Stash

I can't remember who told the story of shipping so much yarn that she had trouble convincing customs officials that it was her personal stash and not a shop's inventory.

Having just completed my own move with two largish plastic storage bins full of yarn, I admire those among us committed to exclusively knitting up the stash. False Entrelacs is a start, but before it's even off the needles, nine balls of Rare Yarns Company Rare Fire have made their way into my house. It's accounted for at least, for a wonderful pattern called the Rare Versatile Vest Wrap that I saw knitted up in the window of The Knitter's Workshop down the far end of Lygon Street. But guilt almost cancels out the excitement of imagining the vest knitted up.

The Great Moth Horror a couple of years back forced some painful de-stashing of the throwing-in-the-bin kind. Since then I've been much more conscious of storing yarn safely and thus am frequently confronted by how much I have. Perhaps I can rationalise things a bit by not including inherited and otherwise unidentifiable yarns in the stash total? Perhaps only yarns intended for specific projects count toward that total? And perhaps then all the rest can be called Inspiration or Potential or the ready makings of a great yarn swap.