When my sister was younger she and my mother were constantly bargaining on the status of her bedroom, which is a nice way of saying that my sister’s room existed in a constant state of a tornado whipped through. To her credit, it wasn’t clothing that hadn’t made it’s way to the hamper or towels that needed to be returned to the bathroom. No, my sister had a way of bringing toys to her room and leaving them there. I’m talking stuffed animals, dolls, clothes for each, Polly pockets, lego kits.. it didn’t matter. I have many memories of playing house in my sister’s room and adding, much to my mother’s dismay, to the mess.

At first, the bargaining was a plea to get us to play in what we called the “back room” or the room that we were very fortunate to have to ourselves as a playroom. The next attempt was a “you have to play downstairs”. As time went on, it was clear that there was something about the cozy bedroom that lent itself to hours of playing no matter how the rules changed. Realistically, this is probably because my sister and I enjoyed sharing a room together growing up and often slept in sleeping bags on the floor so that we could wake up and start playing right away (a habit we unfortunately grew out of as we got older as I developed into a book worm and wanted to spend my mornings reading). In order to find a compromise, my mother invested in hatboxes and my sister swore that if she had the space to put her toys she would clean up after herself.

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember if it worked, especially because my sister seemed to grow out of her messiness as she got older. Nights of leaving toys out so that play could be resumed the next morning were replaced with “I can’t sleep if my rooms a mess” and I genuinely don’t remember if the boxes had anything to do with it. Years later, I would claim one of the hat boxes for myself and start building my yarn stash in it.

The point I’m trying to make with this backstory, is that the box I originally choose to start collecting yarn in, the box I still collect yarn in, is large enough to hold three, maybe four, average size stuffed animals. True, this box is well over ten years old and is start to look a little worn, but it’s served me so well over the seven years of serious knitting that I’ve been doing (I’ve been knitting longer than that). With the exception of when I bought three projects worth of yarn this fall, somehow I have never managed to have more yarn than would fit in that hatbox. It’s hard to even count this fall when one of the projects hit my needles right away and didn’t need to go into the hatbox…

I’m not saying that 2020 has completely put in a cramp in my stashing, I actually like having a small stash because it means that I can “cheat” on knitting without feeling bad about it. I can spend time hiking and sewing, going days without knitting without feeling like my yarn is neglected. I can sign up for cast on clubs (like Scratch’s or Simply Sock Co’s) without worrying about what my partner would say (For the record, I’ve yet to feel like I’m not allowed to buy more yarn. He usually tells me to buy more). I can spend time plotting projects and buy yarn specifically for them instead of trying to guess what future me will want to make. Although that’s fun too…

This isn’t to say that I don’t stash yarn, I totally do! Whether money or space, there has always been a barrier between me and buying all the yarn I touch in a yarn store. Either way, I have usually been in a position to regularly patron a yarn store to touch yarn…

With all this in mind, 2020 has totally put a cramp in my stashing and I’m a little stressed out by the fact that my stash currently has four skeins of sock yarn in it! My box looks sad and empty. Despite having a growing number of favorites and queue on Ravelry, I’m not sure what I want to pick up next. True, I can knit four pairs of socks while I think about it, but it takes time for yarn to be shipped! When you add that to it’s harder to pick and combine colors via a web browser, it hard to to be a little cranky that I can’t go into a yarn store and grope yarn. I was banking on attending wool festivals and tent sales in 2020, perhaps 2021 will have some in store for me (or at least 2022).