It’s amazingly difficult to throw out stash stuff – even if its only proper place is in the trash!

The yarn

A case in point: three years ago, at Romni Wools’ annual July sale, I found some yarn in beautiful shades of grey, indigo and white. It was 80% wool/20% nylon which I thought would wear well, and the price was good, so I bought enough to make a Faroese shawl and a sweater vest.

My first project with it was the Faroese shawl. Once I figured out where to put the markers so that I wouldn’t have to count too often, it was the perfect “carry around” project and I was very pleased with it when it was finished.

For a while.

The disappointment

Soon after I started wearing the shawl, the yarn started to beard. Horribly. Eventually it looked as if I’d worn it while wrestling with goats. I tried smoothing the bearding off with one of those pumice-like bars that’s made for removing pills. That took off the first round of bearding, and it eventually stopped. To be replaced by dirty-looking pilling and these funny little twisty protrusions. Not a great look!

So I stopped wearing it, put it in the “disappointing” pile and left the yarn in the stash.

I’m in the process of getting rid of that “disappointing” pile and thinning my fabric and yarn stash. Some of it I’ll give to friends&family, some I’ll sell, and some I’ll donate to charity.

The difficult decision

When I came to the beardy yarn, it was surprisingly hard to do what needed to be done – namely, trash it.

Nothing else makes sense. I’m not going to use it, and I’m not going to give it to a friend, sell it or donate it to a charity.

Setting someone up to waste time and effort knitting something from it would be unconscionable!

But still, it was amazingly hard to put this lovely-looking yarn – and the shawl I’d made from it – into the bin bag and trot it out to the curb on garbage day!

But it’s done. It went out last Tuesday.

The Faroese shawl – take two

The whole beardy yarn debacle had one good result – I discovered that I really like Faroese shawls, so when I found a beautiful yarn in just the right weight & colour (though not exactly cheap), I took the chance & made another. Which has worn beautifully.