Skip to main content

12 Step Program for the Yarn-oholics

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk -- Thomas A. Edison



My stash remains stocked for the same reason I stock my fridge . . . it is never clear what I will want to make next.  (Famous words of anyone who has a yarn stash of a certain magnitude.)

A reasonably well accessible stash

 Somewhere I copied the 12 items below, I have no reference to offer.  These are not my words, and are shared with no offense to the 12 Step Program for serious addictions.  Having said that, there are times when some of us need an intervention to stop purchasing more yarn so that what is already in our possession can be used.   Perhaps these steps will help us.

 12 Step Program for Yarn-oholics

 Step 1 - Admit we are powerless over our addiction - that our stash had become unmanageable.

Step 2 - Believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step 3 - Decide to turn our will over to the care of a higher non-knitting power.

Step 4 - Make a fearless inventory of our stash.

Step 5 - Admit to ourselves and to other human beings the exact nature of our obsession with yarn.

Step 6 - Remain entirely ready to use our stash and remove all the flaws of our mistakes and knit away.

Step 7 - Humbly asked the higher Power to remove our shortcomings and control our impulses to purchase more yarn.

Step 8 - Make a list of all our stash we've ignored and become willing to knit it or donate it.

Step 9 - Make direct amends to LYS wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others and thus buy more yarn!!

Step 10 - Continue to take stash inventory and when we're overwhelmed promptly admitted it and turn our wallets and credit cards over to a non-knitter for safekeeping.  (My personal fav)

Step 11 - Seek through frequent conversation and personal meditation to improve our knitting skills and keep conscious contact with other knitters as we understood these skills, hoping only for knowledge of knitting techniques and the power to use up our stash.

Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to other addicts and to practice these principles in all our knitting affairs.

Comments

  1. ruby2 October 2016 at 12:29

    love this

    ReplyDelete
  2. Addiction Recovery Steps25 January 2022 at 03:46

    Great post of the steps to recovery, highlighting what you should do for yourself and how it takes work. Thanks for sharing..

    Addiction Recovery Steps
    Addiction Recovery Idea

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous14 June 2026 at 09:22

    I prefer to think of the Higher Power as another consummate knitter / yarn hoarder .... ;-D

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
10 comments
Read more

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...
9 comments
Read more

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...
Post a Comment
Read more