Staying within my means.

Up until very recently, I've had a tendancy to acquire yarn as the fancy took me. The odd skein here or there and the odd sweater's-worth in the sales - at the LYS, on ebay, where-ever really. With the purchase of the new house however, and its various attendant expenses, this has had to change.

This has actually been quite a useful exersize and less monotonous than I had anticipated (I had visions of me plowing through my stash mountain, until it resembled more of a hillock, knitting only patterns that leant themselves to the yarn I already had. It hasn't worked out like this at all.

In my early knitting days about three years ago, I knew little about yarn and even less about buying practical amounts. Being a good and thrifty Scottish girl, I scouted out the sales bins and picked up bits and pieces that I thought I could use... and most of it is still in my stash (or was until a few weeks ago). I ruthlessly scoured the stash for odd balls that I would never use and offered then for collection on Glasgow freecycle, (they went in a matter of minutes!). I then looked for yarn that I would never use or that was left-over from a project which was present in quantities of more than a skein and put it on my Ravelry 'swap' page. That's where things got interesting.

The lovely Britta in Odense, Denmark, had a use for all the Rowan Summer Tweed I'd stashed and never got round to using (horrible rough stuff to knit with), about 800g in total and offered to find me an equivalent quantity of sock yarn for a swap. Last week, this arrived in the post:

Wow!

Regia silk 6-ply...


Arwetta sock yarn which feels absolutely beautiful...


Opal Hundertwasser sock yarn (silver spiral)...



Opal Batik...

So now I have lots of new yarn that I'll definitely use - the resident radiologist and I always need socks and I'm addicted to knitting them, my stash is looking a bit sleeker and more usable and I'm still within budget. Happy days!