Last week I was on my own, close to Romni Wools with an hour to kill. It was in the middle of a very long, very cold day of back to back to back appointments downtown. I had a miserable cold and all I wanted to do was get a hot mug of tea and sit and knit. Unfortunately I had left my knitting at home so I tried the next best thing at my disposal, go to Romni and revel among the yarn for a while. (FYI if you've never been there - Romni is huge and crammed with beautiful yarn!)
Not only had I no knitting with me, I was also without my knitting notebook with my list of yarns to research. I didn't even have a knitting magazine to provide creative fodder. I always have one if not all those things with me when I visit a yarn store so I felt a bit adrift as I wandered through the stacks and rows and walls of shelves groaning with yarn. ( But then I realized just the yarn alone wasn't enough for me. I was sulky because I wanted my wool and my projects already in progress and in queue.
Then suddenly I realized..."this means...I don't love yarn?!? Not for its own sake, divorced from project or plans. I find yarn interesting but that's it. The rejenerative and curative and comforting and inspiring properties I have always believed it to have for me are contingent upon being connected to my plans for it and activities with it.
I tried to put it out of my mind, 'tried harder to find the yarn I was surrounded by to be compelling. But the feeling wouldn't go away. I knew I'd just stumbled on to a true and accurate realization about myself.
I left the store feeling like I'd lost something I'd cherished for a very long time.
Many hours and two business functions later that evening I settled in to watch the Olympics with my own yarn to work on my own project and I felt that magical feeling of "ahhhhhh this makes me feel better! This makes me feel good!". The way I thought I'd feel at Romni just being near the yarn. So the magic isn't gone ... it was never really there in the first place!
For me, it isn't in the ball or skein. The magic is in what I can do with it. For me,the magic isn't in "Yarn", the magic is in My Yarn or what is about to be my yarn when I'm shopping in a yarn store!
'"Mystery" solved as to why I don't seem to enjoy having a stash!
7 comments:
Hey, think of it this way: you're not going to wind up with a stash that looks like Romni Wools! So many of us buy yarn because it's pretty with no project in mind whatsoever. If you HAVE to connect the yarn with a project I think that's a big plus!
I wish I could be like that. I have so much yarn that I look at and think "why?" I don't often walk out of Romni or other yarn stores empty handed.
THat's really insightful. I often feel like I don't have "enough" stash yarn, and as a spinner I can appreciate yarn for it on it's own, but I really am happiest with yarn when I have the *right* amount for the *proper* project. Maybe the key to crafty contentment is the marriage of all the ingredients? I'll have to give this a think, thanks!
I've become that way over the past few years. I rarely buy yarn without a project in mind, save for sock yarn, which of course, automatically has a project in mind!
Hmmm. This is very thought provoking. I reminds me of a friend, a fabulous cook, who says her five favourite words are "I have all the ingredients." What good are they wihtout a recipe in mind?
I wonder if I am of the same vein? I love shopping for yarn when I have a vision of what I want to make. But just browsing for browsing sake...I get bored.
I've noticed the same thing about me! Maybe because my budget is so limited that I don't buy yarn except when I have a project in mind, I stress out a *lot* when I'm in a yarn store purposelessly. Although I could use more of a sock yarn stash (say 2 or 3 skeins) so that I don't have emergencies where I simply run out of yarn, period. Luckily that hasn't happened quite yet, though I was scared for a bit...
Post a Comment