I thought today would be a good day to talk about the dangers of knitting and crocheting. I am not talking about what happens when you go for that second glass of wine while knitting a lace shawl. And I am not talking about the dangers of losing a needle in the couch and then finding it when you sit on it. (I seriously have a friend who had to PULL a needle out of her leg. NOT. JOKING.) And I am not talking about the economic impact on you and the people around you. (Do you know how long a person can knit one ball of sock yarn? Verses... say.. going to a movie? Sock yarn wins thank you very much!)
Nope. Today I want to talk about SABLE: Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy. Now I am personally PRO-Sable. I think ...nay... I KNOW the person with the most yarn wins. The problem that comes with massive yarn acquisition is where do you put the yarn? We would all love to have our yarn contained and categorized like we had our own little yarn shop, but the reality is yarn gets away from us.
It starts our rather innocently. You think - nobody will notice these two little skeins of yarn here on the DVD cabinet. They kind of blend in with all the bold colors of the DVD cases and the yarn is so PRETTY!
Pretty soon you convince yourself that you can put yarn on display in the china cabinet as long as you only use yarn that matches the dishes. It's artistic! It's a creative display! Maybe even all your yarn friends will think this is really clever and will do it too! (You already know all your non-knitting/hooker friends will just roll there eyes at you on this one - they just don't get it.) You could be a trend setter like that Hildi chick who glued Straw to people's walls on Trading Spaces! Although, thinking back, people pretty much broke out in tears when they found out Hildi was going to be "designing" in their home. But hey - it's looking good. You have fun kind of arranging it all "ironic" and fun. Bonus that your husband doesn't notice it for months and maybe never would have if your knitting friend didn't suggest in front of him that you knit mittens out of the yarn in the China cabinet.
And then we have the closets. They start getting a little... uncomfortable. You start off being all "I am organized and I have my yarn in bins and totes!" But then there was the time you barely beat your husband home from a little yarn spree and you had to kind of ditch the yarn in your closet. And then you realized you had a lot of stray balls of half used acrylic so you needed to put those in another bag and they wouldn't fit in a tote so they kind of have to sit on the floor. And there are the projects you have organized and all ready to go - but you have to finish some of your other WIPS first, so you stuff them in the closet until you are ready for them. My point is that closets like this just sort of happen. You are fine until you can't close the door as far as I am concerned.
Now this one is a little iffy. I think if you are a single person you could probably get away with Medicine Cabinet Stashing. Watch out for that toothpaste though. I hate to think what the Whitening Toothpaste would do to that rich red Cascade yarn.
And my final shot - Which I think is quite clever and daring, is Fridge Stashing. Now, if you have a mate who doesn't eat lettuce I think you could totally get away with this. This Cascade Yarn Eco + looks so much like lettuce it's crazy! Make sure to clean the drawer out first of course. And if you want to be really sneaky about it you could ball some of that red cascade up and it would look like tomatoes.
Of course some of us are loud and proud of are yarn stash. There is no sneaking around or hiding our insane fiber addiction. But I can remember when I just started out collecting my stash. It multiplies faster than bunnies on Viagra and you just have no idea it's going to happen that fast! So take these as suggestions. If nothing else - it will desensitize the people around you to the yarn and pretty soon they will just expect to open their sweater drawer and find it half full of Malabrigo.
