It’s mid-December and all of a sudden I feel like I’m losing the race, or several races!

First there is my Twixmas CAL.  I started doing Christmas CALs back in 2014.  It was a moment of madness when I started – I decided on a blanket!  How on earth I managed to do it so quickly was unfathomable – but I did it!   I posted a new square every day from Christmas Eve to New Year.  But it was exhilarating, not least because I didn’t realise just how many people would enjoy picking up their hooks every day during the holiday season.  For some it was a welcome project because they had an enforced holiday, for others a lovely respite from the hectic family time, for me a challenge in discipline!

More recently I have been less ambitious (aka more sensible) and my Christmas CAL (or Twixmas CAL) has been a mandala, a few rounds added to the pattern every day over the Christmas season.  But Twixmas 2019 is behind, I have only just finished it (a callout for some last minute testers is on my Ravelry page).    A few days ago I thought I had lost the race….phew, I think I’m back on track.

This is one of my Christmas Mandalas:

The second race is my annual blanket CAL.   This won’t start until February but it takes a lot of preparation.  I was beginning to think I wouldn’t finish it in time.  But somehow I managed to grab the bull by the horns (or is that the blanket by the hook?) and I plan to finish the entire blanket by the end of the year, as I have only the border to complete.  In fact, a large part of the blanket is now in testing.  Another sigh of relief, perhaps I’m not losing it?

But then I am losing it, because at the start of the year I challenged myself to have another stash busting year.  I have been following Lynn Rowe’s Use it or Lose it campaign for almost 2 years and it has really helped me get a grip on my yarn addiction. I even confessed to how much stash I had way back in May 2018.

This year I set myself a target – to get down to 80 skeins in my stash.  I have been making the odd purchase, even splashing out a bit at Yarndale, and at one point I thought I was winning but I now know I am losing.   Currently I have 86 skeins in my stash and I will be lucky to get down to 85 by the end of the year, especially as there is a skein in the post to me.   This is one race I really wanted to win and I’m a poor loser, I spent some time yesterday searching my stash for some heavy weight yarn so I could use it quickly!  But I am pretty certain I will lose this race.

So I need to think hard about my next target, and I need to be realistic.  Maybe next year I should write a diary – Confessions of a Yarn Addict!

Do you have any stash targets?  Come on, I’ve confessed surely you can too?!

Happy crocheting xxx

–