I have a problem

"Hello, my name is Christina and I'm a yarn-a-holic."

There, I've admitted it. I have purchased so much yarn in the last year.  It's an addiction.  I know I don't need more yarn but I find myself heading down to my LYS or to Michaels or even to Walmart on lunch and there are very few times that I leave empty handed.

I have yarn here...

...and here...

...and here

I know I'm not the only one with this addiction but my stash is becoming unmanageable.  I've got sock yarn (I've yet to knit a sock), silk, cotton, alpaca, DK, fingering, worsted, chunky, bulky...I've got high end yarn and no-name yarn...the list goes on and on. 

I have 24 balls of Alpaca Peru, I didn`t mean to buy that much but once I got back home from the shop (found an LYS while out of town) I realized I had two bags rather than one but the LYS was far from the hotel and I had a meeting I had to get to and was leaving the next day.  It`s just been sitting there waiting patiently for me to pick it up.  I`m getting close.

I`ve got way too many too count skeins of Lion Brand Homespun in a multitude of colours.  I had the idea of making the 6-hour afghan for everyone for Christmas so I bought skein upon skein upon skein.  Now the smart thing to do would have been to buy enough to make one and go from there but my addiction gene kicked in as I stared at all of those colours.  With a trunk full of yarn, I returned home and got to knitting.  Well, I did not like the outcome.  Lots of people love the pattern and make multitudes of these afghan but it just wasn`t for me so the knitting went on hold as I searched for more patterns for potential Christmas gifts.  

I`ve got a half dozen or so super-sized skeins of bulky yarn that I bought in the thoughts that I would make a large afghan but then I realized how long knitting actually took and an afghan seemed very daunting.

Then I bought some Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick to make a car blanket.  I actually did make the car blanket but I knit tight so I ended up with extra yarn.

And there`s more, I don`t really know how it all happened, and the thing is I have been using yarn up too but this stash keeps growing.  Other than a small slip I had last week of purchasing some Lion Brand Amazing for a cowl, I am on a moratorium from buying any new yarn until I de-stash some.

To help with my de-stash I joined the 52 Cowl Along group on Ravelry. The idea is to cast on a cowl a week for the year and have no more than 4 projects on the go at a time.  I started late but I may go back to week one or two.  I have no idea if I`ll actually get all of these cowls done this year but it is an interesting challenge for myself and my stash pile.  I will have to do some yarn exchanges to help get through the stash and I may to a block afghan to help get through some of the Homespun as it will be some pretty mindless TV watching knitting until I get to seaming it together.

The pile is calling to me, I must get on to cowl number one (or two if I count the one I made last week before I joined the group).