Yarn

On taking up crochet, one thing in particular starts happening very quickly:  an obsession with yarn.

I’m not sure how it is for others – maybe some people start trawling patterns first, and then make a shopping list of what they need.  But I seem to be always on some driven, never-ending hunt for colours, textures, fibres.  In the early days, I crocheted some snowflakes in different colours and weights, which led to a natural conclusion of what was and wasn’t snowflakey.  I didn’t even bother blocking this one.

And this improvised shape turned out to be… a wonky swatch of sorts.

Then I had to keep finding more suitable yarns for snowflakes, some worked better than others.

Finer weights

...or wool

and alternative cold colours.

It wasn’t that I got bored with snowflakes, but the new crochet spark ignited the next phase very quickly.  I now wanted to crochet in my favourite fibres:  hemp, cotton.  Maybe try flax or ramie.

 

Of course wool presented an array of possibilities and then there were acrylics with their vibrant colours.

ravelry.compatternslibrarystarflower-mandala

Yarn could also be something I conjured myself, or re-purposed.

I love the idea of reclaimed yarn and yarn made from plastic bags – a great tutorial here.

With charity projects lining up, I got my hands on anything I could, often buying out stock in charity shops,  or finding forgotten balls of musty old yarn

And bringing home bags of frogged yarn (the old Grace Bros bag a find in itself!)

The next thing you know, you have yarn tumbling out of every crevice. 

  

The next job would be to think about storage and organisation.  So far, I am going to use old suitcases.  Here is the start of the cotton stash in a 60's beauty case.

These days I can completely relate to those who refer to ‘never having enough’ yarn.  And mind-boggled onlookers who say in disbelief “…but I thought you just bought some yarn.  Do you really need more?”  I know many of you out there know exactly what I’m talking about.