I did something last night I had been thinking about and tempted to do for a while.

I started (yet another) project. I wanted a "simple" sweater (the Honeycomb, while not difficult, requires a lot of attention and I wanted something "just knit round" that I could knit while reading)

I had been thinking about two sweaters in particular: the Burma Rings pullover (worsted weight, knit of 1824 Wool - I can't find an easily-accessed photo online) and Thermal.

I decided on Thermal, even though it's 296 stitches on size 3 needles. (I'm doing the 42" size; this is supposed to be a body-hugging sweater). I'm using the recommended yarn, except in a deep-purple color (they call it "Concord Grape," it has since been discontinued).

This is why I have a stash. I realize that for some people, stashes are neither necessary nor desirable; I know knitters who work on only one or two projects at a time, and when they are ready to begin their next project, then they go to their Local Yarn Shop and pick something out, or they order it through the mail and wait patiently for it to arrive.

I am not those knitters. I like having a stash for myself, for those times when I get seized by the urge to start something, or when I find a pattern I just have to try out - most of the yarn in my stash is project-designated, but that doesn't mean that I can't bump a project and replace the yarn for it later.

I also have to admit, in a strange way, the stash gives me a sense of security. A feeling of, "If H1N1 flu got so bad that they told us all to hole up for three weeks and not leave our houses, at least I wouldn't be bored." or, more realistically: "If gas prices got really high and I felt like I couldn't go out shopping for supplies, I at least have enough stuff to keep entertained for quite a while."

(I also keep a couple weeks' worth of canned goods on hand. Though food would be less of an issue than craft supplies, in the face of super-expensive/unavailable gas)

And yeah, I do have a stash big enough to scare most non-stashers and probably many of the small-stashers. I don't know; I consider it a relatively benign form of eccentricity. Much of my yarn was bought comparatively inexpensively and opportunistically from Elann as closeouts.

I will say one benefit of the stash? On a few occasions when someone in one of the groups I frequent in Ravelry was having a rough patch and people were secretly planning on "love bombing" that person, I could pull something out of the stash and send it on - which I couldn't easily do otherwise, not having a local yarn shop.

And I have to admit, there's a certain pleasure in going to the stash, pulling something out, and starting a project with it. (Part of it is the freeing-up-space thing, but MAINLY it is a pleasure similar to what I suspect a home canner feels when he or she makes spaghetti sauce in the middle of the winter with tomatoes they grew and canned in July.)

(And no, I didn't swatch. Because if you're knitting in the round, you have to swatch in the round, and that's a pain. And because I'm using the recommended yarn and needle size and my gauge tends to be on-gauge for most patterns. I may pay for it later but I'm going to just knit up the ribbing and a few rounds of the body and do a quick check to make sure I'm not too far off gauge.)

***

I had not planned to photograph myself in the new dress but maybe I will now. Maybe I'll see if one of my "knitted before I owned a digicam" shawls goes with it and use that as an excuse to show off the dress.

I do have to wash it first. I'm now paranoid about washing new clothes before wearing them, after seeing a long-ago episode of "House, MD" where a couple kids got pesticide poisoning from new jeans they bought from some shady guy.

***

And another thing: Ray Bradbury once commented that local news made you stupid. I'm wondering if maybe my local news is making me smarter, in that some of the stuff they say on there makes me question things and go chasing after information.

There was a story this morning (it was the obligatory "OH NOES IF YOU EVER SAID ANYTHING ON THE INTERNETS NOW YOU WILL NEVER GET A JOB BECAUSE EMPLOYERS THINK THE INTERNETS IS EVIL!" type story, or at least that was how it was sold. I presume it was really a "posting drunken photos of yourself on a Myspace page is probably inadvisable if you are planning on a executive career" story)

Anyway, the news-reader said something along the lines of "With unemployment worse than it ever was...."

Wait...what?

Really? Worse than 1931? Much worse than the early 80s?. For that matter, Worse than the 1890s?

(And I'm only looking at US data. I seem to remember that not too terribly long ago, Spain had 22% unemployment)

(and yes, before anyone says anything, I know that the way things were reported were changed after 1981 or so, and I also know there are a lot of folks who have given up looking and have fallen off the rolls. But still. It bugs me to be told these are the worst times ever when less than 80 years ago there were times that were clearly worse.)

I think I've said before that ahistoricality bugs me. Partly because it leads to the assumption that everything that is currently New! and popular is, well, the best thing EVER! and that when things are not going so well, it's the WORST times EVER! There's also an element of the fear of "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it."