Day 30 - In Which I Am A Child

After the mad rush to finish projects this weekend, and with an upcoming trip to Disneyland involving a plane trip & standing in some long lines, I decided to cast on the Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi shawl as a good portable project. It's a circular shawl based on the geometric principle of pi, and can be as simple or as complicated as one wishes to make it--the shawl I mean. Pi can get pretty complicated when you get right down to it..

I have been thinking about this for several days, and decided it would be a great chance to use a variegated lace yarn. Variegated yarns are sort of like summer hats--they look great at the time, but one never knows exactly what to do with them later. If you use them for shawls and scarves, the changes in color can detract from the lace pattern you may be using. But, like hats, they look fabulous in the store and I am convinced to buy them, only to have them take up permanent residence in the back of my closet.

Probably a year ago, I bought a colorful yarn that I absolutely loved from Knitpicks. It's bright purples & pinks & turquoise and I even had a shawl in mind when ordering--which doesn't happen very often. Of course, as the shawl I picked out involves a very detailed pattern, the yarn didn't look good and I frogged (ripped) it out. So, last night I dug out the yarn--marveling again at how much I love the color--and then it hit me.

If I use this yarn for a project, I won't have it in the stash any more.

A very sobering thought, for even though I haven't done anything with it, and rarely even see it, I know I have it. Even if the shawl doesn't use all I have, I won't have as much as I have now.

This was a problem.

Part of what leads to SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy) is the knitter's secret belief that while there may always be yarn, there may not always be THIS PARTICULAR yarn, and there is, of course, no guarantee that there will always be yarn AS GOOD AS this yarn--hence the knitterly compulsion to hoard. Knitted objects we are willing to share, but yarn itself....that's a bit of a different story.

Then I remembered--THE SPENDING BAN IS ALMOST OVER!!! I can order more of the same yarn!!! This was such a relief that I actually went on line to see if the yarn was still in stock and to move some to my shopping cart in preparation for Thursday....and then that little voice of reason piped up,

"Are you out of your mind?!!" (my little voice of reason is often quite loud)

As my little voice was perhaps trying to remind me, I already have FAR more yarn than I am willing to admit to on this blog, and this is one of the few projects that might look good with this yarn. Not to mention, there was the thought of standing in front of Andy Thursday night, with my broken glasses dangling off my nose, that after a month of no spending, explaining that the thing I really needed most was yarn. Pride may goeth before a fall, but it does sometimes keep you from making a colossal fool of yourself in front of your spouse.

And the Pi shawl is begun.....