Too much yarn for my house, not enough yarn for my office: A life lesson

Six months ago I thought I had too much yarn. You can laugh. It’s fine. 

Not TOO MUCH YARN as in “I don’t want any more yarn” (because that will never happen). I just had more yarn than room in my house. There was yarn in the hall and bedroom closets, in totes under the beds, in the drawers in the buffet (really), and tucked away in all the nooks and crannies of my house. “Where’s the flashlight?” my husband asked.  I shrugged. “I moved the emergency supplies to make room for yarn.”  (I didn’t feel as bad about this as you might think.)

But okay, we were drowning in yarn.

I mean, how bad can it be? Yarn is glorious, and more yarn is just more to love. But if someone cuts their finger, we may have to resort to worsted weight dishcloth cotton to stop the bleeding. Who has room for Band-Aids when you could fill the cupboard with yarn?

We all know this didn’t come on suddenly; I just didn’t want to say it out loud to anyone. Because if you admit you have a problem, then I think that means you’re supposed to do something about it. Gross. No thank you. I love yarn and I will always want more of it. 

But. 

When you have so much yarn that you can’t find it (and don’t know what you have), that’s problematic. I would often spend an afternoon digging through totes and buckets and baskets and drawers and closets of yarn, and still not be able to find THE ONE I needed. So I’d order more, because obviously. 

I spent the first week of the New Year journaling my deep feelings about not buying yarn for a year. Ridiculous? Maybe. But let’s just admit it: yarn = feelings. And, in all honesty, I did make one order of yarn for someone else (which was kind of cheating, except that it went to someone else’s house and not mine). It felt good to order it, even though it wasn’t for me. Shh. There, now. Let’s not get picky about the details. 

To make a long story short, all of this seemed like a great idea until I moved out of my living-room-turned-home-office with my desk crammed in a corner behind the couch (my Knit Campers can attest to this), and into a proper, official studio. With yarn shelves! Space! A giant window! All to myself!

I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe I thought I literally DID have enough yarn to fill a yarn shop. We all think that, don’t we? But the truth is, I can fit a LOT more yarn in the studio than I can fit in my house. Now all of a sudden, there’s room for more yarn. 

Well, crap.

Of all the temptations I had planned for (sales! new yarns! new colors! new projects that call for something I don’t have!), I had not anticipated that the one thing that might do me in was having more space. Of all things.

I’m staying strong, but yeesh.

So far the Year Without (New) Yarn has led me to an entirely new way of thinking about my stash (no need to remind me that it’s only February – I am well aware). I still have a long way to go, I know that. But I can tell the tectonic plates of my fiber psyche are shifting.  Instead of zipping through my stash with a cursory glance before I default to something new, I take the time to think about what I have and how I can use it. If you can imagine looking at your yarn collection through new glasses – it’s kind of like that. Don’t worry, I’m taking notes. I’ll leave no stone unturned. I’ll do the work so you don’t have to. 

Basically, my stash and I are getting to know each other again; we’re having our second honeymoon. And it’s both harder – and not as hard – as I thought it would be. Kind of like life, I guess? So far so good.

xx, M