I'm Drea. I'm Meg. I'm Tina. And I'm Jess. And this is Pardon My Stash.
Welcome to Pardon My Stash, a podcast about knitting within the fiber arts and how awesome it is.
Before we get into today's topics, let's find out what everybody is working on, Drea.
I am still plugging away on the Kimmy Shaw by Isabel Cramer.
Very nice. I'm using...
Faded jeans. Faded jeans.
Silver moon fiber arts. Yeah. Probably. Of the jeans.
Of the jeans. Jeans. Faded jeans.
Word jeans is going to lose all meaning.
I've actually gotten a fair amount done in the second lace section.
Oh, it looks... Oh, that's pretty. Yeah.
It actually looks like little... For people who need more visual,
it looks like little bobbles, but flat bobbles.
Yeah. And it has nice little lace in between.
Yeah. That'd be a good pineapple pattern.
Wouldn't it? Yeah. That's a good pineapple texture pattern.
So you could do this shawl in that golden yellow color, and then you can
do the border in a green and it can be a pineapple shawl.
There you go. Yeah.
I need pineapple everything. I mean, I might redo this shawl again.
I mean, I just want to... And we can be matchies.
Yeah. We can have a pineapple shawl and a pineapple hat.
Just pineapple everything. Pineapple gloves.
Pineapple socks. Anyways.
Pineapple underwear. Anyways.
Meg, what you working on? So I finished my Cellboom Modern
this past weekend. That came out so good.
Thank you. Thank you.
Sorry, the clapping's a little excessive on this one.
So I finished that and we still have a couple of weeks till the make-along.
And I was kind of bereft because Ocean Stones is in a timeout while I think about what I did.
No, it was bad. I almost cried during our last broadcast.
I made a huge mistake and I have to rip back a bunch of rows.
And it was one of those things where I'm like, it's going in a bag. I can't look at it.
You know what she did.
I do. I won't even blame it. It's not its fault. It's my fault. I know what I did.
I made a huge mistake. But anyway, so I pulled out a pattern that I wanted to knit for years,
but I'm pretty sure I can dash off before the make-along.
It is called Minted by Andrea Moory of Dreia Renee Knits.
I actually bought the yarn for this. We've talked about this before a few years ago.
And as I was rolling it realized that my incredibly intelligent self
purchased two skeins of alpaca blends.
I'm right. And now I have that.
Yeah, I'll bet you remember.
I bet you remember.
We're in it now with that alpaca.
So I had this beautiful pattern that I have wanted to make for so long.
And it's actually supposed to be like a sport weight held together with a lace weight,
like an alpaca. And I said, well, I'm going to try a mohair.
And it took me years to find the replacements.
And my replacement yarns are actually, it's Woolfolk.
It is a sport weight. It is incredibly soft and it's a number color-wise.
So I can't tell you what color it is, but I can just say that it's white.
And the partner yarn is one I'm super excited about.
It is from the Wandering Flock and it is a mohair silt in the colorway moonstone.
It is this really pretty, very, very, very pale, ethereal purple, blue, and pink.
And the first off, the fabric it makes is like probably my favorite thing.
I just want to roll in it because it's like, it almost looks like iridescent.
Because it looks kind of white in some lights and color and others.
But the most exciting thing about this guys is that I have found out that I can knit
with a silk mohair blend and I have no allergy problems.
So I am really enjoying this.
Anyway, that was my very long roundabout way of saying what I am.
That's so exciting.
It is so exciting.
I should make a hat with you with the yarn that you gave me.
Oh, you should. You should make this hat.
The hat that Meg can touch and the hat that Meg cannot touch.
The whole bidden hat.
With that one, the one that I had to give up,
and those of you that have touched this will understand my pain.
It was Farmer's Daughter Odang.
It was so luxurious.
It is.
And I'm so allergic to it, but I'm not allergic to this.
I am really looking forward to working with it.
Because goats are awesome.
Well, mohair and silk.
Straight mohair has also given me issues.
Well, straight mohair is a little bit scratchy.
But this is like, it's heaven.
Anyway, moving on.
Jess?
I am on the last five rows of my I Am Dragon 2 cowl.
So long.
Yeah, wins all around tonight.
Yeah, wins all around.
Lot of wins.
I was ahead of where I thought.
I thought I had an extra like 10 repeats on top of that.
And I was like, oh man, I miscalculated my yarn
because I'm not going to have enough for this.
I am going to be playing some yarn chicken.
And I don't think I'm going to be playing yarn chicken anymore.
So yeah, maybe a little bit of yarn chicken,
but not to the same extent.
I don't think you're going to.
I don't know.
Looking at the ball of yarn, I really don't think one's going to be yarn.
I should be OK.
Yeah, I really don't think so.
Five rows?
Yeah.
That's like a quarter of a skein.
So sweet.
Like, you're going to be fine.
But yeah, so after that, then it's just, you know,
it's got to sit there because I have to order a class piece.
And then I got to do the whole blocking thing and all that.
But it looks good.
I'm happy with it.
And yeah, that's where that's where we're at.
And I don't know what I'm doing after getting ready to cast on for the make along.
Some teapots.
Teapots.
Teacosies.
Mine's going to be a basket of flowers.
Mine's going to be a snail.
Tina, what are you working on?
OK, so bear with me on this.
So it's like I'm doing this like kind of I don't know if it's weird, but I'm basically
what I'm calling a master gauge sheet.
And it's because I have I have a couple of patterns that I've created.
And I have gotten several requests to grade them into different weights and different
sizes.
So the size is not a big deal.
I got the sizes.
The weights of yarn is challenging, especially for things that you have in like bulky or
super bulky and trying to put that down into like even a decay because, say, for example,
like the seed dot beanie is in a bulky and an errand grading them into different yarn
weights has been a bit challenging because not only do you can't really do kind of the
same pattern to a degree because, say, for the seed dot beanie, it's you can't really
see the dots as much in a smaller yarn.
Anywho, so before I could even do that, really, though, I need to understand what my gauge
would be in several weights of yarn.
So I've decided that I'm going to basically pick six yarns that I'm going to use going
forward as kind of like my base.
So my lower weights, I'm doing critical hit dyes in fingering, decay and worsted.
And I'm doing Malabrigo for the Aaron weight.
And I'm doing Lion Brand for the super bulky and the bulky just because it's just easily
available.
All of that is easily available for me.
So yeah, I've been right now I'm working on I have critical hits dyes rogue, which is
their fingering weight.
And I have it in grandma's egg.
And I am creating a gauge swatch with that in a US size two.
And I'm going to see where it goes and see if I can get it up to with my proportional
equation doing US three and four, just so I have options because like it kind of looks
a little different if you use like a heavier needle and whatever.
Anyway, lots of technical stuff, I guess, is what I'm working.
So basically what you're doing is swatches.
Yeah, I'm doing a whole bunch of swatches because I want I really want this sheet to
kind of like represent where I'm at, because if I have this sheet, I know that I can then
pretty much make whatever I want.
If I want to make a fingering weight shawl, I know what that weight is.
I know what my gauges I can just go from there.
So yeah, it's a lot of gauge swatches, but I am really I'm going to be really satisfied
once this is done.
And then there is like I have this whole kind of theme that I would have pattern that I
want to do for the upcoming fall season.
I'd spent in my brain for like the last like month.
I really, really, really want to make these patterns and I know I already told you about
them, but I'm not going to say it on the podcast.
I'll tell you, Jess and Meg later.
But like I have this really cute kind of thematic idea for the fall and it would be easier to
do it if I had this master gauge sheet because then I could kind of go.
Yeah.
And like do different weights and stuff.
And I like to make it as accessible as possible.
I love the idea of making patterns like really accessible.
Accessible to like whatever you have and especially like classics like the one like the very vital
beanie I have like this is the standard stock net.
It's nothing crazy.
So it'd be cool to like be able to put that in different weights.
I really appreciate it when testers do the the take the time to grade their pattern in
different weights because sometimes that's what I'm feeling right now.
It's a Dutch girl creations does that with all of her patterns.
She goes from DK to super bulky and you know, sometimes I'm feeling a super bulky.
Sometimes I'm feeling a worsted and you know, having that option to make the hat in different
sizes or the cowl or whatever.
It's really cool.
And I really appreciate that when a designer does that.
So I think this is a it's a really awesome idea that you've got.
Yeah.
And I think Dutch girl pretty much uses Malibrigo, right?
She does use a lot of Malibrigo for her for her tests.
Yeah.
Because I find that people who are doing stuff that I'm talking about right now tend to kind
of stick with a brand so that it's consistent.
But I just personally just because I already had the Malibrigo Mecca and the Woolspun from
the Sea Dot Beanie, I already had that gauge and I have the hometown gauge with the super
bulky.
So I was like, all right, well, I'll just you know, maybe eventually I'll just be critical
hit dies exclusive and just go from there and just go from there.
Be sure to check out our website part of my stash dot com for more information as well
as pictures regarding our current projects, patterns and yarns.
So for this week, we have an episode that is dear to my heart, a topic that will rain
in infamy.
What do you got?
I would like to discuss irreplaceable yarns.
Oh, what the heck do you do with them?
We got a question in from our email form and someone had suggested this topic idea and
I really, really resonated with it.
So I thought it would be appropriate that I was hosting this topic because I have a
lot of those.
I have an entire lit pegboard of them.
And, you know, there's a lot of different kind of ways that people have like, oh, I'm
going to do it like this or I'm going to do it like that.
But I would love to see before I put in my two cents, I would love to see what you guys
think in terms of what how maybe we should talk about what is an irreplaceable yarn
first.
Well, irreplaceable yarn for me is like a discontinued yarn.
You know, a dyer isn't making it anymore.
They don't make the color way.
Maybe they went out of business like you can't you cannot get this again.
Yeah, I would.
I agree with that.
I think I'd also add like maybe if you are traveling and you get a local yarn from a
a place that you probably will not go to again, that maybe is probably isn't available
readily to you online.
Also, maybe a skein that was a gift from somebody.
If somebody picked something out specifically for you, those can be kind of hard to part
not part with but decide what to make with them because nothing quite lives up to the
skein.
The skein is already so wonderful and you're like, if I use it, then I won't have it
anymore.
Then what?
Special color ways.
Oh, yeah.
Limited edition color ways.
Yeah, can't be replicated.
Yeah, that's a good one.
I'm using one of those right now for my secret knit that I'm doing.
I love that color way so much too.
Like I'm really sad because when you started using it, I'm like, oh my God, I love that.
And then you're like, it's limited edition.
And I'm like, crap.
Yeah.
And also, hilariously, I was sitting with Dre and there is a really good chance that
I am not going to have enough yarn.
But we came up with a good game plan.
I can't say it because they'll give away what it is.
But we came up with a good game plan of substituting the contrast so that it looks good.
That works.
So it's fine.
I was just cracking up because I was so excited to use that particular yarn.
And then I just completely disregarded the whole make sure the yarn is enough.
This is what happens when I use my irreplaceable skein.
Yeah, I get too excited and I forget that there's rules to knitting.
You know, knitting.
Physics.
There's physics limitations.
Did you know that?
Science.
Anyway, science.
There's math involved.
There is a lot of math involved, actually.
There really is.
What's even?
Yeah.
But Jess, what about you?
How do you feel about irreplaceable yarns?
Like I said, mine are more like colorway based.
Like if it's a special colorway.
Although less traveled yarns now in general.
I'm like, oh.
Oh, I know that's so sad.
It's going to be real hard to use any of them now.
Yeah.
But yeah, so it's like those are the ones I tend to look at.
There's also some too where it's like, and I don't think I've run into this often,
but where it's like they change like a supplier.
Oh, yeah.
The supplier's no longer available.
So the base is different.
And a lot of times it's like it's not that huge of a difference or it's just as nice,
but every once in a while you get that one you're like, oh, it's just not there.
It's just not the same.
Yeah, I hate that.
That sucks.
Also, if they change the recipe too, sometimes they'll change slightly the recipe of the color
because a specific dye is no longer available or something, so they have to modify it.
I've seen that happen too.
Or dye locks in general.
Yeah. Yeah. Dye lots is a whole thing too.
If you get a whole bunch in one dye lot and it's like, oh man, I'm one off though from
that sort of quantity and that is never the same.
Nope. And then you're gonna find a different project for that now.
Or blend it really well.
Yeah, that too.
While you're working on it.
Alternate schemes.
Yeah, pretty much.
So as all of you know, I have a ton of irreplaceable yarn.
I am a bit of a collector to say so myself.
And most of it is...
Well, actually I would say, well, now that less, like you said, less traveled is also
going out of business, that actually made more yarn on my board.
I have a bunch of less traveled on there too.
So between less traveled and Groovy Hughes, I have basically two defunct, not defunct,
but like no longer selling dyers.
Can't get it anymore.
No. And I don't know why I'm so obsessed with my Groovy Hughes.
I think it's just because out of every, besides like what Meg and Jess have been doing,
I haven't seen like, I just, her colorways were just so out of this world, like just so
different.
It really, really works.
I've just never seen anyone do something similar to what she's done.
My friend Christine did introduce me to somebody else.
I can't remember their name of the dyer, but they do also this kind of like out there galaxy,
like very vibrant kind of colorways too.
So I'm following them.
I'll see like how it is.
And if it's good, I'll like give a shout out.
But she was actually the one who also introduced me to Groovy Hughes.
And so she's got good taste.
Oh, she does have good taste.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah. So I've been struggling with that a lot because I, you know, like, oh my God,
if I use this, it's over, you know?
Yeah, we won't do it anymore unless I hang up the project.
Right.
So I've actually gotten to a point now, especially now that I haven't bought yarn in,
since September of 22, I have not bought any yarn.
Six months.
You've made it six months now.
Yeah.
Not even a single, not even a little, like I've bought tools.
I've definitely bought tools.
I've bought like implements and notions, but I've not bought any yarn.
And I feel like it has given me like a new appreciation for my stash because I know I,
like that's my option.
And because of that, I'm finding, I'm looking at those skeins in a new light.
And with that, I am trying to take these irreplaceable yarns off the pedestal
because at the end of the day, the people who created those yarns did not create them
to sit on a pegboard for literally 15 years.
You know, so.
That's fair.
They created them so that you would use them.
Exactly.
And make things with them.
As a supply.
Yeah.
So now that I'm looking at it in that direction, now it's like, okay, so what do I make with it?
Like, what is good for it?
So what ideas do you guys have for what to, what kind of projects would be good for an
irreplaceable, what you consider a special yarn, we'll say less irreplaceable, but more
of a special kind of yarn?
Well, honestly, when I'm, when I'm kind of lost about what to do with a particular yarn,
especially if it's something that is a little out of my wheelhouse in the terms of color,
I like to go on Ravelry and look at what did other people make with that yarn.
That's fair.
When see how it looks knit up, and that gives me a little bit of an idea of, you know, how
I want to use it.
One of the reasons I really stopped knitting socks was that it made me so sad when they
would wear out.
Because I would, you know, have these beautiful socks that were made with beautiful yarns.
And then they would get holes in them.
And I mean, I know that's the point of socks, but.
It always made me so sad when they wore out.
So that was part of the reason why I steered clear.
That being said, if you are someone that loves to knit socks, and you want to make a very
beautiful pair of socks out of your special yarn, like find your joy, do it.
Yeah, I'm definitely not saying like don't knit socks out of special yarn because some
people love to do that.
I love to do that.
I know you do out of.
I know you do out of out of special yarn.
I would definitely not say steer clear of that, but I would say pick something, pick
projects that you enjoy knitting.
Don't just pick a project because you're like, oh, I think this year would be good with that.
Like, especially if you've had that yarn on hold for a while, you want to enjoy the experience.
You don't want to be like gritting your teeth with every stitch as you use your precious
yarn.
So if you're like an accessory person, look more towards accessories or towards sweaters.
You know, find something that you really think you'll enjoy knitting so you get the full,
you know, joy out of the experience.
Find your joy.
Well, I also feel to that point that you have to, it's almost like a 50-50 thing.
You have to find something that you enjoy making.
And then if it's usually these type of yarns are delicate, so you have to, you can't machine
wash them.
You can't throw them in the dryer.
You have to take care of them in a really special way.
So I also would say find something that you enjoy knitting and that you will be okay with
the care for process afterwards.
Yeah, because you could like making sweaters, but you could absolutely hate steaming and
blocking sweaters afterwards.
Yeah.
So, you know, that goes back to kind of this idea, which you briefly mentioned, Meg, which
is kind of pick a low-use delicately handled project.
So some that I think that are really good for this are shawls, cowls, or capelets, because
cowls, unless you use a cowl in a, like if you're like sweating or something like that,
then you obviously need to like take care of it.
But for the most part, shawls in particular are very versatile.
You can wear them in a lot of different ways and typically don't sit right on your skin
unless it's like summertime or something like that.
So you can protect them from kind of getting that B.O. nastiness that tends to come.
Well, the skin oils and...
Yes.
Doesn't need as much cleaning.
Cowls to a degree, I feel, especially longer ones don't need as much either.
But I would suggest something in a heavier weight if you're going to do cowl.
And I put in capelets because it doesn't go under your pits.
It's cool.
It is cool.
You know, so like you have this like sweater feeling garment, but it's not under an area
that's going to see a lot of action, so to speak.
So you're not going to get as much wear and tear.
I mean, if you could say hats too, if you're not going to wear them in like a very rough
kind of way, because there's some people that will treat their hats in that capacity,
but gloves, socks, and I would say sweaters to a degree are a little bit more rough and tough.
Like you got there's more wear and tear there.
But what else do you guys think in terms of that sweaters?
You also have the possibility that you may not fit them forever.
And you may wind up in the same situation where the sweater becomes either too big or too small,
where now instead of having a beautiful skein of yarn on your wall, you have a beautiful
sweater in your drawer.
And again, not the same problem.
Yeah.
It's just in a different spot.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I kind of like the idea of like taking something special and sending it out into the world.
Yeah.
Like giving it away?
Yeah.
Like leaving it on the street for someone to find?
Yeah.
Just so you guys know that where that came from is because everyone's going to go, what
the hell did that come from?
So we were playing around with the chat bot, that chat GPT bot, and we were talking about
the chat GPT bot.
I like to call him Chad.
Chad, apparently, according to Dre.
And we tried to see what he would like come up with if we gave him a summary of one of
our episodes.
And he insinuated that I, in particular, enjoy leaving projects on the street for random
people to find.
I mean, stop acting like you don't.
Oh, yeah.
Just cleaning your hats out your car window and sticking a cowl in someone's mailbox
randomly.
Absolutely.
Yeah, sure.
That's exactly it.
That's how we do.
That's how it would be.
But yeah, I can understand what you mean by sent now that we've derailed.
I can understand that.
It's like it's special to me.
As it's skeined up and as I'm working on it, I'm finding a lot of joy.
And maybe the project is beautiful, but it's not for me.
I like the idea of giving something special to me to somebody else.
And you know, on that capacity, if you're more of a process knitter, I feel like if
you really enjoy, I know this sounds kind of creepy, but you could kind of take little
short videos of you knitting with the yarn.
So like if you ever wanted to like be nostalgic, you could revisit it.
No, because like I have memory issues.
I will like forget like as soon as it is gone, it's gone.
Like I don't think about it anymore.
And I feel like.
I'm out of sight out of mind.
So yeah, and I feel like maybe you could just like take little, you know, I've seen
people do little reels where they're just kind of knitting and just that's it.
So I feel like you could do little short videos.
You don't have to necessarily post them anywhere, but that could be for you just to
revisit a special skein of yarn that you have.
Or something.
I don't know.
Jess, did you want to chime in or?
I mean, you guys covered most of it, but another thing you could do is like,
like knitted or crocheted or whatever fabric art, like art that you can do.
I like that.
With it, there's a lot of patterns out there.
If you search right, that's like they make these like things that you can kind of like
hang up as like not even color work.
I mean, there are beautiful color works out there, but like just patterns that come
together that look really cool and you can hang them up as a piece in your house.
So you can actually just look at it whenever you want.
And I thought those are cool.
I like that.
That is really cool.
Hold on to super special skeins.
I kind of feel that way about my swatches.
I almost want to keep them just to.
I mean, we're going to use those as coasters, but.
Yeah.
The ones that I've knit were like, oh, coasters.
Yeah, there we go.
Nice.
That's what we've been doing with them.
But you could also turn them into a blanket or something.
Yeah.
That gets me into another idea that I had, which was to basically take, identify all
the different kind of irreplaceable yarn that you have and then group the ones that are
similar in base together and then determine ones that you can group together to work on
a larger project, like a fade or a blend or color work project.
Yeah. So if you have like, say you're a big fingering weight fan, you have a bunch of
fingering weight yarn, you can put, find the ones that are similar, um, plies.
I was doing this.
I was like, the spin.
No, find ones that are similar plies and then put them with each other.
And then you can, if the colors kind of mesh together in some way or fashion.
It's a complimentary.
Yeah. Also, if you're doing it that way, look for like, um, patterns made for advent,
yarn advent.
Yeah.
And then for multiple colors.
So a couple of years ago, I did the Ashen Bumble.
Um, they did like a birds, bird of the month club and I like birds.
So I did that.
And so they were all limited edition skeins and I've, I've struggled, really struggled.
Like, what am I going to do with these?
I don't think I've used, I know I've used one, I used one in a shawl.
Um, but all of the others, I'm just like, I don't know what to do.
And I actually, um, at the beginning of the year, one of my, my resolutions was to use
more of my stash and I put a whole bunch of them together, um, into different.
Yeah.
I have two, two like up on deck.
One's a fade and the other is a, is just a shawl that requires three colors.
So I haven't gotten up the guts to start winding them yet, but you know, the intention
is there.
What's going to happen.
That's half the battle.
Yeah, that was half the battle.
See, I did a yarn, I did a yarn subscription for a while too.
Uh, like years ago and I don't think I've, I don't think I've used any of the yarn.
Really?
I don't think I've knit anything with any of the yarn that I got from that subscription.
I did that for like a year.
Wow.
I know.
I remember it was always fun to go to your house and you'd have like the box on the
table and it's like, Ooh, what did Dre get this month?
What?
It was like a surprise.
I mean, fairly speaking, it was more like retail therapy for me at the time.
Yeah.
I was, I was sad when I got my yarn boxes and the yarn boxes made me happy.
I mean, because it's yarn, how could it not make you happy?
I think I have a lot of yarn that I used to consider as special or irreplaceable.
And I think that I've lost that attachment to a lot of these things because they've,
they've just been sitting there for so long and I don't remember getting it.
I don't remember wanting it.
I don't remember where I got it.
And I think that's actually going to help me in the upcoming months and years to just
use it because I'm losing that attachment to it.
That's got to be helpful.
Yeah.
Chip away at the nostalgia.
Yeah.
It's not special.
It's just, it's meant to be used. And I think that that's going to be my new mindset moving
forward.
I like that.
There is, I think it is her name, her username is alabaster pearl.
She's doing a challenge where every day she has to make one thing, not a huge thing,
just like a little thing.
And she does a lot of machine knitting.
So she's been like cranking out like a headband or a hat or like a scrunchie or like something
like that.
And she's able, and she's only using stash yarn.
Nice.
Which is like, I think is kind of cool.
And so, and like the last video I watched from her, she had like a, she found like a
section of her yarn that was just a bunch of barf.
She's like, come here barf.
And then like, she like showed the video of her like getting the barf and like rerolling
it and then like putting it in the machine and making like a headband out of it.
And it's like kind of nice that you're like giving something that was otherwise an ugly
little barf ball.
A chance.
A new life.
New life.
Give it a chance to be something.
That's so real, though.
I mean, who doesn't have yarn barf somewhere in there?
Yeah.
Oh, I've got yarn barf in places.
I actually have been using my Squirrel Swift to like wind up some of that because it,
because you can like, if you can just get it into some kind of circular something,
it doesn't have to be as a huge skein, you know, the wide circle.
It can be like a little circle and you can pull the wheels together and it can hold that
small little wind.
So what I've been doing is winding it around my chair, like if it's barfed and then just
winding it around the top of the chair and then sticking it on the Squirrel Swift and
I, the Swift and then I make it into a ball.
But yeah, I think it's just, for me, it's like, it just needs to, it just needs to be
something at this point.
I think I'm leaving slowly this whole like, can't touch that, can't touch that, can't
touch that.
I think I was more that way probably when I started because you have such a limited
stash.
Yeah.
You know, it's all special.
Right.
And then once you get to the point that you don't remember where skeins came from, that
is the point that you need to start using the yard.
I have reached that point.
Or you get to the point where you're like, yes, I love the Malabrigo.
It's lovely.
I can buy 10 more skeins of that if I need it.
I can go down to the store.
It is gorgeous and I love the color, but I can get more of the color.
Right.
Exactly.
You do.
You get, you finally get that through your head that what you originally felt might be
like your precious skeins are not, they're still precious.
They're still nice, but they're not impossible to find.
You can get more.
Yeah.
So I feel like, too, besides like that fact of like, you know, if it's not necessarily
irreplaceable, like it's something you actually can physically replace, if it's something
that's like that, I have, so my kids are starting to get into fiber arts.
In particular, my youngest is starting to crochet and which, by the way, I'm like a
terrible crochet teacher and like somehow this kid is crocheting better than me.
I don't know how that happened, but like.
She practices more than you.
I know she does, but like I'm so confused because like she can actually make like a
square and I don't even know how to do that.
I don't know where she learned that from.
Anyway, I think she's just been playing with it, but what has been fun actually is I let
her, I tell her, because I don't want her to feel like there is no, no yarns, like she
can't touch anything.
If she goes to my office and she can reach it and she wants to use it, she can use the
yarn.
Wow.
So guess what she pulled the other day?
Groovy Hughes.
Yep.
She pulled out my, my pink speckled.
My, I think it's called like unicorn barf or something like that.
And she pulled it out and she started crocheting with it and I was like, I'm, I'm okay with
this.
That is so much personal growth, Tina.
I know, I really was.
I was okay with it because I said to myself, I was like, for one, I'm not going to yell
at my kid for something that she has no concept of what, why special.
Yeah, I just, it's a pretty yarn.
And two, I am happy that she also thinks that this is an awesome yarn.
Like it's not just me, like that she appreciates the fact that this is also a cool yarn.
And you get to appreciate that it's getting used.
Yeah.
And the other good thing too is like she'll crochet something and then she won't even
like cut it off or anything like that.
She'll just undo it and like put it back.
So it's just like these little barf balls on top of my cakes.
You have her like trying out projects.
All right.
Very good.
But again, like it's, I'm okay with it.
Like it's, she's having fun and I think you just got to detach, detach, detach and just
use it, send it out.
Like Dreya said, just.
Well, I've also come to believe that you're never going to find the perfect pattern.
If you, if you are of the mindset that you need to find the absolute perfect pattern
to do your yarn justice, like that's why it's sitting on your shelf for so long.
You're not, you're never going to find it.
So I would find something that would make you happy, you know, instead of waiting for
the mythical white whale of, I have another suggestion and this works for me.
I don't know if it works for other people.
I have found that the biggest hump to using a yarn is that I just think they're so damn
pretty in the hank on the wall.
And I found at least for me that some of the like untouchable magic goes away when I cake
it once it's caked.
It's like, okay, it's no longer Christine.
I'm ready to go.
I probably got pissed at it at least once.
But yeah, it kind of, and I'm, I, I'm sure that doesn't work for everybody, but it
definitely works for me.
It kind of takes a little bit of the like pressure off that, you know what?
Okay.
Now it's caked now it's, it's never going to be back in its pristine little hank and
it's in its ball band hanging up anymore.
So you know what time to just use it takes the pressure off.
The first step is always the hardest.
It really is.
And I, I do, I know.
The first cut is the deepest.
It's like, baby, I know.
Okay.
I'm done.
Sorry.
I do.
I do love how they look like when they're all like neatly wound and in the hank and
they've got the ball band and they just look so nice.
But the cake also shows you what they're going to look a little more accurately, what
they're going to look like mid up as well.
So you, it can also make you more excited because it's like, Oh, look at that.
That looks totally different and totally cool and get you really excited to knit with it.
So it takes the edge off.
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