Thank you Thank you

All I have to say is - WOW, people. We had such a fun, exciting, busy, successful weekend here at Sage and it's all because of YOU! I forget the official number, but almost 2000 skeins/balls/hanks of yarn went out to good homes over the 3 day period.

I'll make you feel better about what you brought home by showing you my stash in my little 3 bedroom apartment:

All of those cubes, including the blue fabric drawers in the bottom ones, plus a few big bags in the closet next to this.

Ok, so it doesn't look too bad from here but here's the deal - none of this yarn is sold at Sage. So that means anything I knit for Sage or myself with Sage yarn doesn't put even the smallest dent in this pile. This is all discontinued yarn or special yarn I've bought other places.

What's the deal with stashing yarn? Well, I look at it this way - these are my paints to paint with. If I'm feeling the creative itch I can paint right away without leaving the house. Most come home with specific projects in mind but some is just sitting there waiting for inspiration. And I don't feel guilty AT ALL - here's why:

• A good movie costs at least $8.50 these days and entertains me for about 2 hours ($4.25/hr). At the end I hopefully have a nice memory of a fun movie but not much else.

• A skein of fingering-weight yarn for a shawl costs me $20 and entertains me for at least 40 hours (50 cents/hr). 10 skeins of Encore for an afghan costs me $50 and entertains me for 80 hours at least (63 cents/hr). At the end I hopefully have a garment that I can wear or a blanket to snuggle under for years and years.

If you're still feeling bad about how much you've bought, I have to tell you a secret. If you didn't buy it we would go out of business. Seriously - people talk about going on "yarn diets" and declaring "I will not buy any new yarn this year" as a New Year's Resolution. (And its is ALWAYS good to have a budget and not live outside your means! I'm not saying spend your food money on yarn) But then their local yarn stores go out of business because there's no one in the store buying yarn!

So we are eternally grateful that you came in to shop this weekend. Don't feel guilty! Go throw your purchase on your bed and roll around in it! You deserve it!!

Next post I get to tell you about all the new yarn we got in during the month of Jan (and man, it's a lot of yarn!)

Have fun with the string,
Jen