Nothing Beats a Dare

I made a great many resolutions for the new year and then decided instead of trying to tackle them all at once I would take them on one at a time, accomplish the task and then move on to the next.
It's not a bad plan, really, not that I cannot multi-task because I can, but that it was self motivation and satisfying. Besides, the way humans work, OK the way this human works is that slipping on one resolution could bring the rest tumbling down. Better to hit one, knock it out and move on. At least that's what I'm telling myself. The first resolution I selected from among more than a dozen was to eliminate the stash. I told you guys this before. Not to decrease the stash, but to eliminate it. Make it gone. The ideal stash for me will be to have yarn for just three projects.

It seems simple enough however seeing pictures of my stash, we all know this is Herculean. So, how's the plan going as we leave January and have only eleven more months to accomplish the task?

I dunno.

I've made more than a dozen prayer shawls which comes to 36 skeins of yarn that are gone. But that's hardly a dent - especially since some of the yarn was purchased at the end of the year. My office is a stash forest of bags and trunks of yarn. However, downstairs, boxes are now half full so I actually emptied out a box by combining contents.

But we all know yarn breeds when left alone in the dark. Strange thing, though, when two skeins of, say, Homespun breed, they create four skeins of 'I Love This Yarn' in green. Don't know how it manages to do that but I have proof.

Of course the key to stash reduction is the same as the key to weight reduction (another resolution somewhere on the list) Take in less and use up more. Which translated for knit speak is: less shopping, more knitting. I can actually accomplish this. I was in a store recently and walked out without purchasing one skein of yarn - of course it was the hardware store. I'm, kidding, it was Hobby Lobby. I will be making a trip some time today to a yarn place to purchase a Tunisian crochet hook and the skeins to complete the dreaded shawl and figure if I purchase too much, I will fringe the shawl with the remainder thus not adding to the stash by default.

I'm clever like that.