Read Online Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee - Free Book Online

scaring the crap out of me. I was feeling as if I had personality traits that I didn’t think of myself as possessing. This was the work-in-progress pile of a fickle, fickle woman. A heartless, spontaneous, wanton knitter who didn’t mind trashing a project on a whim. A woman who cared nothing for staying power, getting things done, or following through. It was also the pile of a woman who apparently didn’t think that there was anything wrong with buying as many knitting needles as it took to fill this urge, no matter how much this made her look like she had a porcupine fetish. Also (as I looked over the variety of things I had rejected or abandoned) I was either a person who really loved diversity or had a split personality. Wool, cotton, silk, lace, cables—I had forsaken them all at some point. I was clearly an equal-opportunity nonfinisher.
    This was disappointing. All these were projects that at somemoment in my past, I adored. For each and every one of them there was that magic moment when I loved it (or the idea of it) so much that I trashed everything else I was knitting. My knitterly heart may be fickle, but it’s open. All of these yarns and projects were, at one time, my very favorite. They deserved more respect than this. Even the crappy acrylic could be better loved by another knitter than serving as box stuffing. The hat could be ripped back, reclaiming the yarn that I loved.
    Okay, I told myself, I’m taking control. Today I tossed out a yarn catalog without even looking (much). I’m going to duct-tape shut my stash boxes and maybe put them in the attic with a drop cloth over them with some sort of electric field going on to try and make it harder to start new things. I am going to change my ways. I will begin with pile one today, and I will not cast on anything new until I’ve dealt with half of the total works in progress. I am freeing up space and opening the door to knitting hope again. I am not going to let the yarn down again. I will try to do better.
    I had no idea I had so many size-four needles.

Nothing in My Stash
    T here is nothing in my stash. Despite my having … well … let’s just leave it at a
lot
of yarn, nonetheless there is nothing to knit in my stash.
    I’m a logical woman. I understand that I live on a planet with basic scientific laws about mass, space, and volume. I believe that these laws are true. If my stash really takes up this much space and yet contains nothing, there must be a black hole in my own home. Perhaps I should let NASA know about this.
    I begin the delicate art of stash examination. I take my stash out of its boxes, its bins, its bags, its cupboards, its drawers, and its hidey-holes. When I have it all out, I come to two conclusions. As expected, I have a lot of yarn. As I suspected, there is nothing to knit in the stash.
    I stand back, surveying the stash, and say aloud, “I have nothing to knit.” This simple sentence gets my husband’s immediate attention. “Sorry.
What
did you say?” The look on his face is beyond description. “You think you have no yarn?” He isclearly incredulous. I can see his point. A woman standing hip-deep in yarn who says she has nothing to knit might need some kind of professional help.
    Here’s how I explain it to him. Stash isn’t just stash; it has distinct components that affect its knitability. My stash consists of the following:
Core stash. This is yarn that to be completely honest, I am likely never going to knit. It is discontinued yarn that is too rare to knit. It is yarn that is too expensive and is too special to knit, or it is yarn that is so beautiful that I am not worthy of it. In my Core Stash is some of the Patons Ballybrae that they don’t make anymore in a color so perfect for me that when we met I knew it was kismet. There is Irish Aran wool, the real stuff, soft, thick, and perfectly cream. There is the lace-weight Shetland that is far better as an imaginary shawl; my real knitting could never match