Don't Be Jealous - You Have Money

Ah yes. Another intriguing title from She Whom is Obscure. It will be explained in a minute.

Do I ever have yarny goodness for you today! Hang on to your recliners. Here we go!





These beauties are from One & Only in "Biarritz" (this dyer will be selling her yarn through my store), Bluestocking Yarns in "Sea Change" (I hope this dyer will work with me; she gets her inspiration from literature, this one being from Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), Digi-Tech in "Rainbow", and Digi-Tech in "Electric Mint". Those last two skeins are a bit of a mystery. I don't remember ordering them. I can't find where I bought them, so I went to the dyer's website and got the information on the skeins there. If you're the dyer, please drop me a line and tell me where I bought it! It's really hell to be getting old and senile. By the way, those skeins in question are Peruvian wool; they're a bit different than the usual sock yarn.





Here we have Madelinetosh in "Kale", Liisu Yarns in "Persian Lilac" (this one is the 75/25 Merino/Mohair blend), and Madelinetosh in "Maple Leaf" (this one is going to make some killer lace socks - the colorway is incredible).





Finally, we have Dream in Color Smooshy in "Cloud Jungle", Das Schneeschaf MeriLin in "Lunelle", and Liisu Yarns in "Chestnuts Roasting" (the same blend as above).

I want to say a word about the Das Schneeschaf. This yarn is a blend of 80% Merino/20% Linen and is airbrushed. The outcome is beyond description. I thought the linen might make the yarn scratchy or a bit stiff; nothing could be farther from the truth. It's soft and silky, and the airbrushing puts a whole new light on coloring.

I'll be reviewing some of these yarns, as well as some from yesterday's post, on my Yarn Review site this Monday night. Monday is prison day, so we'll be leaving tomorrow for Folsom. I won't have the time to devote to the reviews tonight, so Monday it is. I also won't be posting tomorrow night.

I've been getting a lot of letters about my last post - the one where I shared all the Woolly Boully skeins. People are jealous; people want them; people love them; people want to know how I got ahold of them; people want to know how much I paid for them. Well, I'll say this much: you have a lot more money than I do. This has been a sticking point in my household for quite a while now. Hubster understands the concept of stash, but his idea of stash is a couple of skeins for my next pair of socks. He doesn't understand why I have to have over 1,000 skeins of yarn (and the number is quite a bit higher than that). I even look at it sometimes and wonder why I've spent so many thousands of dollars on it. After a lot of thinking, I've come up with some reasons.

The main reason is that it makes me happy. I don't buy clothes; in fact, I've got shorts and tops from the 1980's. No lie. I have underwear older than my daughter. So I spend the money I would have spent on clothes on yarn instead. Clothes don't make me happy; yarn does.

I also derive a lot of comfort from looking at them, fondling them, smelling them, just being around them. They're a ray of sunshine in a life that is frequently full of pain so severe that I can't get out of the chair without assistance, a depression so black that I sometimes wonder if I'll ever see a pinpoint of light, despair over the situation of my granddaughters. I've tried to curb my buying and fail every time. If I try to buy a skein a day or less, you can bet I'll see a club I want to join, a luscious skein that I can't live without, a notion or gadget that I need. And that's the operative word. Need.

I NEED my stash. I'd go nuts without it. It's the one concrete, truly happy thing I have at this point in my life.

That's part of the reason I'm starting my store (I'm still waiting for those letters from you dyers and notions people). It will give me a purpose. It will allow me to help other people get their businesses off the ground. It will help supplement my family's income (eventually). It will fill a void in my soul. I try to do things that help - the prison work (which is extremely satisfying); buying from new dyers to help them get a start; giving of my time and yarn to help in swaps where people have been abandoned by their partners; writing the reviews so others may buy yarn without fear, since yarn is such a tactile thing; and any number of other things. But the store is my guiding light right now. December will be filled with activity getting it ready. I'm hoping to open in January. But it will allow me to play with yarn, see people's work, make others happy by providing a service where they can find unique yarns and supplies that they might not otherwise find. It's a good thing. It will help all around.

So my house-buying fund isn't growing as fast as we'd like; however, I have a roof over my head, food on my table, enough money to buy yarn and do things with Hubster, and that doesn't sound all that bad to me. The store won't provide me with money for a while, since the profits will be rolled right back into the business. But that's okay. I've learned that the only person who can help me is me, and that's what I'm doing. The stash is something that I need. Hubster suggested that I stock the store with my stash.

Silly man.