Stash and burn

A week or so ago, or maybe more since I think it's January and the calendar says March, I started listening to Stash and Burn, a podcast based in San Francisco. The two hostesses, Nicole and Jenny, are funny, nice, smart, and on topic. I really like their podcast, the fact that they are from around here, and that they are on a stash consumption mission.
Many knitters think that stash can be viewed as a "collection", with "core stash" that will be never be used, and "memory stash" that is a souvenir from some special place. Nicole and Jenny do not subscribe to this philosophy, and I have come to the conclusion that I do not either.
When I look at yarn that has been in my stash for many year some time, I think it must feel so sad and disappointed, lying there waiting to become something. It's a dream that has not come true, an unfulfilled promise. I bought the yarn telling it, "I'll make this or that with you". And then I didn't. Poor yarn.
Jenny and Nicole made a spreadsheet with all their yarn. What a good idea, I thought, I'll do it too. I have photos of (almost) all my stash, but I can't believe I have not a spreadsheet!
So I made one. With yarn, yardage per ball, number of balls, total yardage. And I looked at the total yardage: 86,933 yards. That's a lot, right? Yards mean nothing to me, but then someone reminded me that a yarn is pretty much a meter. 80 km? Holy yarn! Knit from Your Stash 2006? Make that "Knit from you Stash until 2020!"
In a feeble attempt of reducing the magnitude of the discovery, I have assigned a lot of it to "projects". Like writing "Central Park Hoodie" in the "Jaeger Shetland Aran in #38 (lilac)" row makes 10 balls (1800 yds) go away.
Like I do not have 13 projects on the needles already.
I started 2007 with 16 projects, and if there is something sadder than unused yarn, that is project languishing around with no hope of being completed. I frogged 4 projects since I joined UFO Resurrection 2007, and completed 4 more. It is time now to choose my projects for March:
- Reynolds Dover Pullover
- Debbie Bliss' Mia from the book "Junior Knits"
- Jaywalker
The Jaywalker are for me, so they count for the "It's NOT a Gift" KAL - I am really doing poorly in that one. The only project for me I have worked on in 2007 is the doomed Debbie Bliss Simple Jacket, doomed because ...... the collar is still wrong. I sewed together the fronts and the back and tried it on. The collar does not look right, again. I know what I have to do: rip those darn fronts and try again.
And I know what I'll do: I'll put the jacket in time out until I am ready to deal with it again. And cast on for Adriann. 1,250 yards.