Half Full

I mentioned yesterday that I bought some Noro on sale over the weekend, 20% off. I bought an uncharacteristically subdued batch, as you can see there on the left, since I did want to knit something for John who has been known to refer to most colors as "why is it not not gray or black". There is some gray here, you can see, and a lot of black and a little bit of brown, as well as some funky green that he might not notice if I don't make too much of a big deal out of including a color in there.

Before I went to the yarn store, though, I took a good hard look at all the Noro I already have on hand. All of it is beautiful. It also accounts for the yarn in most of the UFOs in that yarn closet. If you make a sweater with Noro, you'd better make sure it was sleeveless or else, frankly, you look insane. And forget about two socks, I can never figure out which two socks go together when I get them out of the wash.

I knew I wouldn't be able to help myself once I got to the store, because my impulse control is quite poor in these situations and their selection of Noro is mouthwateringly fine. I knew if I could focus on just getting enough for a project without sleeves or a second sock or some such impediment I would have half a chance to get the thing finished.

So I studied and studied the Noro at the shop. I took skeins outside to look at them in the 10 minutes of sunshine alloted to us this weekend. I lined skeins up side by side, and then walked around the table. I figured I needed X xY = Z amount, and bought it, and apologized to no one.

Here is an aside: if there was a gameshow called Guess The Necessary Yardage I'd win the dinette set for sure. I can look at you, your yarn choice and pattern tell you what you need to buy with 25 yards to spare with no calculator, just my bifocaled eyes. But when I got home on Saturday, I realized I had bought only about half of what I needed.

And what do we learn from this? Noro Love is a primitive thing, and even though I need to go back and get more, I should remember that right now my knitting basket is half full.