Yarn, lovely yarn

The new KnitPicks catalog came yesterday.

As I was on the way back out the door (I had run home for lunch and to do 20 minutes of piano practice - Tuesdays are my lightest teaching day) to go get my allergy shot, I took it with me.

I'm not in the market for any more yarn. I have several projects I'm happily working on, and I have yarn lined up for future projects after I finish these.

But I just love looking at the yarn. (I will also, sometimes, especially after an upsetting meeting or a class where everything and everyone just fails to connect, spend some time browsing my various favorite online shops. But that's more dangerous, because it's so very easy to put something in your cart and pay for it. (For a while, I had one credit card number even memorized. Then they changed the card on me and I don't any more, which is probably a good thing))

I'm the same way with patterns (Knitting, quilting, and sewing). And quilt fabric.

I think part of it is that it represents potential: until the thing you're making is totally and completely done, you can change your plans for it. (Or even after, in some cases: I've known of people who unraveled sweaters that they didn't like after they finished them and remade them into something new. Or who sliced-and-diced quilts that went wrong and tried to make something better out of them).

If you buy something already finished, well, it's finished. There's not the same potential there, there's not the same opportunity for your own input. (And yes, I know, some people do remake t-shirts or make over jeans or things like that, but for me, it's not the same as making something "from scratch.")

And also, I think, there's something I find calming about looking at the different colors: thinking about which one I'd choose, if I were planning to make something of that yarn.

Really, the planning is often the most fun step of projects.

I think other knitters feel the same way about yarn catalogs or yarn websites...what fun it is to look at them.

I also admit, I have a big plastic tub of sock yarn (most of it the hand-dyed, small-producer sock yarn I've bought/been given as gifts over the years) in my guest room/office. And sometimes I go in there and lay my head on the top layer of yarn and take a deep breath. And I know non-knitters think that's really weird, but yarn - especially wool or mostly-wool yarn, especially yarn that's not been so highly processed - has a very distinctive smell. (Lanolin, and also the smell of the fiber itself - sort of a clean-animal type of smell) Many knitters find that smell comforting, and I am one of them.

I suspect part of my fondness for knitting (and, I confess, for yarn in general - I probably now own more yarn than I will be able to knit up in my life) is the fact that it is a sensory experience on many levels.

(No, I'm not going to say "Sensual," it makes me think of the bit from the movie Animal House and while it's a very funny movie, there's also much about it that squicks me out)

I also think maybe in some way it's because I don't have a pet. (I have allergies to both cats and dogs, and while I could probably live with a cat and just deal with the allergy - I've been around people's cats and it's not like I'm immediately sneezing my head off - I've just never really felt compelled to get one. And at this point, the thought of what I'd have to do to cat-proof or dog-proof my home is sufficiently daunting that I don't know that I will). Wooly yarn, I think, satisfies some of that need for something warm and fuzzy close to me.

(Though yarn doesn't offer the same kind of nonjudgmental companionship that an animal does: there's a study out suggesting kids that need to work on their reading skills improve faster if they can read to a dog rather than a human. Presumably that's because they know the dog won't criticize them, or stop and ask questions, that there's just that nonjudgmental presence there.)

(I don't know. If I had a lot of land and had more time to actually CARE for animals, I'd think about something like alpacas - some kind of large, furry animal, but a large, furry animal that would have its own "house" - so I wouldn't have to put breakable things up high in mine, or worry about accidents on the floor. But I'm so busy some days I barely have time to take care of myself, so I think a pet is out.)

***

I had toyed with the idea of running down to Sherman this weekend (there are a few things from the Target that I am getting low on). But then they mentioned on the news this morning it's the sales-tax holiday weekend. So no, I'm not going (nothing I would buy will be under the guidelines of the "holiday," and the stores will be much more crowded with back-to-school shoppers, and I really don't want to repeat a situation like the crowded wal-mart the other day. (Sigh. I wish we had some other nice, large grocery store with bigger selection than the little place near me. My parents have a Fresh Market in their town and while it's horrifically expensive and you probably get a different sort of "problem people" there (the insufferably smug and the ones who are such wilting flowers that they have very specific requirements that they demand from food or cosmetics), still, it would be super-nice to have something like that here.)

(The nearest Fresh Market is in Little Rock. LITTLE ROCK! And I don't even know where the nearest Trader Joe's (where my brother and sister-in-law shop) is. Or Whole Paycheck Foods (Supposedly OKC is getting one, but that's about as accessible to me on a regular basis as Little Rock is...)

Heck, I'd be happy if we just had a reasonably well-stocked Kroger's in town, but I bet we don't get that, not without another 10,000 or so residents...)