The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

Okay, I am admitting I have problem.  Because I knit I have lots of yarn.  I am sure there are others with stash issues larger than mine, but whatever I am talking about my problem, not theirs.  Sometimes I buy yarn with projects in mind, but sometimes not.  In 2009 I made a hairpin lace wrap for my mother with 6 skeins of a cotton / acrylic blend yarn I bought in a rainbow of pastels for the project.  The DK weight yarn was 250 yards per skein.  I thought it would be just enough for a nice wrap.  The pastel colors when laid out side by side they reminded me of the marsh mellows in one of my favorite morning cereals, so I called it the "Lucky Charms Hairpin Lace Wrap."  I liked the end product and my mother seemed to like it too.  However, it left me with about a half a skein of each color or I thought about 750 yards of yarn. 

I put all the yarn in a bag and shoved it in my pie safe trying not to let it bother me that I had these half skeins just hanging out in my stash.  Most of the time I could forget they waiting in there unknitted, but occasionally it would nag at me. I would say to myself I should get that yarn out of my stash.

One day while looking at a knitting pattern book I saw just the thing for the waiting yarn, a cowl.  The design was called the "Ice Cream Cozy Cowl."  As you can guess the pattern used pastel colored yarn.  I thought that is the perfect pattern for eating up all this leftover yarn.  Now I had two things nagging me, using up the yarn and making the cowl.  Until one day I gathered the yarn, the pattern, needles and cast on.  I was convinced this cowl would relieve me of these leftovers.  Magical thinker me.

Well, that didn't happen my friend, once I was done, I still had yarn.  Lots of yarn, over 300 yards of yarn.  I guess I had more than I thought in those skeins.  Instead of just getting rid of the leftovers from the leftover yarn like a sane person might do I decided to knit a towel.  Well then I needed to knit another towel.  Still I had yarn, so in desperation I knitted a doily out of the scraps.  When done with the doily I still had about 18 inches of yarn left.  I gave myself a pass on those last inches of yarn, but I am not going to lie I kind of wished I could have used it in the doily too.

In total I knit a hairpin wrap, a cowl, 2 towels, and a doily.  I wish I could have just said no to my obsession with using up all of my yarn, but I just couldn't.  MUST knit to the last inch of yarn...At least I am admitting I have a problem.