food for thought, and a new project

A few weeks ago I discovered this blog, and a recent post (and subsequent comments) about the term "stashbusting" really got me thinking. If you read through the comments, there's a pretty interesting discussion going on. I'd never really thought about "stashbusting" as a negative term before (and I'm not sure that I do now, to tell the truth), but I've been pondering how Stash and Guilt and Consumerism and Creativity get all mixed together in a messy pile, and how that's not really a good thing.

Yesterday morning, I ventured to the basement with an assortment of odd skeins and leftover yarn to put away, and as I opened various tubs of yarn finding space and trying to keep organized, I caught myself thinking several times, "Good grief, there's a lot of yarn here." I felt guilty for a moment, because of course having a lot implies that I have too much, which means there is something wrong and I should take some kind of action to rectify it. Or that I should find some way to justify what I have.

I wonder if this is partly a gender thing that goes like this: because I'm a woman I enjoy shopping and accumulating stuff, but I'm supposed to feel guilty about it later. At least, that's how the stereotype goes. And specifically, as a knitter, I should feel guilty about having more yarn than I can knit up in the next week or month or year or two years (or whatever deadline you want to put on it) and therefore I should berate myself privately and on my blog, and joke about how my stash demonstrates how I have no self-control or discipline and then I should resolve to knit only for charity for a year to use up stash so I can allow myself to go buy more and then it all repeats. You see the vicious cycle here?

I'm not saying I'm immune to this narrative. Once upon a time I announced I'd go two years without buying yarn. That was more than two years ago and it was an epic FAIL. I remember telling my mom about it, and she laughed at me. Because she is wise and she herself has a substantial stash of quilt fabric and knows how these things go. I think it failed ultimately because putting limits on one's creativity is a stupid and useless thing to do. (I'm not talking about actual neuroses like hoarding or compulsive buying, by the way. Those are wholly different issues.) Knitting is a wonderful thing, and I should knit because I enjoy it and can make beautiful things that are often useful as well. I should not knit just for the purpose of using up yarn. Then it's a chore, and I have enough chores to do already.

You should know this about me: I am a very responsible, disciplined person. I'm also fairly organized (I think it would be a stretch to say "very" organized...) If I weren't extremely well-disciplined, I wouldn't have been able to finish a doctorate in music. If I weren't responsible, I'd be a lousy mother. If I weren't reasonably organized, the household would be in chaos, but it's not. I get things done, my kids are lovely (you know, except when they aren't, but that's cause they're kids), and I also happen to be a very creative person who knits all the time...so tell me why, exactly, I'm supposed to consider it a personal shortcoming that I have a lot of yarn?

My brief moment of guilt in the basement yesterday did result in my picking out a couple skeins of sock yarn to donate to a community center for their knitting group. That was a good feeling, actually.

What do you guys think?

Oh, yeah. And here's a peek at my new project:



It's the top third or so of a Lightweight Pullover, using, oddly enough, some of the first yarn I ever stashed, or collected, or whatever you'd like to call it. I'll expound more on that later. Right now it's time to knit.