Resistance may or may not be futile.

Back about a month or so ago, Glenna, Steph and (blogless) Kim and I took a trip up to Cloth & Clay to shop at their store closing sale, and I realize I’ve never blogged about it. And I should because (a) it was a wonderful store and we were practically weeping in front of our computer screens when we heard, (b) we got some pretty nifty stuff, and (c) in the interest of full stash disclosure, I should fess up to some purchases that I still have not been able to wrap my head around.

(Although before I get on with the fessing up, let me just link to the Flickr pool for the Sock Scavenger Hunt, especially for the ones with The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie and Margaret Atwood. Sock pictures are srs bzness! I am but a greenhorn. I am still very impressed that the ladies who won got the mounted police officer. That’s truly fearless, I was intimidated enough when the Tim Horton’s manager blew me off.)

So, somehow, in the few short months between the holidays and now, I have managed to make some very unwise choices that have derailed stash containment. Keeping company with enablers like the aforementioned offenders as well as (blogless) Dee and Rebecca, who say we’ll just “go to a yarn store”, and “come on it’ll be fun,” and then one thing will lead to another and “it’s only yarn”, and pretty soon “yarn is fun”, “yarn makes you happy”, and “one more skein won’t hurt you.” Very clever tactics indeed. But if you are going to fall down it had better be for a good store and we and the Visa cards couldn’t pass up a trip to Cloth & Clay and their 50% discount. (Which makes us 50% humanitarian, 50% vulture, as Steph put it.)

Over the holidays I’d bought some Euroflax sportweight destined for the Ruffle Tank in Best of IK, and at 50% off, how can you pass up linen? I stood long and hard in front of the racks, looking at all the gorgeous colours, imagining hand towels and tops and even summer dresses, but eventually just two stayed in my arms: sportweight in a nice teal colour, and worsted in a tweedy sort of brown. I have my eye on the second for a Linen Trumpet Skirt from the most recent IK, and the first for a tuxedo shirt from Summer (Spring?) 2007 IK. I’m looking forward to trying it out as I haven’t knit with linen yet and the word on the street is it’s hardwearing, machine washable/dryable, and softens with wear. I like that idea for summer wear projects.

I also gobbled up as much of the pale sage-brown Ovation I could find from my New Year’s buy. With this bunch it adds up to 9 balls. What’ll it be? A light lacey pullover? A cardi with ribbon trim like the one in Glamour Knits? Or a straight-up, no fuss, shawl? I can’t tell yet. It’ll sit and ponder and so will I.

Then there’s the thing I can’t explain.

Misti Alpaca laceweight. 7 skeins. I couldn’t let it go. Just one? Not enough for a Real Serious Knit. But only 3 or 4? That would leave the others all behind and lonely. It wasn’t until I punched into the Ravelry calculator that I realized this added up to 3059 yards. No, I don’t know why or what, either. But please come visit me in a few decades in the old lady home…. where I will still be knitting it. Oh, my dear and fluffy lord.

The other thing I will fess up to is something that’s grown slowly since the fall, one ball at a time:

Four balls SWTC Pure, 100% soysilk. I think it may eventually be a shawl or a Clapotis or similar. I am curious about how it will knit up.

Glenna teased me that I was so stash-resistant that even though I spent more than her, my purchase was half the volume of hers. But practically speaking, my budget won’t have much room for yarn over the next season and I now have more than enough to keep me busy. Lately it has been projects hanging over my head that have stressed me out more than stash, so other than the linen pieces, I’m waiting til the right projects come up. (Here is where the stashing world pushes out a chair for me and says “didn’t you know this all along?”)

But for real? We will all miss Cloth & Clay. It was worth the drive to Waterloo just to look at their stock and we’re sad they couldn’t stay. We have all had experiences of bad stores, LYSs you would never go back to. But this one was worth it. So if you know a store like this, go back. Tell them they are worth it.

I confessed to Steph that it had been weeks since I’d stressed over stash hanging over my head. She laughed at me and said “that’s because your yarn is making you happy.” (It’s possible she has a point.)