Waste not, want not...or not

From Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's "Never Not Knitting" Page-a-Day calendar.

Another of my March resolutions: de-stash. How is it possible, you wonder, that a person who has only been knitting for little more than a year could even have a stash? Well, it's like this: As a fledgling knitter, I bought stuff that wouldn't break the bank so that I wouldn't feel guilty if it didn't turn into what it was supposed to turn into. The now-more-mature, one-year-old knitter realizes this was a silly idea. I've become fairly proficient at tinking and frogging (more than I care to admit), so have been able to scrap patterns and start on new ones with the same yarn. And, I've learned what a joy it is to work with good yarn.

Noro Kureyon, colorway 95

Then, there's the yarn that my Mom bestowed on me after a massive closet cleaning, overjoyed at the fact that her baby had taken up knitting. She was a crocheter (before her eyes succumbed to macular degeneration)...a frugal crocheter, raised during the depression. While she made beautiful baby blankets, sweaters and wedding afghans, she made nearly all of them from 100% acrylic. Of course, back in the 70's and 80's there wasn't the mind-boggling array of fiber that we enjoy today, so I have to cut her some slack. Thinking I could put it to good use on some charity items (baby hats to hospitals, etc.), I took the stuff. Another silly idea. Oh, I still plan to use a bit of it for baby hats, but for the last year most of it has done nothing more than take up space in my closet. Obviously, when it came time to start a new project, the budding yarn aficionado in me would reach for something else. So, most of it will see charity in a different way...as a donation of yarn.

So this month, I've put a moratorium on buying any new yarn, requiring myself to knit what I have. Except for that little bit of Dream in Color Classy in Beach Fog I picked up on ebay last weekend. Using gift credit doesn't really count as buying, does it?