s.a.b.l.e.

A knitterly acronym, for Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectency. Which is really cute and all, until you sit and think about what it really means for your stash of yarn outliving you and then it gets a little depressing. All that yarn that you carefully selected and amassed and stored for particular projects or just because you thought it was lovely, getting to continue on its merry little way while you go... well, some other way. (Personal opinion may differ as to which way that is.)

We are sorting out two such stashes at our church right now. Two knitters/crafters, whose stashes were donated within days of each other.

That, my friends, is a heck of a lot of yarn.

Two stashes, with their poignant unfinished projects and undirected intentions.

Pretty sure these were meant to be assembled into an afghan;

now to find someone with the patience to

recreate the pattern and crochet them together.

The best way to honor these knitters and their carefully-amassed stash, I think, is to continue on with their work and turn it all into finished projects. The end results are, without a doubt, not exactly what they envisioned when they bought the yarn. But who can really know what was in mind when this color was purchased?

My guess is either something for Halloween

or for a deer hunter.

Despite such questions, our parish is doing its crafty best to transform the stashes and help the yarn legacies move on to the next level.

The stashes contained lots and lots and lots of Red Heart, an acrylic yarn which is sold by the pound. Primo and I stopped weighing when we topped 75 pounds of yarn in widely assorted colors. This yarn is being made into charity projects, intended for those in need at various stages in their lives. Prayer shawls for parishioners, lap robes for nursing home patients, and hats and scarves for the Seaman's Institute -- all to be blessed at the church altar in October before going onto their recipients. I love the blessing ceremony: an official recognition and sealing of all the love and hard work that went into every stitch.

Some of the donations didn't lend themselves to these projects. We had a rubbermaid tub full of nothing but cotton dishcloth yarn. And then there were all the needles that came with the two stashes... dozens of pairs, the exact same sizes over and over... We found a higher purpose for these items, too. Interim House, a rehab center in Philadelphia, teaches its clients to knit and crochet as a way to channel their energy in a different way. As I often knit so I don't commit bodily harm to other people's bodies, I can well appreciate this strategy. It seems the cotton yarn and needles were well received, and are on their way to working their own kind of transformation.

I think, I hope, the donors would be pleased.