J is for Jaen

Last September, a friend of mine was moving to Portland, OR. She called me and asked me to help her pack up her Yarn Room. Yes. She had a Yarn. Room.

It was a normal sized bedroom and the walls were lined with blocks of cubbies and cabinets. Each cubbie/cabinet thing was about 4' or 5' tall - each one stuffed to the gills with yarn. One wall had 3 bookcases - 6' each and these were overflowing with knitting books and magazines. In the closet she had her "project" packages - she'd put specific patterns with the yarn called for into clear plastic zip bags and hung them on hangers. There were well over 50 of these packages.
Now, I'm not one to judge another's stash. I've pretty well documented my stash as beyond S.A.B.L.E. and have no room to talk. Her stuff was fairly well organized and it didn't take long to pack most of it up. The reason she asked for help was that it was all so overwhelming for her. She said she'd walk into the room, look at it all, and just walk back out.

I was the same way when we moved in September. But, having no attachment to her yarn (other then your basic lust and envy), I was able to go in there and start clearing stuff out. She'd gone to Target and bought about 12 huge bins. I cleared one wall of cubbie/cabinet things in about 20 minutes. The whole time, I kept thinking of that line from Jaws, "We're going to need a bigger boat." She didn't have enough bins but we spent two hours packing them as best we could. I put all the books into several large boxes with very strict instructions for her to NOT try to lift them by herself as each box weighed close to 80 pounds or more. There was one box that a case of printer paper came in - I used that box just for her printed-out patterns; it wasn't big enough.

She thanked me over and over and then started thanking me, as knitters do, with yarn. I told her it was no big deal but she insisted it was as I was in my own house-move drama at the time. I told her it was a welcome break from my stuff, I was in moving mode anyway, and who wouldn't want to come play with her yarn!

She gave me 2 reddish skeins of Malabrigo which I made into the Just Enough Ruffles scarf for D2's teacher. She gave me a skein of sock yarn that she got in a sock club a year ago - one that she knew I was lusting over ever since she showed it to me. There were 2 skeins of grey Berroco Comfort that were to be a shark hat but she was aggravated by the pattern and passed them on to me so I could make one for the boys.

She had a sweater half knit in Malabrigo that was going to be "too big for any human to wear" (she said) and told me if I wanted to frog it, I could have it all. I'm not one to pass up free Mal, right? Here's the yarn after I frogged it...


It's Malabrigo Worsted in the Jaen color. I don't really care for the color and thought I'd put it up on Ravelry to sell it and buy a Mal color I liked. I've had no takers for the selling and just last weekend it occurred to me that if I just overdyed it, I'd have 5 skeins worth of Malabrigo in a color I loved!

Right now it's a yellowy-swamp-green. The current color isn't ugly or anything, it's just not me. Besides, I already have a swampy-green (no yellow) sweater and Dave likes to call it my Shrek sweater. (Shut up, Dave.) I'm going to overdye it with some form of blue. I'll share pic's after it's done. Wish me luck! (And don't hold your breath, it may take awhile before I get to it...)

Wishing for a Yarn Room of my own someday, Ruth!