I have yarn.  Do I ever have yarn!  I think the skeins have been breeding in the cedar chest.

Springtime resolution #5 was to “knit out the stash.” As I noted then, I knew I had yarn, I’d lined up some projects to match to it, and then I just needed to find time to knit. A few days ago, I finally found that time, on a Saturday being drenched in an unusual early thunderstorm, and so I dutifully piled all the yarn in one place.

I may have grossly underestimated just how much yarn I’ve accumulated.

Fortunately, I have more than enough patterns in my stockpile. I took an hour (alright, I took three hours!) and matched patterns to skeins and came up with a master list of projects, which for organization’s sake I’ve listed below. Also for guilt’s sake — if I’ve told the world what I’m supposed to be doing, shame should keep me on track to finish these projects.

Yarn is an addiction. If you’re a knitter, or crocheter, you can’t pass up a yarn store without going in ‘just to see what they have, honest!.‘  And so you see the yarn, you pet the yarn, you end up buying three dozen skeins just because the yarn is there and you want to Support Your Local Yarn Store — even if that store is a ten hour drive from your home.

The thing is, knitting, at least for me, is therapeutic.  I start knitting, while watching TV or reading fan fiction, and I zone out — I find my body relaxing into the back of the sofa, joints stretching out, mind calming, fingers flying away.  That’s not just my opinion, by the way — my GP once tried an experiment.  She took my blood pressure, then left me knitting in the exam room while she tended another patient.  When she came back a half an hour later, my blood pressure had dropped more than 20 points.

Knitting also helps with that healthy eating thing I’ve been discussing — if I’m holding a lovely yarn in my hand, I’m certainly not going to go pull out something greasy or salty that could stain it.

And so, having put all that yarn in one easily-accessible place, nature took its course and I inevitably went hunting for the bag of knitting needles.  I cast on two projects — because why should I hold back with this much of a knitting backlog?

Blue wool Old Friend pullover.  I’ve started in on a blue wool pullover, based on a leaflet for the Old Friend pullover from Peace Fleece and using their Siberian Midnight wool, which I think I’ve had for several years now.  It’s a fairly simple knit — straight up the sides on the back and front sections, easy to increase sleeves. Sew the pieces together, crochet a chain-stitch border to neaten it up and it’s done.  Basic stitches, no real need to think — the perfect project to re-ignite a knitting habit when you’ve not touched the needles for a few months.  In the first hour of knitting, I finished several inches.  Since I have to take the car into the garage later this week, I imagine I’ll get quite a few more inches finished.

If it turns out decently, I’ll probably give it to my Dad. He lives in northeast Pennsylvania, on top of a mountain, and it gets really cold up there in the Fall and Winter. He likes to do things outdoors — and the wool on this sweater should keep him nice and warm!

The Avengers Dolls.  Months ago, I bought yarn to make dolls of all the Avengers, and Coulson, Fury and Maria Hill, too.  I started on Iron Man — and promptly ran into trouble.   I’d get an inch or so of the leg done, and the yarn would split.  I finally decided to just put the yarn down, until I could figure out what I was doing wrong.

Turns out, it wasn’t me.  When I was checking over my needles, I discovered a tiny, minute little splinter on the side of one needle.  The yarn’s been snagging on it, and because it’s thin, the threads have been splitting apart.  Fortunately, I have another set in that size, and so I recast on Iron Man.  I hope to have the doll finished somewhere around the time the movie opens.  Of course, once I see the movie, I’ll probably want to make a Pepper Potts and a War Machine and Happy and who knows who else.  So far, I’ve finished both legs, and I’ll start on the arms and body over the weekend.

So that’s the yarn saga, for now.  I’ve made myself a promise, to knit at least 30 minutes a night, and that’s what I’ll be doing in a few minutes.   Meanwhile, for anyone interested in the insanity that is my backlog, this is a list of the identified projects from my stash (phrased that way because, as I complete these sweaters, hats, scarves and gloves, I’ll then have leftover skeins that will be folded into new projects).

Sweaters – blue wool pullover, dark brown/black mohair pullover, chocolate/caramel alpaca turtleneck, dark brown heather wool Celtic braid turtleneck, brown/grey heather Na Craga pullover, light blue wool Alice Starmore pullover, navy blue wool fisherman, black wool/red mohair pullover, pale grey alpaca tunic and cowl, grey/black/cream alpaca pullover, tricolor wool henley, cream felted wool ribbed turtleneck, Skully black/white wool pullover, blue Alice Starmore, brown/multi-red corset pullover.

Scarves/Hats — grey/blue alpaca Celtic hat and scarf, multi-brown multi-texture striped scarf, blue silk lace scarf, black rib scarf and hat, multi-blue multi-texture weave scarf, Halloween orange wool scarf and hat.

Gloves – brown Manos del Uruguay gauntlets, pale grey alpaca fingerless gloves, black rib gloves.

My hands ache just looking at these lists.