(Non-)impulse buying

When I work with textiles, I'm driven by texture even more than color. When I decided to make a baby blanket for the Small We-Didn't-Want-to-Know-Until-Birth, I decided on a rainbow design to match the nursery, and because a rainbow blanket would be perfect for either a boy or a girl. I sketched out a design, looked around at different yarns, and did initial calculations on how much yarn I would need. When I went to actually buy the rainbow colored yarns, I just happened to see this yarn

and I knew I had to work with it. I didn't know what or how, but I just had to have that yarn. I went home, did some drafts, recalculated my warp and weft needs, and wound up making this baby blanket instead. (Just behind Small Boy's head you can see the rainbow that I originally thought I would be echoing.)



I recently made a baby blanket for a friend who just had a daughter. Knowing that, I decided to indulge in gender-stereotyped pinks. I thought I could do something in which the color bled from very light to very dark, but I think in this blanket



the transition is a bit more abrupt than I had hoped for. Instead of a bleeding effect, I very clearly have quadrants. I went ahead with this project without making a sample, so the ways in which the colors would interact was a bit of a surprise. It's not what I envisioned, particularly the top left quadrant, but I think it's nice nonetheless. (It's also not completely done. I need to finish the edges, cut off the loom waste, and wash and press it. But it's done enough for you to get the idea.)

When I was buying the yarn for that baby blanket, I stumbled across this yarn



and, as you can imagine, I knew I had to have it. It's not as nubby as the yarn for Small Boy's blanket, but it does have some dimension to it. In this case it was really the glowing fall colors that pulled me in. They remind me of New England.

It's hard to impulse buy as a weaver; the mathematical calculations for warp and weft needs are precise. If you buy too much, that's not so bad I guess - just leftover material you have to figure out how to put into some future project. If you don't buy enough, however, you could run into trouble when you go back for more. What if they're out? Maybe the store can order more, but different dye lots of the same color are sometimes different. Not always; when they are it's often not enough to make a difference, but sometimes it might. At the very least your project is stalled while you wait for the order to come in. It's also possible that you might not be able to order more - if it was a limited run or if you're at the end of a season and yarn weights and colors are changing. If you can't come up with the additional yarn you need to finish your project, you really have to scramble to figure out how to save it. I'm sure a Master Weaver (there's a test you take to earn this title) could figure something out, perhaps even relish the challenge; I am a beginning weaver and changing boats in mid-stream in this fashion is certainly beyond my abilities at this point.

So I scurried home and pondered what to make. Something for myself this time. A throw; something to toss over my shoulders when curled up reading on the couch or drape over my shoulders at the beginning of yoga class. I leafed through my books of design and drafting, did some warp and weft calculations and went back to the store to buy the yarn. Three days after first seeing the yarn, one of my colors was gone and would have to be ordered. (See? This is why I don't impulse buy yarn. What if I had bought it on the spot, but then after doing the math realized I needed more? And I would almost certainly have needed more.)

But you know what happened, of course. While I was buying that yarn, I saw this yarn,



and of course I decided I had to have it. I knew it would be for a baby blanket - you can't touch the picture but this stuff is as soft as kittens. But I needed to figure out the dimensions to do the math before I bought it. Off home I went, out came my project notebook and the calculator, and back to the store I went to pick up eight rolls. And that's just the weft!

I've got my eye on a third yarn, but have managed to restrain myself so far. The two projects I've got planned will take up more than enough time as it is.

But it's such a soft yarn, in gender-neutral colors, and I've got this pregnant friend...