Psycho Yarn Stash Freakout!

I've been so motivated lately, since joining Ravelry, and since really taking to heart what a frick-freakin' mess this apartment has become, to Do Something About the Yarn Stash. Seriously. When I internalized-realized just how many projects the yarn represented -- not hats, not scarves, not tiny amigurumi animals but full size adult sweaters -- and how much yarn still exists out there in the world NOT owned by me, I found my pretty typed list of Yarn vs Project looked pretty pathetic.

So I did one clever thing, which was to immediately begin a project with the yarn I bought most recently because after all I bought the stuff partly because the color suits this fall's fashions, being deep plummy purple, and being yummy, and gorgeous, and one of the last knitting mags I bought just happened to have the perfect project for it. yay! Now this yarn won't sit around til the next time plummy purple is in all the stores. Not that I won't wear it other years...but sometimes it's nice to be in lockstep when it's not full of fail.

And I thought about all the cheap acrylic and cotton yarns I destashed over the years by giving them away, and realized that those efforts did nothing to make a dent in all the wool that had somehow also piled up. So I looked up charity knitting efforts requiring wool, and I've been dutifully knitting youth sweaters and vests and I am thrilled, thrilled to report that after only 2 weeks of serious effort I've finished 1 sweater entirely, have another waiting for blocking & assembling, have a vest 3/4 finished, and started a new super-bulky project yesterday. How much yarn used up so far...? Well, the bulky waiting for blocking used up--ta-dah!--5 large skeins of really coarse handspun and 3 skeins of soy wool blend, the vest has used up 3 balls of Pingouin fingering (see an earlier post), and the new bulky is using up most of a bag of huge skeins of New Zealand yarn and a few skeins of natural alpaca/wool blend too.

But...uh, I also ordered some wool yarn before I quite realized just how much I still have to de-stash. Well crap. I used up 8 skeins of green on sweater #1, and I'm using 5 of brown on the vest...I can use up the blue combining it with the leftover green and something else...

Still in the de-stash queue: 8 skeins of Soy Wool Stripes, 8 skeins olive Pingouin fingering, 11 skeins gray and white Aarlan wool (ancient!), 4 or 5 large skeins Germantown wool that were knitted up into an unfortunate skirt project but never unraveled/frogged, 3 skeins ugly yellow handspun and 1 orange, whatever is left of the gray NZ wool...and some cool 1 or 2 skein things leftover from olden times.

I have a couple of treats emerging from the stash bags that I'll be posting soon. Including a really strange wool/nylon blend from about 26 years ago that boasts on it's label it was Dylanized.

Dylanized??

Missoni "Pag"

From Alisonj on eBay (with a few minor edits):

3 x 50g balls of MISSONI "PAG" knitting crochet weaving yarn

61% cotton/31% acrylic/8% polyamide

made in Italy

137 yds (125m)/ball for a total of 411 yds (375m)

colorway #202/soft taupe-sagebrush-terra cotta-teal multicolor mix, dye lot 3343

hand wash, dry flat

"Pag" is a lovely, soft mini-boucle yarn from the much-missed MISSONI line of handknitting yarns

was $9.95/ball (many years ago), for a total retail value of $29.85.

Yay, more Missoni for the list! I like this one, it looks like it feels scrunchy and crisp. The color and texture absolutely recall Missoni runway high-fashion creations.

The NYC Missoni boutique is on Madison & 78th. I sometimes get off the Mad Ave bus a stop before 79th St just so I can peer in the windows and luv the colors on the ridiculously expensive and oddly cut clothes. A few years ago they had shoes in the window that were just insanely beautiful shades of turquoise and green, the kind of shoes I would've bought just to admire cos my feet would never fit in them.

MMmmmissoni. Yaaaarrrrrrnn. Looooove.

Thank you, alisonj! There will be more goodies from her stash here soon I hope!

Germantown worsted

This section is from the "A Complete Dictionary of Dry Goods" book, by George S. Cole:

"Germantown Yarn. [From having been first made at Germantown, Pa., which city at present constitutes the 22nd ward of Philadelphia,] A coarse heavy woolen yarn, extensively used for knitting fancy articles, especially heavy scarfs, hoods, mittens and the like. It has been superseded to some extent in recent years by German Knitting Worsted."

Interesting page mentioning Brunswick Germantown being substituted with Cascade 220.

The yarns were apparently notorious for replacing hand-spun in the making of Navajo and other Native American woven textiles and rugs.

Later the yarns were offered in 100% acrylic and Orlon, having been wool previously.

Plymouth Cairo De Luxe

Plymouth Yarns Cairo De Luxe
Weight: DK

100 yards (91 meters) / 50 grams (1.76 ounces)
Gauge: 22.0 = 4 inches
Needle size: US 6 / 4.0 mm
77% Cotton, 23% Viscose Rayon (plied cotton twisted with a rayon ply)

Came in a lot of colors besides black: white, beige, burgundy, red, purple, mint, blue...

Discontinued ~2001?

Odd stuff. I bought 20 skeins thinking I'd make a "deluxe" black cardigan from it. But knitting it I decided the texture wasn't very luxurious at all, my swatches all came out a bit rough and stiff. Even the lace swatch. However I will give it one more try.

Lion Brand Al-Pa-Ka

From the Lion Brand web site:
Our luxurious blend of 30% wool, 30% alpaca, and 40% acrylic is warm and hand washable. It wears well and looks great year after year. Whatever you create, Al•Pa•Ka makes it even more special.

4-ply worsted weight.1.75 oz./50g (107 yd./98m) balls.
30% wool, 30% alpaca, and 40% acrylic.
Gauge: Knit: 16 St sts + 23 rows = 4" (10 cm) on size 8 (5mm) needles.
Crochet: 13 sc + 16 rows = 4" (10 cm) on size I hook.
Made in Turkey.
Fabric Care Instructions: Hand wash in in cool or warm water; dry flat and not by machine. Do not bleach or iron.



Whew, that Lion link is looking a bit wonky, so I decided to just copy all the remaining info about this yarn. It's sort of sad that a nice chunky worsted alpaca blend was discontinued just as alpaca yarns became really hot and popular, but c'est la fibre. Gosh I hope the silly spelling didn't have anything to do with it...not with those cute cute alpacas also on the label!

I once was forced to knit a 100% alpaca sweater, in black, in sport weight, as a design sample. The memory of all...that...hot...warm...fuzzy...unyielding yarn has stayed with me. I also don't need anything that warm. But when I came across heavily discounted packages of Lion Brand AlPaKa at my fave local yarn sale about hm seven or eight years ago, I fell in love. It's soft, cuddly, just slightly fuzzy, with a slight sheen and nice strong ply.

I bought lots of Mink Brown and have been steadily working away at a gigantic cabled hoodie; this particular item will be blogged about if and when I finish it, because the triple-intersect cable design is extremely mind-boggling and is worth noting. It nearly reduced me to tears on the first row. My fear right now is that having put it aside for about 2 years, wanting lighter-weight projects, is that I'll be unable to remember the trick to it. Even in such dark fuzzy yarn, the cables are crisp and well worth the effort.

The package of 10 creamy white balls became the shawl excerpted below:

I love love love this shawl. It's warm and cuddly on chilly winter nights and mornings as I sit toiling away at my computer in my big-windowed living room. The leaf pattern came from a knitting stitch encyclopedia. EZ knitting on nice fat needles. Beautiful stitch definition.

The package of black yarn is nearly a jacket now, combined with Noro Silk Garden in mosaic panels, using a really striking pattern from Knitter's mag from way back then. I lucked out, having found the Noro yarn 1/2 price at a different Local Yarn Store; it seemed extremely logical to combine it with the luxurious alpaca blend that just happened to be the same gauge and lent the slightly scratchy Silk Garden yarn some softness and suppleness it lacks alone. Only five years later, that too is nearly done! Every summer I swear I'll finish it for the coming fall and winter...I'm hoping that Blog Karma will operate in my favor and force a satisfying conclusion.

Non-extinct yarn musings

Been knitting, of course, lots and lots of knitting, mostly baby stuff for my twin-laden friend. I have discovered I adore using sock yarn, but I am sooo not a sock knitter. Knitting socks is...well, at the end, I've got something to wear on my feet and frankly I'm really hard on my clothes and especially on socks, tending to shove them into boots and shoes with less delicacy than perhaps some people. My nice thick warm angora-wool blend socks from the Gap collect pills like mad. Lesser socks simply go holey. And as I really prefer very lightweight socks and stockings anyway -- the days New York goes utterly sub-arctic these days can be counted on the fingers and toes of one side -- and the socks are utterly hidden by my pants legs and shoes or boots, well what's the point in knitting them?? I know lots of people walk around their house in socking feet, but with cat fur and litter a constant threat I prefer slippers. So lovely handmade socks are not for me. Besides, I really hate knitting in the round at the diameter of a sock. The needles get in each others way. The yarn gets tangled. The circular needles method is too complicated for my poor aged brain. So no. It's cheaper and easier just to buy stuff!

Sudden flashes of absolute genius

I'm sure I'll later go looking and find this advice on a dozen other knit blogs and forums, but here goes. When knitting the two fronts of a cardigan at the same time -- because not doing that is just plain lame -- and knitting the button-band and buttonholes into the front edges, do yourself a huge favor and knit a "reminder" stitch into the band where the button will be attached.

This occurred to me the old-fashioned way, i.e., I made a mistake. I knitted a buttonhole on both bands of my current project, and didn't realize it until many rows later. I decided it wasn't worth doing a tedious undo-three-stitches-crochet-upwards-after fixing thing, since I would be able to just sew the button right over the hole -- BING! In the case of this project, a lacy scrap of stuff made slinky and exciting with Classic Elite Cotton BamBoo, the button band is 5-stitch wide garter and I am now using a single centered purl stitch on the same row as the buttonhole. I will do this for the rest of my knitting life. It is SO much easier than tying in a yarn marker.

(I think I recall reading someone's clever advice -- probably Elizabeth Zimmerman's -- that when knitting a baby sweater in advance of the happy event, you should knit buttonholes on both bands and then sew the buttons over the appropriate side once the gender is known. Frankly I've lost track of what's male/female sided any more. I have jeans that zip one way and shorts that zip another. I've never been too good with gender-assigned clothing convention, other than Real Men Don't Wear Lace.)

Classic Elite Sand

Classic Elite Sand

100% cotton

77 yards (70 meters) / 50 grams (1.76 ounces)
Gauge: 16.0 = 4 inches on needle size US 8 / 5.0 mm. 8 wpi
Discontinued in 2005.

I saw several patterns using Sand in Vogue Knitting in the late 90s/early 00s, and paid them little attention as they weren't quite my style. Then I bought a huge bagful of this yarn at half-price in assorted colors. I liked the rough terrycloth texture and the bright colors, and I vaguely remembered seeing those patterns. Finding those patterns again, I'm not much inspired by slightly tailored beach-wear. And I no longer find terrycloth so endearing.

The reason I bought um six different colors of it was at that time I was mildly obsessed with intarsia and color knitting, and thought this thick dense yarn would somehow lend itself to a colorful duster or kimono-like thing with tropical designs. That remains to be seen, as I've yet to knit a single stitch aside from a tiny swatch. But knit it I shall, even if it all ends up as summer clothes for my friends' kids.

Linette yarn by Spinnerin

From Sandylion2 on Ebay:

13 skeins and a partial skein of vintage Linette yarn by Spinnerin.
The ball band states that it is 76% virgin wool and 24% Irish linen.Each skein is 1 oz. and has approximately 100 yards.The color is #129 which is a pale baby blue with white twist and nubs in it. In some places the white sticks out a little. The gauge is 6 stitches= 1 inch on #6 needles. Does say "washable color, shrink resistant -anti stretch", so it might not felt very well.

The rest of the text on the ball band says "Guarantee: Spinnerin yarn guarantees perfect results if each color used is of one dye-lot number. Be certain to purchase sufficient yarn of one dye-lot to complete your work. Return this and all other bands on any complaint, otherwise no adjustment can be made. SPINNERIN YARN CO.INC. SOUTH HACKENSACK N.J. / very important: If necessary change the needle size to maintain the correct gauge" (good advice don't you think ???)

This yarn intrigues me. I had no idea linen/wool blends were a vintage item. I'm fond of linen blends myself, they're light to knit and easy to wash and can go either dressy or casual. The baby blue color on this batch says "60s - 70s" to me, but I'm just guessing. (Really reminds me of that pale blue eyeshadow I bought as a pre-teen...)

I'm still researching when Spinnerin folded, and what other yarns they offered. They had a lot of pattern books which have survived, some were printed in the 1980s.

Thank you Sandylion2, for your permission and enthusiasm!

Botany No-Dye-Lot Yarns 100% Virgin Wool

From Sandrajoi on eBay:

This listing is for 3 skeins of lovely lightweight 3-ply wool yarn from Botany. This is an estate sale find and I believe it to be quite old, though I'm not positive. This is labelled Aquatones "Botany" No-Dye-Lot Yarns. Each is further labelled as "Top-Dyed ~ French Combed ~ French Spun ~ 100% Virgin Wool."

Each skein is 2 ounces in weight, and is marked 'Color 82'. The color is a lovely green -- kind of a seafoam shade. A sales tag on each skein indicates they are from Fishers's; original retail price is 85 cents per skein. Lovely for knitting and crochet projects -- especially from some of the vintage pattern books available!

The label also says "Botany Worsted Yarns, Passaic NJ". The company was founded in 1889. I've found several vintage Botany wool ads for sale. By 1955 the company was having a tough time, apparently. I'm still tracking down the ultimate fate of the company. Their later pattern booklets were ganged with Fleisher's/Bear Brand/Bucilla.

"Botany" is also a textile term for Australian Merino wool, either specifically grown around Botany Bay (Sydney) or any fine wool. The term is still used in England, and Rowan had True 4-ply Botany wool.

By the way, if you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge of the history of wool, this ain't too bad a place to start.

Thank you, sandrajoi, for your permission and encouragement!

Red Heart Pompadour Baby Yarn & Orchard Nylon

From Tcor on eBay:

Red Heart Pompadour Baby Yarn: It is 84% Virgin Wool/16% Rayon. It has the old RED HEART Foil sticker on the end of the skein for easier location. The color is 502, a baby blue with a shiny thread running through it, each skein is 3/4 oz.

and

One skein Vintage ORCHARD 1 ounce #391 White-100 Virgin "Staple Nylon"


Please note this is not the Jamie/Pompadour yarn from Lion Brand, though it describes very similarly with the shiny thread. Lion's is/was all acrylic. And is now itself discontinued. Irony! (Well maybe not.) Babysoft Pompadour is also all acrylic. And Baby Econo Pompadour Solid from Red Heart is also all man-made fibers, mostly orlon, but again with that metallic thread! So the Pompadour name has been used for baby yarn with shiny stuff for a long time, going back to the days before all-acrylic became the standard!

As for the Orchard yarn, it's possible that this became Lion Brand, but a little more detective work might be called for. Interesting that 100% "staple nylon" yarn was sold that way. Nylon is commonly mixed with coarser acrylic fibers or even wool to soften them; a lot of sock yarns and baby yarns include nylon for that reason. Lots of novelty "fur" yarns are 100% nylon, too.

Its touches like "Tangle-proof" that I cherish, looking at vintage yarn labels. Heck, I've recently struggled with a ball of yarn that was probably spun and skeined just this year and it tangled like mad, being 75% wool. "Ready to knit pull out skein - save time, no winding" also makes me think the yarn industry had only just recently migrated to just such pull skeins for certain yarns.

Considering I recently invested in a knitting swift to tackle the innumerable skeins of Takhi Cotton Classic, Fantasy Naturale-like cotton, Windsong and other yarns that are still sold in hanks because they don't hold together wound in balls...well, progress ain't all just one straight line.

Thank you, Tcor, for your photos and description!

Gedifra Dandy

Gedifra Dandy
60% merino wool, 20% acrylic and 20% nylon.
Skein 70 yards / 65 meters, 50 grams.
Gauge: 12 stitches = 4 inches on needle Size #10.5 (US) 7 - 8 mm. (bulky)
Label recommends handwash or dry clean.
Retailed for $10 per ball.
This yarn was discontinued in 2004.

Very interesting construction: a wool core wrapped with a papery ribbon for a wild multicolor effect. Light fuzz but mostly smooth.

The skeins pictured are Color 1467/0040, mustard, green and browns blend. Tons of color: base wool is mustardy yellow with shiny greens, blues, orange, yellow and other random peeks of color, the wrap is brown and green tones. Absolutely gorgeous.

I was given some as part of a mega-stash by an ex-knitter (yes, they exist! Scary!! don't tell the children!!!) and sold the three balls pictured in my eBay store, not at the time appreciating their value to this future blog effort. I'd have made something but I wanted the $$ more.

Brunswick Sayelle

From "Retropioneers" on eBay:
Brunswick Sayelle, Bulky Yarn 3 Skeins ++ Vintage
This yarn is so cool. It is a bulky yarn from Brunswick. There are three (3) skeins, each is 100 yards, 2 ounces. There is also an extra ball which weighs 1 ounce, so it's probably about 50 yards. This is a bulky yarn. The color is a beautiful forest green. The labels on the skeins say "100% Orlon Acrylic."

Sayelle is an older name for duPont's orlon fiber. Some yarn companies still make orlon acrylic yarns, such as Red Heart and Caron. I still mentally associate these yarns with Woolworths, and groovy 1970s "ombre" color combinations (we call them multis now), and learning to crochet floppy hats and afghans. It's a bit crunchy, I think, a bit scratchy and stiff to work with. Still, I've got crochet medallions made from my very first skein of purple ombre and they look pretty good! (Well relatively to the color & texture.)

Most of the "orlon sayelle" stuff around seems to be vintage skeins dug out of closets and attics and posted for internet sale...most modern yarns just say "acrylic."

Thank you muchly for use of your description and picture, Retropioneers!

Sirdar Colorsoft 2000

Colorsoft 2000 is 60% mohair, 40% acrylic blend yarn, bulky weight.
100 gram / 125 yard skeins, 8 ounces each.
Label recommends 6-1/2 mm needles (US 10, 10-1/2), 14 stitches per 4 inches.
Made in England.
Unplied, with an pronounced twist. It is quite soft and luscious.

I bought a lot of this stuff as a closeout sometime in the late 1990s, in a beautiful rich reddish mulberry purple. I simply couldn't stop touching it. That usually means my yarn stash is about to increase. Then I found an oversized cable-textured sweater pattern and went at it.

Um. I stopped knitting after finishing the back and starting the front. I was covered in purple mohair every time I looked. I was plucking mohair off my jeans, my shirts, my sofa, but thankfully not the cats. As tended to happen with my "let's think this over" projects, I bagged yarn and pattern and lost track of the stuff completely for several years. When at last it came again to light, I was having a "finish! finish! finish now!" frenzy and so I did.

With the shedding mohair content, I decided not to combine the sweater with other projects in the wash. The machine had little clumps of purple fibers in the basket, but thanks to cold water, the woolens cycle and Woolite (the combo, I assume) the color didn't bleed and looks just as good.

Then I realized to my dismay the sweater was simply too warm for me to wear in less than sub-arctic conditions. I like bulky yarn to knit because I'm lazy but realistically I seldom go outside in a pullover sweater without a coat. This yarn makes such a warm fabric I felt smothered in it. But damn, it looks and feels soooooo good.

I sold the remaining 2 full skeins plus leftovers on ebay, with some regrets. I might sell the sweater on Etsy.

Bucilla Nubby Knit

This image and description come from CorkSpork on Etsy.com:
2 skiens Vintage Bucilla boilproof Nubby-Knit yarn, ash blue color, 225 yards each for a total of 450 yards, appears to be unused, really unique knubby yarn, I believe it is made of cotton. (Only one pictured but both are matching)

Boilproof! Right on the label, this yarn is promoted as boilproof!

Now that's truly extinct yarn!

Thanks, CorkSpork, for your permission!

PINGOUIN Pingolaine

Pingolaine is 100% Pure new wool, Machine Washable.
200 m/220 yards, 50g/1.75 oz per skein.
Gauge: 30 st, 10 rows per 4 inch square, using #3 US needles.
An early superwash wool, fine gauge perfect for socks and baby items. It's fingering four ply, quite like most modern sock yarns. SOFT and really yummy. Takes a bit of a tug to break it (my favorite test).


This review seems to be about exactly the same yarn as I've got, right down to the yardage and gauge. Year of origin given is 1995.

As this forum thread implies, most recent purchases of Pingouin are made outside the US. Both old yarn and pattern books turn up on eBay too. Other yarn trekkers have discovered Pingouin yarns recently for sale in Paris.

I just love that old logo. Cute! So cute! Aww, cute smelly seabird!!

My intentions were good when in 1982 I purchased hmm about a dozen skeins of this stuff in 4 colors -- olive, orange, yellow and tan -- from Flatlands Yarns on Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn. I wanted a fine-gauge cardigan. But I never made it, the yarn migrated from bag to bag, and now unearthed from its latest mausoleum (the dreaded footlocker in the closet) I'm impressed how well it stood up. No fading, and no moth damage! None! I see no kinder possible fate than baby clothes.

LANG Forina

Forina by Lang, made in Switzerland. Discontinued 2005.
100% cotton, subtle sheen but non-slippery feel.
Yarndex info implies the yarn might have changed a bit over the years. My skeins of the stuff indicate a gauge of 20 stitches/26 rows per 10 cm/4 inches on #4 needles, but Yarndex shows 23 st per 4 inches on #6 needles. The yarn I have is quite fine, I'd say #3 needle even, never a #6. Intriguing.

My 6 skeins of Fiorina are of reasonable vintage, dating back to approximately 1986, so this yarn had some staying power! It's just a plied cotton, probably mercerized, nothing really odd or special. which brings up the point that many Yarns of Years Past may be gone in name but not in style. Many just get re-named or re-branded, especially if their parent company is acquired. Lang's current offerings are many and varied, including several fine plied cottons, but Fiorina, and its style, is gone.

We had lots more of this yarn at one time. My mother machine-knitted a plain silver top with white trim. I honestly can't recall what happened to it; we might've given it away after we both outgrew it. These remaining six shall become baby attire for the worthy offspring of a friend.

Yarn #1: Missoni Shanghai

MISSONI Shanghai Yarn by Filatura di Crosa, made in Italy.
Color 205, lot 405.
147 yards, 50 grams/1.75 oz per ball.
Gauge: 16 st, 24 rows per 4 inches using 5 - 5.5 metric needles.
51% Cotton, 34% Silk, 15% polyamid Blend. Handwash recommended on label.
The color is an attractive, sophisticated, muted blend of creams, pale yellows and pale slate blues, twisted with a single dark thread. The texture is firm and slightly nubbly.
This would probably make a fantastic summer scarf or enhance a sock project.
Discontinued many years ago even before Missoni got out of the retail yarn business. It probably wasn't real common even then...

Some time in the late 1990s I purchased three balls of this stuff on whim at NYC yarn shop that sold a lot of high-end yarns and frequently discounted out-of-season or discontinued items. I liked buying a little of this and a little of that, figuring eventually I'd knit something striped or block-intarsia or whatever...never did, of course. They ended up staying in the yarn bag, quietly doing no harm, until I unearthed them the other day.

They may yet end up in my ebay store, or I may fondly keep them for their inspirational quality.

Getting this show on the ROAD!

I've done crazier things than want to create a yarn mausoleum. Not many, granted. I generally lead a quiet life. But opening a can of worms -- I mean, diving into a trunkful of ancient yarns -- today did something to my head.

I began seriously knitting and crocheting in high school, having been taught by my mother using all sorts of odd ball yarns. Literally. Some of those wools came from who knows where. She made sweaters for me and my father, and scarfs, from wool whose vintage I can only guess at.

I still have a few bits and pieces of those fibers, but I don't think they'll make it onto this archive. No point of origin, no ball band, nothing to document. I in fact think some of that stuff was born of old projects recycled: that is, unravelled and re-knit. Many knitting web sites advocate this practice as being thrifty, sensible and "green." We were so there, 40 years ago. Heck, people been doing that for as long as knitting existed. It's one reason there's not a lot of everyday knitted objects lingering in actual museums.

Coming into my own as a knitter and crocheter, I bought cheap colorful 70s acrylics in Woolworths and made hats, scarfs, afghans, bedspreads, soft toy animals and tentative sweaters. My mother continued to buy good wools in Bell Yarn near Delancey Street, and made yet more good sturdy sweaters for my father and me. At some point we started tossing all leftovers into one big bag. Then I started doing "fiber art", making soft toy alien creatures of my own design, and scoured downtown fabric shops and yarn shops for bargains I could turn into fur and trim. I knitted more functionally as well, making stuff I could actually wear. And so more leftovers went into the bag.

You see where this is heading.

Over the years, with the best intentions, precious few of those leftover balls ever went away. Few became finished garments, not even scarves of hats. Many of them were...dull. Or were luscious to moths. Worse, even worse, were entire bagfuls of new yarn purchased on sale and simply left in the bag and put aside for inspiration to strike, only to be forgotten when the next bagful of something more tempting came home.

Lots of things were actually knitted and worn. But lots of yarn also languished in closets, in trunks, in bags, in drawers and sometimes even in plain sight. My mother and I together were mess-generators of a high order.

Making stuff feels good. Buying yarn feels good too. As in recent years I learned how to let go of clutter and material things, I discovered that getting rid of yarn can also feel good. I gave away many shopping bagfuls of old yarn -- alright, some not so old too -- to a womens shelter project group. I swapped yarn with friends. I gave yarn to friends I was teaching to knit or crochet. I sold some on ebay.

Always new yarn comes to me. Sales happen. Swapping happens. Ebay happens.

But today...today I realized the old yarn had stories to tell. I found some very nice yarn, just 3 balls of it, not very old, but utterly extinct. Erased from memory. It doesn't exist anywhere on the Internet, as far as I can tell. I recalled that I really liked the yarn from a project I finished a few months ago but the yarn, which I only bought about 4 years ago, was likewise gone from store shelves and even from most Internet sites, aside from a few blog posts. Incredible!

I shall begin posting what I personally have. I hope other people will find this and contribute photos and descriptions of their own extinct yarns. It's history, folks. Be a part of it.