Call of the Yarn Store

This past May, when I was at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival, I collected a few brochures from yarn stores in New England. I was looking through some of them today, and I realised that I really don't need more yarn.* With 24 bins, I've achieved SABLE, and I'm even in doubt if I'll get all my holiday knitting done. Who needs more yarn? But I want to take a road trip and go to visit all these stores. Looking at their websites, it isn't like they carry any yarn I can't get in the Boston area. But there's something about walking into a new yarn store you've never visited before that is just intoxicating. I don't care that I can buy all the yarns they carry locally.

While I was at the NHS&WF I did my honest best to only buy yarns that were "artisinal," meaning hand spun, hand dyed, or both. Things that are not available in stores, only by ordering on websites or by going to festivals. And I admit that I got some pretty damn fine yarns that day. Even Web's annual tent sale only appeals to me now because there are tents set up by local yarn producers in the parking lot. They sell stuff I can't find anywhere else. (OK, I'll admit that the Blythe Baby Camel is something that Web's carries that my LYSs don't carry, but I won't look at anything other than that!)

But I don't actually need to go on another shopping spree. And I did promise myself that I'd knit more of my stash this year. This is a promise which I am partially fulfilling, though I have to admit I've gotten a lot of new yarn; still, most of the cowls that will be knit in Tosh will be done in stash yarn. The ones that will be done in yarns from The Artful Ewe, well, some will be done in stash yarn, and some will be done in yarns purchased this year. I can't be good all the time.

I also promised myself that I would finish a bunch of UFOs that were sitting around my house. I think I've done a few of those, but damned if I can find the spreadsheet I designed to track them. It must be here somewhere, probably under a pile of yarn. Every now and then I come across a UFO in the wild, under a pile of clean laundry, or behind a pile of books. I'm trying to corral them all and put them in one bin, so I'll be able to just open it up and say, "Well, I think I'll start knitting this old thing again." Well, it could happen.

Right, when pigs fly over the frozen wastelands of Hell, backwards.




*While that has really hit home (I actually don't have room for any more bins), I doubt it will preclude me from buying more yarn.