Confessions of a Yarn Junkie

Alright, it is time for me to come clean: My name is Squarepeg, and I am a yarn junkie! There, now I have said it. If you are wondering just how I came to this prcarious situation, pull off your shoes, grab a tall, cold glass of sweet tea, or a hot cup of joe. and listen while I tell my story.



It all began innocently enough; I was a precocious 9 year old who always had to be busy doing something. I'm not sure if ADHD was a real disorder back then - 30 years ago, but if it were, I'm sure I would have been diagnosed with it and given a healthy dose of Prozac or something. Any way, on one particularly hot summer day while vacationing in Houston, Tx, my mother, my aunt, my brother, and myself had gone to the Houston Galleria to shop. I should say it was my mother and my aunt who were doing the shopping - my brother and I just went along because we were told to do so. After about 4 hours of being dragged from one department store to another, my brother and I could take it no longer! After our whining and pleading to go home garnered no results, we found ways of amusing ourselves. We played keep away with women's handbags. We tried to skip rope with belts tied together. It was only after we pretended to be a 2-headed creature and tried to use a double D cup bra as a hat that my aunt realized that something must be done with us! She whipped a $10 bill out of her purse and told us to go to the toy store and buy something to keep us busy. (Keep in mind that this was in the 70's when you could actually buy something with ten bucks!)



After browsing the store for maybe 30 minutes, my brother decided on a Star Trek coloring book and colored pencils. I spied a "Learn to Crochet" kit. The kit included a plastic crochet hook, pink rug yarn, different colored felt pieces, and an instruction booklet to teach a young person how to crochet and make these goofy looking, round potholders with faces of felt features. That's what I wanted!
We purchase our loot and went back to the car and busied ourselves until my mother and aunt had finished shopping themselves silly.

Over the next several months, I lost count of the number of potholders I made. After the yarn that came with the kit was gone, I would make weekly trips to the local TG&Y (remember them?) to buy more rug yarn with my allowance. After awhile, I discovered that there were more things that could be crocheted besides potholders. I soon graduated to making placemats and afghans, and even tackled crocheting doilies out of thread!

As they say: all good things must come to an end, and by the time I hit my teens, crochet no longer held the thrill it once did. I put away my crochet hooks and leftover yarn and forgot about them.

Fast forward a few decades: I am now a fully adult divorced woman with an adult daughter, and too much time on my hands. Well, not really too much time in general, but too much idle time as I commute to work in a van pool. My fellow riders are nice enough, but their conversations are just not interesting enough to satisfy me. I tried reading during the hour long trek each way, but found it difficult because of all the idle chatter surrounding me. As luck would have it, one day I was browsing the hobby and crafts section at my local Barnes and Noble and was amazed at the array of crochet books! I couldn't believe the things that could be made! Oh, and the yarns shown in the books were a far cry from old Aunt Lydias rug yarn of my potholder days! I purchased 'Crochet Me' which had fabulous patterns for crochet wearables and quickly headed off to Michaels craft store to find yarn.

I purchased 6 balls of Patons Grace in a lovely lavender and an appropriate sized hook, and was on my way. Now the frugal part of me thought: "Wow, $25 for an uncooked sweater is a bit pricey!" but I was undaunted. Over the next several days, I managed to finish the summer pullover and was literally hooked! I fell in love with crochet all over again, but this was going to be an expensive hobby!

The light finally came on after a "duh!" moment; As a doll collector, seamstress, and quilter, I had discovered years ago that wonderful supplies could be found more economically on the world wide web. Could reasonably priced yarns be merely a mouse click away? I soon began Googling with a vengance, and found several sites that had wonderful yarns at awesome prices! I'll share some of those in upcoming posts, but for now, just picture what used to be my sewing studio now littered with dozens of bags and shipping boxes full of yarn.....