Knitting Rules! Read Online Free Page B

curb their instincts to buy it all the time. If you were a carpenter, nobody would be surprised that you had a lot of wood. If you were a painter, we would fully expect there to be a houseful of paints. Provided that your inclination to buy yarn doesn’t exceed your ability to pay for it, you really don’t have a problem. If, however, you find yourself hocking furniture or skipping meals to get it, you may want to cut back a little.
    Stash has a tendency to multiply. This is independent of your tendency to keep buying it, so don’t bother resisting the urge.
Note:
This rule is true only of stash that’s hanging around being decorative. Once you start to knit with it, it doesn’t multiply … as any knitter who has run out of yarn a half-sleeve short of a sweater can testify.
    Really, the best way never to feel guilty about your stash is to think of yarn not as piles of recklessly purchased fiber (no matter how recklessly you purchased it) but instead as entertainment you’ve bought. By my reckoning, it’s a pretty sweet deal.
    A cheap ticket to see the musical
Les Misérables
in downtown Toronto costs about $50 (if you go alone) and lasts for three hours. That breaks down to $16.66 per hour for entertainment. A movie ticket is about $12 and if you’re lucky, it’ll be a long film. Let’s say it’s costing you $6 per hour to be entertained. My local video-rental place seems like a deal; I can get a movie for $5, which makes my cost per hour about $2.50.
    Knitting lace has the highest entertainment value. A skein of lace weight has remarkable yardage and it can take many, many, many hours of intricate work to knit up, making lace weight an unparalleled choice for frugal knitters.
    I could take this further and look at CD and DVD collections, or, without picking on anyone in particular, myhusband’s affinity for antique audio equipment, or the cost of an Alaskan cruise, but the important point is this: A ball of sock yarn (a really nice one that will make two socks) costs about $16 if I get it on sale. If, then, I start to knit it up, it’s going to take me (if I don’t do a pattern or cables or anything at all that would slow me down) about 16 hours to complete. That makes my entertainment cost a whopping one buck an hour. If I do fancy socks, it’s even more worthwhile. Let’s say I put a fussy cable down the side of my socks. Well, now, that’s going to take longer. It might take me 20 hours to knit those socks and now my entertainment is costing me just 80 cents an hour! Eighty cents? Who can feel guilty about spending 80 cents an hour when at the end of it you’ve not only scored yourself a whole pile of fun, but you also have a pair of socks?
    Nobody gives you socks at the end of a musical, even if you buy the good seats.
FINDING A PLACE FOR IT ALL
    I suffer under the delusion that I have my yarn “stored.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, all I have is my yarn — at the best of times —”contained.” Once you admit your full and decent love affair with yarnand knitting, there’ll come a time when the stash outgrows whatever box, bin, or basket you’ve been keeping it in. For me, this time came and went a long time ago … so I now have a really eclectic system.
    People often ask me my yarn-storage secrets. How I get so much yarn in such a small house without having to use it as carpet? Here’s how. I break it up, I think outside the box (literally), I consider what to do with one skein at a time, and I never say die.
    I store yarn in “the yarn closets” and in plastic bins stacked in my office. I have several bookshelves full, and boxes, bins, and baskets throughout the house. My storage needs long ago surpassed my storage possibilities, and since then I’ve been a big fan of the “nook-and-cranny” system. I put yarn above and behind books on bookshelves, in