ll explain for the rest of you. Just an aside it’s interesting that when I type crocheter it’s marked as misspelled, but knitter isn’t. Is that some mark against crocheters? My character Adele Abrams Humphries would certainly take it that way and probably contact Microsoft to complain. But back to stash.

In the beginning I just bought yarn for a project I was working on. It fit very nicely on the a shelf above my crochet books. But then I made a blanket out of some bulky yarn. It was quick and easy to make and I thought it would be nice to whip one up for a gift. So, when the yarn I’d used was on sale, I stocked up with enough for two blankets.

The Tuesday Morning store has a bin of yarn closeouts . It’s fancy yarn for low prices and when it’s gone, it’s gone. So when I saw something I liked, I scooped up a bunch of skeins not wanting to run out in the middle of an undetermined project.

Yarn on sale is a big lure and I have piles of it to prove it. Michael’s had some yarn that glowed in the dark - well, for five minutes anyway. They put it on closeout and not wanting to ever run out of it, I bought enough to fill a small waste basket where it still sits.

I’ve gone to yarn shows where there are deals on yarn and special yarn too beautiful to pass up. It’s amazing how much yarn you can squeeze into a suitcase. As my stash began to fill a stack of plastic bins it became easier to just buy something new rather than look through what I had.

In all of this yarn procuring one major fact never really got through. It only takes a few minutes to buy yarn and way longer to make something out of it.

For now I have put a moratorium on yarn buying while trying to use what I have. I have to put on blinders on when I leave my knit and crochet group since we meet at JoAnn’s and I’m afraid of being enticed by all the bins of color calling out to me.

Along with being overcome with my stash, there is the issue of WIPs. That’s works in progress for you non crocheters and knitters. They’re also referred to as UFO for unfinished objects. Here’s how it goes. It’s very exciting to start a new project. What will the yarn look like when it’s crocheted or knitted? If it’s varigated you never know how it will work up from looking at the skein. Will the yarn be easy to work with? Can you figure out the pattern?

The problem is that after you get past all those questions, it can get boring or tedious and it is so much more interesting to start something new. Or horror of horrors, the yarn is a pain to work with, but you like the way it looks so much so it gets cast aside for a day when you have more patience.

I have a whole slew of unfinished projects. What comes to mind is an elephant toy who needs a face and some stuffing. A sparkling head of vampire doll who needs a body. A bunch of squares that need to be joined into something. At least one half done scarf, and a hat waiting for a pom pom to be attached. You get the idea.

I dream of the day when the bins are all empty (I’m donating yarn to assorted charities) and I won’t catch my foot on another plastic bag from a yarn store as I go across the room. The day when I can once again be lured in by a sale price or something too beautiful to pass up. And a day when that vampire has a body and the elephant has a face.