Birthday resolution

Over the last few years I have managed to keep my yarn buying in check by doing a strict monthly account of how much I have reduced my yarn store by and how much I have added to it.  This was helped by having a financial limit on my spending.

Last year I realised that I could easily spend more on wool, so the financial reasons were removed.  As a result I bought everything I that I wanted in charity shops, and my yarn store grew so quickly that the monthly account became embarrassing, and I stopped doing it.  But I still woke some mornings panicking over the amount of yarn in the store and how I was ever going to use it all up.

I had a birthday a few weeks again, entering a new decade.  A few days later I woke with the idea that I could simply stop buying yarn.  As this coincided with a period of two weeks when I not bought any wool, because I had not seen any I fancied, it seemed a really good idea and a good place to start.  And I would not buy any yarn for the next decade.  A very fitting, a very severe birthday resolution.  A decade of no more yarn buying would reduce my yarn store considerably.  I would possibly get it down to the level where I would buy yarn for specific projects and start knitting straight away.

I could not of course stop buying yarn altogether, so I have given myself an allowance of 250 gr per month.  That does not sound a lot, but it becomes 3 kg per year and 30 kg over the decade.  There are also rules for what I can buy.  I will continue to buy Kaffe Fassett garments, at least if they are knitted with the kind of wool I like reusing.  I will buy pure wool DK in balls with ball bands, all Rowan and Jaeger and probably other brands if I like them.  The same with 4 ply pure wool, but to a lesser extent.  It should be colours that I like using.  Then there are the other Rowan yarns that I collect:  Tapestry, Felted Tweed, Big Wool, Kidsilk Haze.

This went well for another week.  I bypassed some wool that I would otherwise have bought, but nothing that caused me heartache.  Then I found something that fitted within the rules.  A pack of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4 ply in a nice pale grey - such a useful colour.  So I bought it, and the 500 gr took care of my monthly allowance for November and December.  Any purchases from the January sales will have to wait until January.

It will be interesting to see how long I can keep this going.  For now it feels fine.  I have got to the point where I have started to reduce my yarn store.  Anything that I knit has to come from the yarn store; it can't be supplemented by purchases.