Comments on: Stash Enhancement Philosophy

By: marjorie

marjorie — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 13:43:31 +0000

I think I add to my stash for several reasons. One, of course, is the reason you’ve stated. You can just imagine in your mind the beautiful sweater, shawl, or whatever, made just for you, with all the care you want to lavish on your work. Another is that you may never see that yarn again, and so you feel compelled to buy it. (I still have regrets over some yarn I’ve looked at and didn’t buy.) There is also something fantastically satisfying about just holding the unknit yarn–not just for its potential, but for its tactile and visual pleasure. I knit (and sew) so I can have the clothes I want, and not what the fashion of the day is, or what some designer with 7-foot tall skinny models wants me to wear. But I think I separate, at least a little, the reason for knitting in the first place from the pleasure of a new yarn.

By: Wanda

Wanda — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 06:23:39 +0000

I concur wholeheartedly with what Margene said. Stash gives you the idea of creativity and sets afire the light within that says create. I went to my LYS yesterday and thought later, why did I buy yarn, but it’s all the endless possibilities that make my heart sing and burn with desire for new yarn.

By: Alison

Alison — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:05:17 +0000

I think you have perfectly described why I like stashing. Sadly, I prefer knitting monogamously, which means that because I needed lots of ‘little lifts’ last year, but wasn’t knitting any faster, I have waaaay too much stashed but unstarted yarn, which has become yet another source of pressure. I’m working on reducing that amount massively – I’m knitting from my stash this year and hope to sell/donate some, too – and in the future will try only to buy for a project when I am within an ace of being able to start it. But yes – imagination humming – how well I know that feeling!

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:35:42 +0000

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Of course, the “spark” is also the reason I have so many works in progress. Once you get past the first 20-30% of the project, the spark for the next one is much more exciting then finishing the current one! Surprisingly, even though my whole work day and much of my home life (kids and their schoolwork) is about deadlines, and so you’d think I would run from MORE deadlines like the plague, I discovered during the Knitting Olympics that having deadlines for my knitting helps me get through the slough of boredom in the middle of a project. Huh. Who knew.

By: Carrie K

Carrie K — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 01:55:34 +0000

I like the potential stash stash represents too. I don’t even buy yarn for specific patterns usually, although I have.

I started to sew again when I worked in the NonStopPaperworkMines just to have something that had a beginning and an end and an actual purpose and knitting has grown out of that. Not to mention knitting is more portable.

By: Kristi aka Fiber Fool

Kristi aka Fiber Fool — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:20:11 +0000

I can totally relate to this right now. Not being up to as much of myu creative activity that I normally partake in, I splurge today on three different creativity magazines to keep me company in my down time. It is the best I’ve felt in a week or more!

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:14:38 +0000

I’m with Sarah – the thing about stash is potential. I find it very comforting to have so much potential available right in my own home.

This can make it hard to actually use something from stash, because as soon as you designate a specific project for a specific yarn, its potential becomes limited to that one thing. Up until that moment, it could have been anything at all.

The way to overcome that is to persist in creating FOs and feeling the satisfaction that comes from successfully planning a project and seeing it from start to finish. Then, hopefully, the joy of the potential can be enhanced by the thrill of anticipation.

By: heather

heather — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:39:41 +0000

I’m just possessive, I see something appealing and I just want to own it. LOL

By: jess

jess — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:22:07 +0000

I find that I like to buy stash when I don’t have the time to actually DO anything with my stash. It’s like a way to continue to stay involved in the craft and creative process even when work, life, et al. get in the way.

Which is not too different from what you say here.

Love the spinning! the colors are gorgeous!

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:16:35 +0000

I’m not a big stasher. When I buy yarn, it is with a project in mind. Sometimes the project is never realized and therefore I have a stash of yarn. So, I can’t really comment on why I stash, but I can tell you why I knit. There are many, many reasons, but one of them is because I can see the progress and when I’m done I have something tangible to show for it. In lab, most days, I start off with a small tube of clear, colorless stuff and after working with it all day, I have a tube of clear, colorless stuff. With knitting, I start with a hank of yarn and it becomes a ball of yarn and then it’s a swatch and then it’s the beginnings of a project and then it’s a work in progress that I can watch change and get bigger and then it’s a finished object and then it’s a gift or it’s something I wear. I feel a huge sense of accomplishment after I’ve been knitting, even if I’ve only been knitting a few minutes. Not so in lab.