About the Sock Yarn

In one corner of a tightly packed closet, atop a narrow bookcase teeters a stack of storage boxes filled with enough yarn to make 63 pairs of socks.

63. I know. I counted.

And that doesn't include the several yarns in the fingering to DK range that could eventually be made into socks. That's just the stuff that was bought expressly to make socks.

I made 9 pairs of socks this year. So at my current rate of knitting, I have enough sock yarn to last me seven years.That's assuming I continue to knit socks at the same rate, which is by no measure a certain thing. I'm planning more sweater knitting, which means less sock knitting.

Three years ago, before I started hoarding sock yarn, these bins held the yarn for sweaters-in-progress. They held needles and notions. Now, to make room for the sock yarn, all those things have been crammed into nooks and crannies on bookcases, which are bowing under the weight of everything I ask them to hold.

2009 will be the year I stop collecting sock yarn as if it doesn't count towards the stash. I'm sure I'll still buy some here and there, and I've "budgeted" to allow myself to purchase new sock yarn after I've completed three pairs of socks. After. Not before. The storage closet has no more credit to extend.

Last year, I granted myself two exceptions in my personal rules. I said that sock yarn didn't count, as long as I paid cash for it from my weekly pocket money allowance. And I said that the rules didn't apply to Stitches and to The Fold's annual New Year's Day sale. This year, sock yarn counts, whether I pay from my weekly allowance or from gold that rains down from the skies.

Will there be an exception for Stitches? Still debating that one. I may leave it an open question until I see just how many pairs of socks I manage to knit between now and September. But my usual splurge mentality for the Stitches marketplace has started to come under heavy scrutiny, too. So we'll see, I guess.