Yarnholic Seeking to Start a Support Group

[Frew-Frew]

I suddenly feel ill. I just counted about 285 balls of yarn in my stash which doesn't count the 130 balls of novelty hubby got me on (MAJOR) sale at christmas, the 12 balls that are currently in progress (1 sweater, 1 pair of socks), and the 50 or so skeins of cheap acrylic. It also doesn't count the yarn I've begun spinning myself.

Sadly enough. hubby just bought me a $50 gift Certificate at the LYS, and I just signed up for SP8 and the One Skein swap. Plus my mom has begun buying me yarn in lieu of other gifts. They go out of town, she brings everyone shouvenirs, and brings me yarn.

I think I'm a lost cause.

Edit: I just remember the 2 balls of sock yarn I just ordered from Knitpicks.

When I die, I will bequeath my yarn stash to the Craftster Knitting board.

[funkyhooker]

Hello, my name is Crystal and I'm a yarnaholic.  ((hi Crystal)  After I swore not to buy any more yarn yesterday I could not even go 24 hours without purchasing some 1 lb bags of mill ends today at ACMoore.  (raises fist to sky)  ((((WHY?!!!))))

[atla]

Well, I just sat here and read all 24 pages of this thread.. while knitting a hat, so I didn't feel too guilty.  I'm joining up, but not really because I feel the need to reduce my stash, but because I want to better my stash.  Like, get rid of all these lone balls so that I'll have room later for enough yarn for actual projects.  And, hubby and I just wrote down a budget, and my craft budget is $50 per month.  So, the plan is to use up all the stuff I currently have, and save the $50/month until I do by not purchasing any yarn, so that by the end of this, I will be able to purchase nicer yarns for projects as they arise.  So, I guess I'm actually trying to decrease my stash and increase my ability to purchase yarn.  .. or something.

When I was on page 12 of this thread, I counted my stash.  70 balls and one huge honkin' cone of cotton chenille that I HATED.  In the course of the day, I donated a few balls and the cotton to the local senior citizens center, and I returned my latest purchase of yarn to Wal-Mart.  It was some acrylic I wanted to use to knit a blanket for my stepson, but once I started knitting with one ball of it, I realized why I don't buy acrylic.  So, now my official count in 54.. or 55, I forget.

Anyhow, photos:




1.  Handspun.  Will either be sold, or used for charity hats, scarves, etc for Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.




2.  Sock yarns.  Will probably be used for.. socks.  Some knitpicks, a little bernat, a big ball of trekking, and a hank of Lorna's Laces.




3. Works in progress.  Not sure why I stuck this right in the middle.  Anyhow, the blue cotton is a baby bib.  The scarf is a handspun Branching Out scarf.  The sock is a toe-up sock with Lorna's Laces.  The darker blue blob is the hat I've been knitting while reading this thread with Manos del Uruguay.. also for charity.




4.  Cottons.  One full skein of Bernat cottontots, and some leftovers.  Probably going to be dishcloths.




5.  Wools and the like.  Some Cascade 220, some Wool of the Andes, some leftover Lion Brand Fisherman's yarn (which I use for stitch practice.. don't ask), some leftover Manos del Uruguay, some tweedy merino/cotton/silk/crazy blend stuff, some leftover Merino Frappe.. and there's also some alpaca thrown in, whose future is undecided.  Most of this stuff will be used for hats, scarves, etc, for the indian reservation again.




So, yep, that's my stash.  Slowly dwindling.. sort of.

[likespointysticks]

(Bows, trembling, before the mighty mountains of merino that have been mentioned.)

I thought my stash was bad . . . but I have been corrected. No one has died as a result of it or been lost for days and forced to survive by eating greasy yarn.

I refuse to admit to an addiction yet. In my defense, I didn't actually accumulate most of my stash - it belongs largely to my mother, who decided to get out of knitting and into quilting (another stash-inducing craft). She handed it over before Christmas last year with a smug smile, probably figuring that she could pack most of her purchases from her last trip to Paducah into the hole it left on her shelves.

I've been tracking the size of my stash by weight since January - I have a whole page on my blog/website here: http://www.epeevirago.com/stash/

As someone mentioned, Warm Up America squares are really good for stashbusting stuff that you've come to hate - they're quickly finished and good for trying out stitches and color combinations and getting rid of odd balls. I got my SnB group involved too, with the result that we started a contest to see who could make the most squares by the end of April, prize being a $20 Jo-Ann's gift card. (I WILL win. (Steely eyes of resolve.)) I also make arm warmers and gloves, good for killing off the occasional skein. I knitted a whole square reading this thread from the beginning. 

Anyways, I feel the pain of y'all who are trying to kill off some of their stash before they buy more - I just won't admit I'm one of you yet. 

[sharc]

my name is sharc. and i am addicted to yarn. i have bought so much, and made so little. i have run out of places to hide them. I went to a sale last night and spend quite a bit on it. i plan on buying more this weekend . .. it's a salllleeee!!! 
after this, i really think i need help. i look at it, and i feel a pull at my heart when i start to imagine how much i've spent on it.
my name is sharc, and i need help.

[princessblueberry]

Ok. . .I'm a Yarnaholic and my name is princessblueberry (itentity hidden for safty purpouses  )  and this is what I look like high on yarn!



A friend called to tell me about this awsome yardsale. . .was chomping at the but to go  ut had to wait 2 hours to leave cause I was waiting for mom to get hear and the sale was 30min away. . .it was worh the wait 

Here is what I got for $49. . .


Ack 3 18 gallon tubs 2 @ $12, 1 @ $15 and all the needles for $10. 

1 tub of woolease & decor wool acrlic mic, 1 tub baby yarns, 1 tub cotton. . .

LOL, normaly I crochet but with all these needles I need to learn to knit! 

Here it my needle roll before:


And After:


The round ones did not fit

On the recovery side I've set duplicate needles aside and will be paring them with yarn for an auction coming up. . .

[Jejune]

I'm halfway in.  (I do need to buy some yarn for a couple of planned Christmas gifts, but other than that, I am going on a yarn diet.)  I just found myself buying Rowan linen drape because it's discontinued, and the price was so great, and where will I get more?  Only I was only able to get three skeins, and that's not enough to knit the sweater I wanted, and it amounts to money thrown away unless I can come up with something good.  So I've got a problem, and I need to get through my stash.  I've inherited huge amounts of yarn, and people I know who end up with extra yarn give it to me.  Some of it is never going to be used, and some of it is beautiful but not really my taste.  I need to plow through it so that if I do buy more, it can be yarn I want for specific projects. 

So stash busting it is this summer.  I just counted, and including both partial skeins and full ones, including a couple of really big skeins, I have 105 skeins in my yarn cabinet.  That's not counting the three linen drape skeins I ordered, or the tangled yarn in a sack upstairs.  Holy moo!  I actually thought I had considerably less than that.  Now, mind you, much of this is yarn that I was given, and much of it is partially used, but sheesh! 

The good news is that I have plans for a lot of it.  I'm working on a stash busting baby gift currently, and I just made a really cute dress bodice for my daughter out of the remains of a skein from another project.  I'm making my husband fingerless gloves for his birthday, and they're eating up a few partial skeins.  I've planned a good number of Christmas gifts around existing stash.  So there is hope yet.  And I want that room, because my dad bought me every single knitting book I'd been wanting, and now I have a ton of projects I want to get to.  Does hoarding knitting books make one a bad person?  I've got a dozen or more now. 

[knits_with_animals]

I'm in but with a qualifier: I need to pick up 1 more skein for my One Skein Pal.  Our tastes are not exactly on par and I want to give her something with enough yardage to do something with it.  I have *ahem* 4 rubber maid totes (I'm talking big), a 2 drawer storage unit, and a tall dresser (old-fashioned kind used for lingerie) full.  I also forgot about my assorted bags and baskets hanging out in my room.  My husband is a computer geek and notorious pack rat so he turns a blind eye to my stuff.  He knows there is no room to through stones (literally and figuratively). I'm currently using up odds and ends of dish cloth cotton to make (what else?) dishclothes to donate for a fundraising craft fair for our local VA hospital.  I've resolved to give away some of my baby yarn to my fellow guild members to make baby sweaters to donate.  As a side note I have yarn that dates back to 1986 (bulky grey and blue wool from Israel).  I don't think I want to know what that says about me.

[m*babylon]

back when this thread first started, i thought i was "in."  i even took a picture of my stash and got it all ready, then promptly fell off the wagon.

i'm back in, after realizing that i actually do have a problem (although the problem is more of an impulse-shopping/emotional reaction than specifically yarn-related.)

blogging my trials and hopefully my triumphs at http://icypurl.blogspot.com
come support me! =]
a*

[amey]

back when this thread first started, i thought i was "in."  i even took a picture of my stash and got it all ready, then promptly fell off the wagon.

i'm back in, after realizing that i actually do have a problem (although the problem is more of an impulse-shopping/emotional reaction than specifically yarn-related.)

blogging my trials and hopefully my triumphs at http://icypurl.blogspot.com
come support me! =] a*

Gosh.  I am so completely there with you.  And I had held off on several things: no new sock yarn until I'd knitted up what I had (and then last month I fell on an Opal sale, and I'd never tried it), no new co-op yarn because I just didn't need it (and then I decided I wanted to knit a rainbow vest and I didn't have the right colors and as the co-op hostess the yarn was coming to my house anyway, so...), and I didn't need to buy ANY sale yarn, because a good sale will always come along again (but I had all this paypal and I did always want to try xyz...). 

So, I'm trying to get back on.  I need to do another inventory.  I need to get back on the wagon.  Or however it's phrased.  I need to stop reading For Sale posts anywhere because they just lure me in.  I need to sell some yarn I just don't like (those freebie balls of Disco - anyone want them??).  And, I need to spend a little less time on the computer and more time knitting so as to burn thru more of this. 

Oh give me strength.

~amey (knittingsheeple.liv ejournal.com)