LIKE MOST ARTISTS, I support my work with an extensive and varied collection of the materials I use to create. Picasso had paint; Michelangelo had marble; Mozart had piano, pen, and paper. As a knitter, I have yarn.
Now, I’m way past feeling bad about how much yarn I have. I used to think I had “too much.” For a while, I even tried going on a yarn diet to try to lose a few pounds of fiber, but the truth is that my heart was never truly in it. Really, I was just saying all the things I think non-knitters want to hear. We’ve all been there. They want us to acknowledge that we have too much yarn, to admit that we’re out of control and that we should have less. They talk to us about obsession and hoarding. They fail to see the big picture.
The way I see it, the big picture is that painters have paint and canvas, gardeners have plants and acreage, carpenters have wood and tools — and even if you want to think of knitting as a hobby rather than an art form, golfers have clubs, golf balls, carts, green fees, memberships, and entire golf weekends for their hobby.
Once I put my collection of yarn into perspective, I realized I didn’t care what people thought. I really didn’t. I cared whether or not I had room for yarn (spiritually and literally), I cared about whether or not I could afford it, and when I ordered that big box of fancy wool from Germany, I even went so far as to consider my daughter’s possible feelings about my intention to store it in her closet. (I admit I would have considered it for a longer time or more in her favor if she’d ever cleaned a closet, but I digress.) I took a good look at the stash, and I realized that I wasn’t hurting anyone, that I wasn’t spending money I didn’t have, and that I certainly wasn’t spending more on yarn than the golfer down the street was spending on his golf trips, and I stopped feeling bad about it. Not only did I stop feeling bad, I started buying yarn whenever I took a fancy to.
I must admit that removing the element of guilt about having so much of the thing I love has increased the influx of it somewhat, but I don’t mind. This is the stuff my art, my hobby, and my life is made of, and I’m just not going to support the idea that having a lot of wool is a crushing, world-important issue worth discussing with non-knitters. This is the yarn I’ll have for the rest of my life. It turns out that knitting has taught me that good things come in all sizes, and the size doesn’t matter, as long as you’re happy with what you’ve got.
Now, where I’m going to put it all — that’s certainly open for debate.