The Yarnarian Has Too Much of a Good Thing!

I have so much yarn for sale. Where have all the buyers gone? Long time passing? ...
I think this is going to be a very turbulent ride in terms of yarn sales. Why? I'll tell you why:

1. The economy, the economy, the economy: When you or your significant other have lost your job, you certainly are not going to spend your very precious money on yarn. Well, I wouldn't.

2. Saving money: People seems to be tightening their belts, even if they are fully employed and in no danger of being laid off. Given the rate of debt in this country, this is a good thing.

3. Stash. Every sock knitter I know has enough sock yarn to knit for the next 27 years. We've all reached the explosion stage.

4. Competition: There are so many indie dyers out there now, plus the big online yarn shops, that little dyers like me can get lost in the confusion.

But, this leaves this poor lonely dyer with an excess amount of yarn to sell. What to do? I love dyeing, so I'll continue to do so. If people buy, they buy. If they don't, I'll swipe yarn for me. I may dye at a slower rate or not. I think I'll just continue as I have been doing. I like it, and why should I stop? It's fun. So I won't get rich? Who in holy hell gets rich in this business? Nobody I know. We do it for the love of it. Otherwise, we'd all go out and get a 9-5 job someplace. Not me, though. I'm lucky to be retired, so whatever I make on this (at a rate of about $2/hour!!!) goes towards whatever I want or need.

I hear more people say: I want to quit my job and do this dyeing full time. Um, maybe not a good idea. It's physically hard, the rate per hour is dismally low, and you get no benefits. No health plan, no sick days, no vacation. You go away for a week or two and close your shop, and then you worry that people will forget about you.

And the glamour of the job? Are you kidding? You should take a look at us when we are in dyeing mode. The grungiest clothing, the respirator. Ah beauty. The dyeing is the fun part of the operation. But you have to do the business end too, which is necessary but not great fun.

So why do I do it? I love to play with color. This is like a kid getting a brand new box of crayons. You have to try them all out. You have to mix and match and play and play some more. I never get tired of it. The result is that I have way too many skeins of yarn, and so I sell them.

Well that was a major ramble into something or other. Anyhow, I have lots of pretty yarns if you want. And if you don't want, I still have lots of pretty yarns. ;-)

And now that I've put you to sleep, let me wake you up with a cooking story. The Hubbo and I love Indian food. I can eat it at least once a week. Give me cilantro and I'm in heaven. Bring on the biryani, the tandoori chicken, the masala dosa, the malai kofta, the kheer, the carrot halwa. I get hungry thinking about it.

So the other day I wanted to make plain old spaghetti and sauce for dinner. Nothing beyond that because I was tired, and anyhow, we had been eating out a lot. The cupboard was bare, and all I had was a jar of Trader Joe's organic spaghetti sauce. the one with no salt and no flavor. Blech. So, I diced an onion and sauteed it, added some balti masala (from scratch no less), mushrooms, cut up cherry tomatoes, and cooked that for a bit. Then I dumped in the boring sauce, cooked it up while the water was boiling for the pasta, sprinkled some garam masala (also home made) on top of it. Tossed in about a ladle of the pasta water with all its starchiness, and then mixed them all up. Topped with cilantro, and we had a wonderful feast. It's amazing how you can doctor up the world's most boring sauce and turn it into something wonderful.

Go look at the comments on the post of January 27th. Allison has an hilarious posting of the letter X!

Ria - I just got started on it, and then it just flowed along. I must have gotten my second wind. I told the Hubbo that he can buy more of that blah sauce just so I can doctor it up. Or else I could just use diced tomatoes combined with tomato sauce and then blend it together in the blender, etc, etc. Nah, the boring TJ sauce works well.

Jen - Let's hope he can do something with this mess.

MamaMay - Thanks for the information.