Saturday, October 3, 2009

No longer smug

A couple of blog posts ago I reminded myself of the old adage 'pride goes before a fall'. I think I'm going to have to extend this to include 'smugness goes before a fall'. Smugness is probably a form of pride, after all.

I've just been having lunch and I noticed - that is, really looked at and noted - the bowl of yarn before me on my table.

Yarn bowl

I'd read RoseRed's post about her yarn accumulation for September with awe. I'd marvelled at MissyFee's holiday purchases and wondered at JP's birthday yarn. I had been thinking these knitters are quite different from me; that they are SERIOUS knitters with SERIOUS yarn collections. I would never have so much yarn just lying around (or neatly categorised) and doing nothing.

But...this bowl of yarn has accumulated (notice my careful use of passive voice to distance myself from the accumulation) in just over a month!

It started with gift yarn for my birthday at the end of August - 100g of Lush Yarn 4 ply silk in 'Precious' and 125g of Socks That Rock in 'Tide Pooling' (fortunately its companion piece in 'Jade' colourway is currently being knitted up or it would be in the bowl too).

It was augmented by a visit to Tangled Yarns in Brisbane and the acquisition of 400g of Cascade 220 in a deep greeny aqua colour and 100g of Malabrigo Sock in Boticelli Red.

Along the way I was tempted by some beautiful Knitabulous 50/50 wool/silk in 'Curry' and 150g of Wollmeise in 'Hortensie'(courtesy of a so helpful enabling knitting friend).

I purposely bought 250g of bright pink Lana Gatto Jaipur cotton for a jacket for the dotee (I take responsibility for this one because it has a clear and intended outcome).

But what's really pushed this yarn acquisition over the top was the impulse on-line purchase of three 100g skeins of Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in 'Ink' (perfect name), 'Oxblood' and 'Scarlet'. I remember the motivation for the purchase - I loved this yarn when I knitted my Lichen Socks and in the euphoria of finishing the socks felt I just had to have more.

All in all, 30.5 RoseRed units (that's 50g lots to the uninitiated) of yarn acquisition in just over a month. More than a kilo and a half. I really think I'm going to have to face up to the extent of my yarn gathering. I can no longer pretend that only other people acquire yarn that they cannot immediately knit.

I promise not to feel smug about other people's yarn temptations in the future.

8 comments:

jp said...

I would never have considered the term smug - in awe perhaps, bemused or bewildered but never ever smug.

I also have to say - beautiful yarn does attract mroe beautiful yarn.

Rose Red said...

tee hee - what JP said - beautiful yarn breeds all on it's own! (also, gift yarn doesn't count as stash!!). It all looks so good there in the bowl, it'd be a bit of a shame to use it, don't you think. Or at least, if you do use it, I think it must be replaced immediately with something else!!

Bells said...

You are, most fabulously, one of the fallen now. Welcome to the stash acquisition club!

Lynne said...

Oh-la-la! A beautiful collection!

Sel and Poivre said...

I like to think of phases of yarn "aquisition" as waves - just as on water, each wave, generally being followed by a dip before the next wave rises up - if this runs in direct opposition to the waves and dips in my knitting it all evens out to smooth sailing! Where's the harm in that?

DrK said...

hehe, now you have a Collection too. collections require being built upon, or they go out of date. and thank you sooo much for the mention of a sock yarn i have never heard of before and now must add to my own collection :)

Yarna said...

How wise to have a collection so fabulous on display and not languishing unadmired in a cupboard or drawer. This way you can derive pleasure from it before you start knitting and then wearing the finished object.

missfee said...

Lyn if you are going to the effort to knit with love attention and care you should knit with beautiful yarn full stop