So it's the New Year. Hooray. And maybe like us you opened up that closet to put back the decorations and thought, "Do we need all of this? What's in these boxes anyway?" Perhaps your thoughts have now turned to your stash--not your drug stash, or a stash of stolen goods, the word's original meaning when it first entered English usage in 1914. We're talking about your yarn stash. Is it a source of inspiration to you, or an albatross? We are here to help. In typical Bootie and Bossy fashion, we decided the best way to tackle this was first to read about it, and then to talk about it, because you don't want to be too hasty and spring into action too quickly here. So we read A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn, a wonderful collection of essays edited by Clara Parkes. Because a yarn stash is not just a pile of random string, as Parkes explains, "Yarn holds energy (literally twist), but it also holds energy in the form of memories . . . Every knitter will be able to pick up skein from her stash--any skein--and tell you a complete and compelling story about it" (p. 109). This might be why Stephanie Pearl-McPhee cannot get rid of the ball of yarn her daughters gifted her, even though it’s so pink and shiny it looks exactly like “what you’d get if Barbie and My Little Pony dropped acid and tried to come up with a colorway” (p. 32).

As much as your yarn stash is a kind of fiber scrapbook—especially that vacation yarn that’s “all larded up with sentiment and emotion and meaning to the point where you weep slightly when recalling the now defunct yarn shop where you bought it" (Ann Shayne, p. 46)—it’s also connects you to the future. At its core, a stash is a repository of hope, as Anna Maltz explains:

"There is a deep optimism in how much we acquire and keep around, and in our belief that we can make and learn from that vast quantity in a single lifetime.

Anna Maltz, “Moving Yarn/Portable Stories,” in A Stash of One’s Own, p. 79.

For Debbie Stoller, having a stash is also an empowering feminist act:

"[A] yarn stash makes a pretty large statement to the world that a woman is planning to spend hours—nay, years—of her life engaging in something that doesn’t promise to make her skinnier or look younger or give her a tighter butt. Something that won’t make her a better mother, or a better wife . . . It announces to the world that she has decided to do something just for herself in pursuit of only one thing: pleasure.”

Debbie Stoller, "A Stash of One's Own: Yarn as a Feminist Issue," A Stash of One's Own, p. 180.

If your stash inspires and empowers you, great—keep doing what you are doing. If it starts to feel like an albatross, then there’s help for that too. As knitter and social worker Sue Shankle explains, “People have a hard enough time understanding themselves. Expecting others to ‘get’ you (or your love of beautiful yarn) is not always realistic. That’s why you need a posse. People who understand it all, no explanation necessary” (91-2).

So make a nice, warm batch of healthy Instant Pot Curry with Chickpeas, Spinach and Tomatoes, and as you contemplate your stash, know that it’s much more than just yarn in a bin—it’s your past and your future, your statement to the world of how you want to spend your time, and we understand that because we are your posse!

What's so great about 1950s America? We admit this is a trick question. It might have been great for men, but at least according to Anne Macdonald in No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, for many women, particularly young mothers, it felt like being "trapped in a squirrel cage" of modern appliance-packed houses that feminist writer Betty Friedan would later describe as "comfortable concentration camps" (p. 323). More women dropped out of college to get the coveted "Mrs" degree and then devoted themselves to cleaning their houses and popping out kids. And they succeeded--the birth rate at the time was close to India's. But they also struggled to meet impossible and opposing expectations, as one woman memorably described it:

"I've been married ten years and I still feel my husband expects me to be a combination of Fanny Farmer and Marilyn Monroe."

--Quoted in Anne Macdonald, No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, p. 323.

With little time and mounting resentment, the 1960s and 70s unsurprisingly ushered in Women's Lib and the era of "Jiffy Knits" with giant needles. No one is knitting for thrift anymore, but knitting still offers cures for the following ailments: nail biting; arthritis (dubbed by one woman as "Mr. Arthur," whom she successfully banished from her hands with knitting every morning); anxiety; agoraphobia; overeating; smoking; impatience and finally boredom, as many knit while waiting in the long lines during the gas shortage. But out of this period emerge the three graces of the knitting world: Mary Walker Phillips, Elizabeth Zimmerman and Barbara Walker. They bring their expertise to the masses, and we all owe them a tremendous debt.

As we approach the holiday season, we are grateful to Anne Macdonald for writing No Idle Hands, which has given us so much to talk about and stories to share. So take a moment to make a batch of biscotti, then grab your pointed sticks and settle in for some good stories about finding the bright side of things, stories that have made us smile many times over the years. And join us in declaring this the season of "Cookies for Everyone!"

Listen to this episode and you will never look at handspun yarn in quite the same way. A bold claim, we know, but that’s just one of the many things that Natasha Darius taught us in this interview. We met Natasha at Woolworks, Ltd., in Putnam, Connecticut, where she manages the volunteer-run store, teaches spinning, knits and does 10,000 other things. Growing up Haitian in Scotland, Connecticut, she did not come from a knitting family, but being a self-described old soul with an insatiable curiosity to “know all the things,” she was fascinated by the Afghans made by her friends’ mothers and grandmothers. So she went to the local library (imagine!) and checked out every book on the fiber arts. Thus began her odyssey that would lead to learning to knit and then spin at Yarns with a Twist, a local yarn store in Chaplin, CT. Eventually, she would join “Fleece to Shawl” competitions at local fairs and help others with their knitting projects at Woolworks. But it was her philosophy of spinning that most captivated us, as she explained that every fiber has a personality, an idea of what it wants to be, and each of her 28 spinning wheels has a personality and a story waiting to unfold too. Mix in Natasha’s own personality, and, well, that’s a lot of personality spinning around:

"If you are going to pick up spinning, you have to realize that there are moments where your will will not be done. If you want to enjoy the process sometimes you just have to listen to the fiber and let the fiber tell you what it wants to be . . . you can’t control everything. You are not meant to control everything. You do not get the final say of what is a good instinct. You are not the final decision maker on what’s considered beautiful or perfect. Let it do what it wants to do."

We can see that philosophy at work in how she approaches teaching spinning too, as she explained that every student has their own language for learning. The teacher’s job is to figure out what that language is by listening and observing. Her favorite part of teaching? Seeing the flicker of understanding that happens right behind her students’ eyes when they get it and all the complexity of spinning falls into place for them.

Perhaps most of all, spinning brings Natasha joy—the joy of interacting with the unique personality of each fiber and spinning wheel, and the pride and satisfaction that comes from making something from start to finish: “If you can spin it, you can make something beautiful out of anything . . . I surprise myself all the time.” And then there’s the joy of sharing it with the magical community at Woolworks.

As we enter the holiday season, we think sharing Natasha’s story about the joys of learning, making and teaching “all the things” with her local community is what we all need.