It’s a beautiful morning. The sun is shining. Coffee is on.
You should be happy but you are feeling anxious and edgy.
You are expecting squishy mail.
Again.
At some point late at night buying a gorgeous skein of purple and green, hand dyed yarn seemed like a really good idea. I mean it was called Purple Rainbows or [insert a title from your fandom here]. It looked stunning. Of course you had to add another skein to get the free postage. You have vague memories of adding a skein of yellow and green yarn as well because it looked so cheerful. It made perfect 3 am. sense.
Now?
Now you have ‘buyer’s remorse’.
It doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. You’ve no clue what you are going to knit with it. Any of it.
You think regretfully of the other impulse yarns that snuck into your basket on previous dark nights.
The parcel arrives and you gingerly open it.
Eek - it’s worse than you thought. Not only have you bought the beautiful yarns you remembered. There seems to be a random skein of orange and brown lace weight.
Brown? Lace weight?
Maybe you can quickly pop these in the box under the spare bed with the rest of it before anyone notices.
Have you ever hidden yarn?
I think most of us have seen the meme where the bedclothes are pulled back to reveal boxes of yarn rather than a bed. It is funny but it makes us slightly uneasy.
That is because it reveals a darker truth that some of us would rather just not think about.
Hidden yarn is corrosive.
It is like the pea in the fairy tale.
You know it’s there and part of you just can’t ignore it.
It eats away at your self confidence. Somewhere at the back of your mind you know it’s sitting there unloved and it makes you uncomfortable. Guilty. Ashamed.
It can even stop you knitting at all!
Don’t despair! All is not lost. It doesn’t have to be like this.
There are simple ways to deal with this and you don’t need a handsome prince to help.
Remember How to Avoid Rumplestiltskein?
If not pop over to it and have a read. Don’t forget to come back though as we are not done here yet.
How would it feel if you were proud of your stash?
Picture the joy of knowing that when you see a pattern you want to make you can ‘shop your stash’. Or if you fancy making something special for yourself you can just go to your stash and choose the perfect yarn.
Even better you can decide you need to actually buy yarn with a clear conscience knowing that you will use it.
Take Action
Meanwhile the worst has happened. Probably more than once.
You have ordered yarn online and fed the stash monsters.
Here are three things to do right now to stop this happening again.
1. Go to your favourite yarn sellers sites one at a time and remove your credit card details from your accounts. Do Not Look At the Yarn!
2. Log out
3. Remove them from your bookmarks.
It’s not like you are going to forget who they are when you actually need some yarn is it?
For Bonus Points
Unsubscribe from their newsletters and unfollow their Facebook, Instagram etc.
If you need more help I’m currently offering a Confident Knitting Power Hour (one to one video session) and sorting out your stash is one of the best things to choose.
Just reply to this post if you want more details.
The Princess and the Yarn Pea
brilliant, and I am happy to report that I have been unsubscribing from yarn company emails. My stash monster is almost out of control, but at present is contained and it is on a diet... ;0)