The living room, when the yarn first arrived.

The room where I emptied out *all* the large bags and worked to organize everything. It felt as though any nice yarn shop could have gone into business with the inventory that I had in my guest room.

I’ve mentioned before, a couple of times or so, the twenty large bags of my Mother-in-law’s yarn that David brought home after his sisters had cleaned out and organized the house after her death. There were 40 bags, but he couldn’t get them all in the car. He had packed the trunk and the car, up to the lower edges of the windows. At our house, they filled the living room.

Eventually, I moved it all into the guest room. I had consolidated all the yarns, finding the same colors and types of yarn and putting them into zip-locking bags, to make it easier for the folks in my knitting/crochet group to locate yarns they were interested in and being able to determine if there was enough for whatever project they were hoping to complete. They meet twice a month, and each time, I took three, four, or five bags

In October, I mentioned the yarn again, saying this: “Tuesday, I took three more big bags of very nice yarn (mostly cotton and wool, this time) to the Knitting and Crocheting group, thanks to David’s mom’s yarn-buying habit. I think one more trip might get them all into the hands of those crafty ladies.” Hah. Here it is, looking January in the face, and I still have yarn.

When Jeremy and Sarah came for Thanksgiving (and were scheduled to stay in the guest room), I moved everything to the only spare place I had: my car. Large, black bags of wools and wool blends, and large white bags of man-made materials (acrylics, nylons, that sort of thing) were stuffed into the trunk, filling it up completely, front to back, side to side. Using the two colors of bags helped the yarn workers know which bag they should be searching, to find the kinds of yarn they were interested in. Cottons went into the back seat. I felt like a mobile yarn store. The second Tuesday and the fourth Thursday of each month, I opened up the trunk, pulled out three or fours bags and toted them into our meeting spaces.

Many members of the group knit and/or crochet furiously, daily, to create items for helping agencies around town. Hats for the homeless in our area, shawls and lap-sized afghans for people in nursing homes and rehab facilities, warm “chemo” hats, for cancer patients going through chemotherapy, scarves for participants and families involved in Special Olympics, tiny hats for newborns in local hospitals, hats for young children who attend the therapeutic nursery in our town, and other things I don’t even know about.

People also choose yarns for gifts for family members, and for items they will create for themselves. Because the yarns my mother-in-law purchased are of better quality that those that might be available at Wal-Mart, the yarn-workers are able to make nicer items for themselves and their families. Several people choose skeins of 100% wool because they are learning felting techniques (which require wool), and wool is more costly than acrylic yarn.

There’s a senior adult lady who lives on a meager, fixed income. She makes things that she sells at a monthly craft fair, to earn a little extra. For a while, she’ll be able to keep all the money she gets, because she hasn’t had to buy yarn. And, some things will sell for a little higher price, because the yarn is a better quality than she can afford to buy.

One young member’s spouse is out of work. She has a part-time job, but it’s not enough. She’s furiously making items to sell at a regular craft fair in a nearby town. Free yarn for her work! It’s making a difference.

If, at the end of a yarn group meeting, there is any yarn left, the group’s leader will take it to a woman who is home-bound, on chemotherapy. She knits the yarn into items for a local abuse shelter. She makes toys, hats, blankets, and anything else the shelter needs.

At church, we put out devotional books a few times during the year. Different people are asked to contribute pieces, and they are printed up for us to have, and they are also posted online each day during the season, too. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I read one by a church member that I don’t know. At the end of each devotional piece, the writers are asked to write a one-or-two sentence biographical blurb. This writer said that her hobbies were “voracious reading and crochet.” CROCHET!!  After that week’s worship service, I asked a couple of people if they knew her. Nope. Then, as I was about to leave, one of those folks came and said, “That lady over there in the green flowered shirt. That’s her.” “Did you just go around, asking people if they knew who she was?” I asked him. “Yes,” he said, as though it was the most sensible way to solve the problem, which, of course, it was. I gave up too soon.

I went over and she said, “Gayle! I heard you were looking for me.” I said, yes, that I had read her devotional, and I saw she liked to crochet. She said, yes, and I said, “I have yarn.” I explained the whole mother-in-law thing, and she said she’d love to come over and look at it, and I said, “Oh, no. It’s in my car.” She looked skeptical, as though Who would drive around with very much yarn in their car. I said, “My trunk is full of wool and acrylics and the back seat is full of cotton.” We went straight out to the parking lot to the car.

She was delighted. As she burrowed through it all, she turned to a friend who was with me (we were on our way to my house to make Christmas cookies). She said to my friend, “Do you do needlework? Don’t you want some of this?” “Oh,” said my friend. “I was the first one who got to go through it. I took home four tote bags full of yarn.”

I talked to my sister last week. Thursday, I sent off two large envelopes of yarn to Seattle. She’s not going to knit it, but my brother-in-law is. And my niece.

And now, there are two bagsfull still in the trunk, and two handle bags full of the cotton yarn, transferred from the back seat. There’s also a box of yarns that have been partially used and have no label, so knitters might struggle to know the exact size and weight of the yarn, the fiber content, and the care instructions. But they might be great for practicing new stitches, designs, and ideas.

Another trip or two to knitting/crochet group, and I should be yarn-free. I did keep a couple of things for myself, but, really, I already had some yarn.