Hello! Today it’s all about yarn – a subject that I’m fairly sure will speak to all of you knitters out there.
“Yarn is essential to us as paint is to the artist, flour to the baker, soil to the gardener. We can improvise on most of the tools, tying string into a stitch marker, sanding down a bamboo chopstick in a pinch. But without yarn, our hands are idle.”
– Clara Parkes in A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn (New York: Abrams, 2017, p.7)
I am slowly sifting through my yarns, petting and organizing them. Here are some of them. Organic everyday yarn on my needles…
Traditional Norwegian yarn with a plan…
Yarn dyed by a dyer living nearby, purchased recently without a plan (something I rarely do anymore)…
Merino singles yarn in four shades of blue for which a plan is beginning to form – a gift from one of my best friends dyed by herself…
Ordinary sock yarn for two pairs of everyday socks for my beloved everyday companion…
Luxurious cashmere yarn, very affordable if you buy mill ends (leftovers), that has lived under our roof for over a decade and I hope to knit up into a luscious lace shawl someday…
Golden brown sock yarn made with a very humble fibre…
Yarn worth its weight in gold if you count the hours it’s taken me to make it – mohair from a local goat breeder that I washed, combed and carded, blended on my drum carder together with some merino and silk someone didn’t want anymore, and then spun and plied. To dye or not to dye, that is the question…
I do have (considerably) more yarn than this, but maybe not quite as much as Kay Gardiner, who calls herself a minimalist and writes about her yarn: “Yarn to the rafters. Yarn in my closet. Yarn in everyone else’s closet. Yarn in the enamel-over-steel covered roasting pan that only gets used at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Shopping bags of yarn that I have to step over every night to draw the blinds in my bedroom.”
– Kay Gardiner, “The Minimalist Speaks”, p. 57 in the same book as above.
The essays in A Stash of one’s Own are fun and often thought-provoking. Here is one last quote: “… I’ve learned that not all collections are created equal. There are acceptable things to collect and those that are less so. […] It’s been my experience that a bountiful yarn stash is perceived as a distinct indication you are slightly nutty and lack restraint.” Anna Maltz, “Morning Yarn / Portable Stories”, p. 81.
Nutty or not, I treasure my yarn collection. To me, it is beautiful, comforting and inspiring in and of itself.
I love my little yarn collection too! My stash also has a couple assorted skeins and hanks that are there being lovely with no specific project in mind 😊 The set of 4 blues in your photos are just GORGEOUS! Thanks for sharing!
Ah, another yarn lover and collector – how lovely. Maybe those assorted skeins will be knit up into something in the end, or maybe it’s enough to enjoy them as they are. Thank you for telling me about your stash/collection!