Pefectly Reasonable

Is there anyone that doesn't love to come home to packages?  The one waiting for me today was extra special.

Four beautiful skeins of sock yarn.  Um, oops?

I often feel guilty about my stash.  I frequently need to remind myself that I spend well within my means, all my bills are paid, the dogs are fed, and the yarn makes me happy.  Perfectly reasonable, right?  But when I finished admiring my new skeins and went to put them away, I discovered the sock yarn drawer is full.  I could cram in a skein or two but not all four.  Something about that fact is disturbing to me.  I have several other drawers filled with yarn where the yarn could go so it's not a storage issue.  It just makes me start to wonder if I've crossed some line and have started to go a little too crazy with the sock yarn.

I would feel better if I were finishing projects and using up more yarn, but I haven't been the most productive knitter lately.  That brings me to yet another interesting development.  I finished a Marigold sock last month.  It's a really cute pattern. This weekend I grabbed the rest of the yarn and started knitting.  I was really enjoying the pattern and by Sunday evening I was already about halfway finished with the sock.  Wow, almost a finished pair, right?  Um, not so much.

Uh, what's the problem with this picture?  I knit a completely different pattern when I started the second sock.  It wasn't a mistake; I did it on purpose.  As much as I like the Marigold pattern, I wasn't in love with the first sock and didn't want to knit it again.  I'm so much happier with how the yarn looks in the second pattern (Charade), and when it's finished, the original sock will be ripped and reknit to make a matching pair.  I think this was a perfectly reasonable decision.  I really really love the yarn, and I want to be happy with the finished project.  That's much more important to me than checking another project off the list just so I can move onto another one. So reasonable, right? Yes.  Absolutely.  Nevertheless, this fickleness is certainly not helping me knit down the sock yarn stash, is it now?  Would it be wrong to cast on 5 shawls tonight just so I can feel like the yarn is being used?  Then I could lament about my overflowing WIP drawer....