Me and Stash: It's Complicated

At the beginning of June, after receiving my partner assignment for the fantasy theme of Geek and Nerd Swap 2014, I decided to make the Midna Mitts, based on Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts with my own charts.  I dutifully trotted off to the best yarn store in town to pick out yarns in appropriate colors.  There two lovelies came home with me:

 

There was, of course, the possibility that this would not be enough yarn to complete the mitts, but it was three days into June and I had turned out fingerless mitts in under a week.  I was certain that I would have enough time to pick up more yarn if I ran out.


Fast forward to the end of the month when I was facing a marathon weekend knitting session in order to finish and block the mitts for Monday shipping.  My little ball of black yarn was looking painfully small, and running out would mean shipping late.  I procured another ball of black yarn.  The following evening, however, I cast off the second mitt with this much yarn left:

So I was left with one untouched ball of black yarn, which I was highly unlikely to use on its own.  When the next available opportunity arose, I took yarn and receipt back to the yarn store to claim a little in-store credit.  Actually, I anticipating exchanging that little ball for several siblings.  Lana Grossa Superfein is a sportweight superwash merino, and that makes it a pretty good candidate for the Firelight vest that currently sits at number 2 in my queue on Ravelry.  I could swatch with my remaining half-used ball of blue Superfein, and exchange the untouched black skein for one in a better color, buying the extras I needed to make the vest.  This sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan.

Instead, I admired the available colors, discovered that my in-store credit will never expire, and walked out with my credit slip.  I think it had something to do with the fact that my sewing space looked like this:

and my current stash doesn't all fit in the plastic bins allotted to it.  My mother would be proud of my restraint. 

While I do have several skeins of yarn that I purchased just to have, and I don't object to the idea of a stash , I find the only type of yarn that I am not bothered to have on hand without some project idea is sock yarn, probably because everything that classifies as "sock yarn" comes already loosely associated with a set of possible patterns.  Perhaps this will change as I branch out past scarves, socks, and mitts, and into more lace and sweater-type things.  But for now, store credit is easier to store, and I have other projects to finish.

The Brotherly Binary has reached its half-way point after about two weeks' effort and comes in at 35 in/89 cm.  Now begins the march down the other side.