I’ve been doing a lot of “swaps” on Ravelry and in my local knitting community lately. I belong to a group that is called “PayNothing<Cityname>” on Facebook which had a yarn round robin; add some, take some. It sounded like a good idea, but it moved glacially slow through a really long list which grew by the day. So some of us (the donors in particular) decided to short circuit it and pass along yarn freely to folks that were knitting for various charities in the community. “Here’s my address a big bag of wool is sitting on my porch. Come and get it!!”

I don’t know if the round robin will ever make it to me and it doesn’t matter so much anymore. It simply felt good to give away a huge pile of yarn for a good cause—enabling my neighbor who can’t afford to buy yarn to learn how to be a better knitter by knitting piles of scarves she plans to donate to homeless shelters. I have a more manageable stash, she gets skills, and 50 homeless will get a wool scarf. Win-win-win.

I love the idea of a barter society. And as you know, I’ve got loads of yarn to trade. I’ve been using any positive cash flow from folks willing to cover shipping and a small sum, to buy any more yarn, supplies and the occasional t-shirt.

This New Year’s Resolution has been to be “neutral” on spending. I can only trade or make my clothes this year. Since I have donated (yup!) my sewing machine to Goodwill, knitting (or stash selling) is my only means of generating funds to buy more yarn.

Part of my grandmother’s stash included 8 colors of a yarn called Kitten by Reynolds. I was just finishing a swatch for fingerless gloves when I realized I might not have enough. I found a stashbuster pattern and went looking to see if others had some of this yarn on Ravelry. That’s when I found 10 skeins of just the right color (black). When I asked how much, this lovely person simply said, “Pay it forward”. I was completely charmed by her good will. Heartfelt hugs to fellow Ravelrier jfam.

The ultimate surprise was that the box arrived while I was away on a business trip that had me a feeling a bit down. To my surprise there was both yarn and joy in JFam’s shipment. It came wrapped in a lovely drawing that made my day. My husband was so excited for me, he sent me a picture. Cheered me right up!

Knitters are indeed lovely people.