Gentle readers, today we are going to address a term that will be new to some of you, but all too familiar to others. The term I speak of is SABLE, which stands for Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.
I suspect this is something that happens to all crafters, but it is quite common in the fiber arts world. It seems to begin in that moment in your crafting when the stars align and you finally feel that you are GOOD at whatever it is you are doing and it is YOUR THING. Once that happens, you start feeding your thing. And sometimes you feed your thing too much and it grows into a monster and devours you.
If any of the below has happened to you, you may have a SABLE:*
- You have to buy yarn/fiber in sweater quantities just in case you decide you want to make a sweater with it, but you don't actually have any plans to make a sweater when you buy it, you just want to make sure you have the option. When you finally get around to using it, you decide to make a scarf.
- You buy a pound of a fiber you've been really really wanting to try, only to find you had already bought some several months back, hadn't gotten around to spinning it and then forgot you bought it. Now you have two pounds of the fiber, and you still haven't spun it.
- Your younger friend begins asking you regularly if you've thought about preparing a will and if so, are you leaving her your yarn/fiber stash? Later, every time you buy new yarn, she gets a very happy, very suspicious smile on her face.
- You buy yarn/fiber just because it is pretty/on sale/a day that ends in "y" without any plans for what to do with it, other than pet it occasionally.
- You look at your yarn/fiber stash and instead of it making you feel happy, it makes you feel anxious and that there are not enough hours in the day, days in the month, months in the year, years in all of history to use it all.
Eventually, you decide it is time to tame the monster. For me, 2014 is that time. Which brings us to another term, which is new to me this year (otherwise I might not have a SABLE). The term is "cold sheeping."** Cold sheeping is related to the concept of going "cold turkey."*** People also sometimes refer to it as shopping in your stash. Essentially, it is a pledge to stop buying yarn/fiber/fabric/patterns, or whatever the item at the heart of your obsession. By doing so, you invite yourself to take stock of your stash/craft/life and introduce order.
In taking stock, I have come to realize that I have some very lovely yarn/fiber that needs to be made into beautiful things and that I would be very sad if I did not give myself the opportunity to be the one to do that. So I am giving myself the opportunity!
What does this all mean? What is the plan of action? Well, it's starting to look a little something like this (not in any particular order):
- Do not purchase any new yarn or fiber this year (except for one planned "dismount" in a few weeks--we'll talk about that when it happens). Tools, books, patterns, etc. are okay, but I will be watching closely to see if I am just trading one addiction for another and adjust accordingly.
- Organize my yarn and fiber stashes.
- Knit a whole bunch and track it on my meter!
- Spin a whole bunch and track it on my meter!
- Commit to finishing my WIPs. In their own way, they are a stash and starting new projects without finishing the ones in progress is very similar to buying new yarn/fiber without using what you have.
- Join groups of like-minded stash reducers for added support when temptation strikes.
Spinning WIPs
Because I have previously neglected to talk about spinning in a blog that has "spinning" in its title, we'll start with a few ongoing spinning projects:
Shetland coat: I purchased 5lbs. of natural black and grey Shetland wool with the intention of spinning enough yarn to make a winter coat. I even bought some black silk fabric for lining. I spun a little over half a pound of it, saw something shiny and walked away. Fortunately, one of my cold sheeping support groups is doing a "Spin Something Big" challenge (i.e., spin a lot of one thing, whatever that means to you.) So it was a natural fit to dive back into the Shetland. Here's a picture of some of the yarn spun so far:
And here is a link to my project page on Ravelry for additional details: Shetland for coat
Muga silk: Speaking of something shiny, I am also in the process of spinning some beautiful Muga silk. Muga silk has a natural gold color, and was previously reserved for royalty in India. I don't have specific plans for this one yet, but it's sooooo pretty, so it will get some attention this year.
Lovely lavender: I am also working on a blend that is 80% merino wool and 20% tencel.**** I hand-dyed the fiber with a cool purple acid dye. Acid dyes work on animal fibers (and nylon for some reason) but do not work on plant fibers like tencel so it creates a very pleasant variegation of shades of purple where the tencel does not take the dye. I have spun a little less than half so far. It has not yet told me what it wants to be, other than yarn, at this point. Unfortunately, my camera does not pick up purple well, so the picture looks blue. You'll just have to trust me that the yarn is more of a blue-purple than blue:
Ravelry page: Merino/tencel - lavender
That is all for now, mostly because I don't have any other spinning WIPs currently photographed or set up in Ravelry. Yes, my WIP organization is a WIP in itself. But the WIP parade will continue in the next post. See you then!
______________________________________________
*I'm not necessarily admitting whether all of these things have actually happened to me....
**To my knowledge, the term was coined by this wonderful fellow blogger: http://yarnontheside.blogspot.com/
***Sadly, I did not figure out the origin myself, but only caught on after reading the musings of this blogger: http://temptingyarns.blogspot.com/2011/05/knit-swirl-book-and-cold-sheeping.html
****There is a nice description of tencel here: http://www.classiceliteyarns.com/WebLetter/Yarns/Tencel.php
No comments:
Post a Comment