I'm glad I don't know

The other day I found a Ravelry thread about how much people spend a year on stash. Some of the numbers were just unreal -- FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?! There was more than one woman claiming totals close to that.

I don't know what I spend on yarn a year, but it's a whole lot less than that. I agree with the lady who said it was like knowing how many carlories are in a bag of cookies -- some things just shouldn't be known. Whatever I've spent on yarn the past few years, it was within our means and budget and that's all I have to be absolutely sure of.

Some things are fun to figure out, like how many skeins of yarn I do have in the stash (hovering right around 700), or what I could knit with that yarn. I sat down with a printout of my Ravelry stash and came up with a partial list:

82 pairs of socks
14 laceweight projects
25 toddler/kid sweaters
10 sweaters for myself
10 summer tops for myself

I could see myself getting through the sweaters and tops and lace...and the sock yarn doesn't have to be socks...

And out of curiousity, I decided to figure out about how much I spent on the yarn I actually knit up last year. It came up to about $300. So did the yarn I used in 2006. So I can justify spending at least that much a year -- as long as I conveniently forget that I've already got 10 years worth sitting here.

And while I was watching the kids watch The Blob, I decided to pull together the new sock yarn from Elann with the rest of my solid sock yarn and lace weight and put them in the hat boxes Grandma got me for Christmas. I used all four had to go out to the sewing room to find another hat box, then thought about taking back the one I just gave Alex for her new calligraphy stuff.



This is so much better than the Zip Lock big bag the sock yarn was in before! The matching skeins are all next to each other and I can see what I've got without spreading it all over the floor.