stash

This photo is of some stuffed birds on display at the Horniman museum. It has nothing to do with knitting, except that these birds are "red faced love birds" and I'm feeling a bit red faced. About the thing most knitters feel embarrassed about, my stash.

But in a moment of productivity (or was it procrastination, I have a pile of marking sitting next to me...) I joined stashalong.

Still, I'm not about to stand up and say "My name is Alice, and I have a yarn problem". Not because I'm in denial. Much. I've seen the flashes of stashes, I'm not that bad, but my box of yarn does bug me.

My stash can be characterised into three groups:

• Leftovers - balls, or rather almost-balls, leftover from projects or ideas that didn't work out. These are the most annoying.


• Gifts - I love the challenge of getting yarn from someone and having to work out what to do with it, but they do sit in your stash till inspiration hits.


• Jumpers - I blame cucumberpatch and their great deals. Plus, I frogged the first jumper I ever made, so have a jumper's worth of red matchmaker dk too.

There is also a fair amount of sockyarn, but that doesn't count. Well, not so much. Ahem. It's only five actual pairs of "unassembled socks", with maybe a pair or two's worth of leftovers which could be turned into stripy socks.

I've signed up for three whole months of no yarn buying. Which includes no sock yarn. I'm allowed a day off a month, but that's way more than I need (as I said, I don't really have a "yarn problem"). I might buy some boy-coloured sock yarn for a few gift celebrations I have this term (e.g. father's day). But that's it.

Ideas include blankets and toys for odd bits, plus learning to crochet. First step includes clearing some of my bead stash too, so I'll post a beaded icord tutorial sunday/ monday when I've sorted my camera.