Baby did a bad, bad thing

When Amy and Bells published their No Guilt Stash Manifesto a while back, I was in there with bells (haha! no pun intended) on. I've been known to spend a little on yarn in recent history, especially since my initiation into the world of indie dyers, sock yarn and (mmmm) luxury fibres.

Ok, even the not-so-recent past. If you buy Beloved a beer, he'll gladly tell you about the 2kgs of yarn we hauled to Germany and back, so I wouldn't be bored during the 4 months of snow-bound winter I spent there in 2004-05. (I knit less than half a jumper, and we hauled it all the way back. Did you know you can still go outside when it snows? Whoda thunk it?)

So I embraced the Manifesto, confident it would be a little shield against the comments Beloved had started to make. Like "more yarn? When are you planning to knit that?".

Little did I know that I would be clinging to the Manifesto like a drowning man to a lifeline, reciting it like a desperate rosary in the wee small hours when the oblivious snoring of Beloved beside me amplified the guilt of a little.....slip. A minor brain snap.

No amount of manifesto-ing was gonna ease this magnitude of guilt. Marx and Mao would have to go into business together to manifesto my way out of this one. This was nuclear-strength guilt.

I blame QuiltingMick. If she hadn't gloated about her haul at our LYS, Cassidy's, $2 yarn sale, I would have blithely sailed on, ignorant to the temptation, my integrity intact. Check it out she said; I was there on the weekend, and they didn't have so much, she said. Just some Totem, some Cleckheaton Country. A couple of boxes worth, she said. It's probably all gone. She said.

But really, I'm hardly to blame. It's a knitter's nature.

I mean, wouldn't you? Just cruise along in your lunch hour to see what they had? At $2 a ball? Around 60% off? Of course you would. Of course I did.

They still had a couple of boxes worth. And a table full. The store manager had just been to their other store, on the other side of town, and picked up all the stuff that wasn't selling there to bring it over here.

I don't suppose you've got a box I could use, I asked. I may want a couple of projects worth.

She handed me a plastic shopping basket, and then showed me the other stuff that was on sale that she hadn't had the chance the mark down yet. Over here. And here. All this in these racks.

I think I may have blacked out for a while. Thirty minutes and four trips to the car later.....

There was still some Totem.



There was still some Country 8-ply, there was Caressa, and there was some Cleckheaton Machine washable 5ply.

There was some Jet.

There was some Bluebell 5ply.

And then there wasn't much of those left anymore.

Just in case you lost count on the way through, that's Two. Hundred. And. Ninety. One. balls of yarn.

Oh dear.

It took me three days to work up the courage to open the car boot again. Yup, it was still there.

Oh dear.

Did someone say they had a pattern for a house-cosy?