RAVELINGS: SPARKING JOY
On the bookshelf where I store my yarn in my apartment, there
are some skeins that cause me shame. There’s the armload of squashy
purple sportweight I bought at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival
almost a decade ago; there are the four teal hanks of silk and merino
I purchased from my hometown’s local yarn store right before I left
for college; and there’s the solitary ball of zany striped sock yarn I
picked up on a solo trip to Berlin. It has all remained stubbornly,
disgracefully unknitted.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this yarn. To the naked eye,
there’s no difference between it and the yarn that I can barely keep
on hand, given how quickly I convert it into projects. I know myself
well enough now to not seek out mohair (too itchy for me) and to
admire laceweight in the store but not take it home (too finicky for
me). These yarns that I don’t use all seemed at some point viable, as
though they held a promise, which I am now breaking.
So, this all begs the following question: How do you get rid of yarn
that you know, deep down, you’re never going to use?
It’s a question that’s especially prevalent in the era of Marie Kondo,
the author of the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Ten
Speed Press, 2014) and the star of the Netflix series Tidying Up with
Marie Kondo. We are urged to ask ourselves “Does an object spark
joy?” and to dispose of anything that doesn’t reach that high-water mark.
But joy is a complicated thing, especially when it comes to craft-
ing. I feel joy when I’m in the process of making a sock or figuring
BY ALANNA OKUN
SPARKING
Joy
out a complicated lace pattern, but I also feel it when I wake up in
the morning and the first thing I see is my yarn collection. I feel joy
when I think about who I was when I bought a particular skein, and
I certainly feel joy in knowing that the (exorbitant!) amount of money
I spend on materials isn’t going to waste. There’s just a lot of joy
permeating every inch of my yarn collection, and so my joydar feels
too broken for the Kondo method to be much use.
Luckily, I ’ve lately found something else that br ings me joy: seeing
my yar n have a second life with other people. T his, then, is my cur rent
solution to the problem of unknittable yarn. I’ve begun attending
yarn swaps with local friends and giving my yarn away to the new
knitters I teach. I host crafternoons at my house and ask that guests
bring wine or a snack in exchange for the skeins I’ll press into their
hands as they leave. I can’t quite bring myself, yet, to donate my yarn
or sell it to strangers, but seeing someone I care about proudly show
off a hat they made with something I couldn’t find a use for is almost
better than making that hat myself.
The only problem with yarn swaps? I tend to leave with even more
yarn to populate the bookshelf.ALANNA OKUN is a crafter and writer in New York City. She
is the author of The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater (Flatiron
Books, 2018).