Great Beginnings

I'm a yarn-aholic. I love everything about the crafts of knitting and crocheting: the colors of the yarn wound into hanks, the feel of it as it slides through my fingers and onto my needles, the math involved in charting patterns and sizing garments, seeing how a blanket or a stuffed animal I made as a baby gift is loved over the years. I love teaching people to knit and crochet; I love watching their eyes light up when they finally understand the long-tail cast on or how a purl stitch differs from a knit stitch, or how to build height with double crochets. I love talking about yarn and how 100% cotton grows, or how silk makes a drapey fabric, or how alpaca always has such a subtle halo, or what a workhorse merino is.

After a challenging pregnancy, baby N2 joined her 6 year old sister N1 in November 2012. I decided to leave my job for a year to stay home with her. While I'm relishing the time I have with both my girls, not working means less disposable income for little treats like yarn. So I committed that I would knit only from my stash for all of 2013. Really, I'm going to do it. A real yarn diet! Then I thought I'd write it all down to remind myself what I can do with random string and a couple of sticks without spending any money!

I'm not necessarily an impulse yarn-buyer. I like to have a project in mind when I make a yarn purchase. However, I can't pass up a good sale--a trait I got from my mom, an epic bargain shopper. So my stash is pretty extensive. Not as extensive as others I know (and they know who they are), though...but I digress.

There are oddballs that I picked up at my local yarn shop (LYS) or online because I liked the colorway:

There are leftovers from other projects because I bought some extra "just in case" skeins.

There are skeins I inherited from other people's stashes because they couldn't come up with a project for them.

There are whole projects' worth of skeins I bought because they were discontinued or just marked down to bargain basement prices:

There are fine quality artisan yarns and craft-store acrylic:

Handspun from local fibers:

There's yarn I dyed myself with Kool-Aid:

Skeins with no ball bands so I have no idea what they are!

And every weight from cobweb lace to extra bulky:

Are you ready to see the whole stash? Are you sure? Well, here it is, in all it's merino-y, alpaca-y, cotton-y, acrylic-y, self-striping, variegated, semi-solid glory:

I have no idea if anyone is going to read this (besides my mom). I don't think I can ever write as well or as cleverly, nor be as good a photographer as my dear friend Andi. And I'm really bad at keeping up on other people's blogs out there in knitblog-land, but I'm going to try harder. I'm not a tech wiz, so this might look a little rough for a while. But I hope I can entertain and inspire someone along the way, even if it's only myself.

So, here goes. Wish me luck.