Falling Down

Some of you may remember that I went on a small yarn fast in February.  I did this mainly as a way of regaining some control of my purchasing, and to renew my commitments to past projects.  I did pretty well with it, too.  I didn’t buy any new yarn for the 40 days, and since then my purchases have been modest and relatively thought out.  And I’ve felt good about it, not deprived or anything.  Until now.  I don’t know what’s come over me the last few weeks, but I’ve been adding to the stash (and the project list) like nobody’s business.  The top two yarns are Socks That Rock in Blue Brick Wall and Thank Ewe sock yarn in Comet.  They are not quite as similar as they appear in the photo, the Comet is much lighter.  Now, sock yarn isn’t so bad.  Most knitters agree that it doesn’t even count as stash and is exempt from any stash busting/dieting.  Next up is the Lion Brand Wool Ease in Red Sprinkles which is already cast-on for a Knit-For-Kids sweater.  Surely yarn puchased for charity knitting doesn’t really count either, does it?  (Never mind that I probably already have plenty of yarn to make this pattern.)  OK, so far not too bad.  The Noro Silk Garden I’m planning to make a scarf with.  The pattern I have in mind will use some stash yarn in combination with the Silk Garden and will look something like these, so that purchase wasn’t too bad either.  We’ll call it a wash.  Not pictured is a few balls of dishcloth cotton that I also picked up.  This is a little worse, not because I spent very much money, or even because the planned projects (ie. dishcloths, maybe a Mason-Dixon baby kimono or two) take up very much time, but because I already own enough dishcloth cotton to knit a cloth a day until I’m a very old woman.  Or dead. Getting worse on the spectrum is the pile of Patons  Shetland Chunky that I bought completely on impulse the other day.  It was at Michaels and all arranged in lovely Fall colors and I fell hard.  In my defense, I was under the influence of the Mason-Dixon blog and the Buncha Squares afghan there (scroll down).  I can already picture myself culing up with it when the weather turns cooler.  Shetland Chunky is a nice non-luxury yarn and meets my afghan requirements (soft to the touch, containing some natural fibers, machine washable) and I’ve already started it, see:

Now, this was a bigger falling-down.  It’s a lot of yarn and a large time investment.  And I still have a bunch of WIP’s going.  But it wasn’t the worst.  The worst is the last photo up there.  Four skeins of Knit Picks Shine Worsted that I have no idea why I ordered them.  I am not a random yarn purchaser.  I hardly ever purchase yarn “just because”, I always have a project in mind.  Many times the original project never gets done, and the yarn becomes something else, but I always start with something in mind.  I have no idea what was going through my mind, what awesome thing I was thinking of knitting when I purchased these.  Is there such a thing as sleep-shopping?