My Life in Stitches: Yarn That Doesn't Count

My entire yarn stash.
Isn't it cute?

My knitting life has been a little slow lately. So slow that I asked my seventeen year-old daughter what I should blog about. She said, “You can blog about how much yarn you have.” Yeah, that’s a subject to blog about.

I don’t have a huge stash. I have four 16-quart bins and two 25-quart bins. It’s sorted by weight for the most part. My most recent yarn purchases are in bags sitting around the bins, including my birthday yarn.  It would seem like a lot, but it’s not because half of it doesn’t count. Why doesn’t it count, you ask? Because when yarn purchases fall into certain categories, it doesn’t count towards stash building. Those purchases are “special.”

Here is my unofficial list of yarn that doesn’t count:

• Holiday yarn. That includes birthday, anniversary, Mother’s day, and Christmas yarn
• Travel yarn. Any knitter worth his or her salt has already mapped out the directions to the nearest yarn shop before they even leave for vacation. And besides, vacation destination shops often carry brands of yarn that your LYS doesn’t carry. Consider those purchases as broadening your cultural experiences.
• Sale yarn. Absolutely doesn’t count! It’s on sale for crying out loud.
• Special events yarn. This includes yarn festivals (for me it’s Maryland Sheep and Wool). This also includes yarn purchased at Vogue Knitting Live, Stitches events and any other knitting getaway.
• Gift/Gift Card yarn. Any yarn you don’t pay for doesn’t count.
• KAL (Knit-a-long) and test knits. For the sake of building community during a KAL, the guilt of buying more yarn is waved. And as for test knits, most knitter test knit for friends or people they admire. Why not buy yarn in their honor, too?
• “Not enough” yarn purchases. Most of us have lived through the horror of starting a project and then realizing more yarn was needed than what was purchased. You can’t just leave your UFOs (UnFinished Objects) floating in limbo. You have to quickly go and more before the dye lot is gone. Besides, no one wants to be in Raverly purgatory, having to search other people’s stashes for the right dye lot and praying they’ll sell it to you. 

Got more additions for yarn that doesn’t count?