Yarn Explosion

Last year I added Knit Meter to my blog to record how much I knitted and crocheted. Also, I kept a total of balls of yarn in and balls of yarn out as I was trying to use up my stash. This year I added meters in as this seemed a better comparison of my stash (hopefully) reducing. For example, I could knit up a skein of lace yarn at 1000 metres and buy a ball of bulky yarn at 70 metres. The difference between in and out would remain the same but the actual amount to be knitted would go down.

The year was going well, even after the purchases on the yarn crawl both the metres out and balls out exceeded the in numbers. That all changed this month when I need yarn to make a baby blanket and it coincided with Michael's yarn sale. Some of the yarn was more than 50% off, meaning that I could not reproduce the price with a coupon. I purchased all the yarn I needed for the blanket (I think, more on that later) plus I bought enough yarn for the monthly challenges in Operation Gratitude.

Having done that I wouldn't say there was no stopping me but more yarn purchasing occurred. I had to take my husband to the airport so on the way back I stopped in at a store that I knew sold locally dyed yarn as I wanted a yarny gift and saw bulky yarn that I thought would make a great hat. (The good news is that the hat has been knitted and every centimetre used, so that at least is zero gain.)

Then a friend wanted to visit a yarn store a bit further north because the Yarnover Truck would be there. All I can say is that yarn fumes given off in the confined space made me make some strange decisions. I wanted to get some striping yarn to make a hat. They had some wonderfully soft yarn, merino/cashmere/nylon, in a great mix of colours but light fingering weight. The softness and colour were so right that I convinced myself that I would knit a hat in fingering weight yarn. This is so not going to happen but having decided I was going to knit a stipey hat I purchased some more yarn at a local store. A hat has been made but the whole ball was not used. So for this hat there will be 2 balls in and no balls out.

So instead of decreasing, my yarn supply is going in the other direction.