There was a "sale" of wool

and other yarn at our knitting guild yesterday. I am sure the craftspeople reading this will understand just what I mean by that. For the uninitiated - knitters suffer from a disease known as SABLE. This is an acronym for "stash advancement beyond life expectancy". Occasionally they convince themselves that they do not suffer from this incurable disease. In an endeavour to cure themselves they decide to "sell" some of their yarn stash.
Our knitting guild arranged to have one of these days yesterday. I pounced on the opportunity.
I think I have said elsewhere in this blog that people keep giving me yarn? Right. Yesterday I sold a lot of it as a fundraiser for my friend in Africa. I left the house with five of those red, white and blue striped bags made somewhere in China - in their hundreds of thousands (possibly millions). They were the largest size bag and come halfway up my thighs. (All right I am short cat but even so - these are big bags.)
I had sorted the yarn. I had packed it. I had labelled it and priced it.
I did not ask a lot for it - far less than it was worth. All the same I was determined to get rid of some of it.
And I did. With the help of a good friend I sold all but five balls of lace-weight. The lace-weight with a pattern attached (my own pattern) did sell. The other did not. I may put a pattern with it and try again. It is not the sort of lace-weight I like to use but it is good for a raw beginner.
It is a load off my mind. I hated seeing yarn I had been given and knew I would never use sitting there. Knitting is a relaxation for me. I am more than grateful for thoughtful gifts of yarn - yarn that good friends occasionally give me because they think I will like it and want to use it. I use it. I might pass the finished item on to someone I know will really appreciate it but, by then, I will have had the pleasure of working with it. But, I don't want to use endless amounts of mustard coloured high acrylic content yarn. I don't know what to do with single balls of muddy green. Some people can use those things. I can't - or won't.
I left to meet another friend and we went off to pack clothes and papers from the little place belonging to my friend who is now safely and happily in her room in a nursing home. The friend I was meeting is a craftswoman of great skill. She spins and weaves and does many other things as well. At the age of eighty she has just been honoured with a retrospective exhibition. I told her what I had just done. We agreed it was necessary. She was wearing a jacket she had woven herself - woven some thirty years ago. It still looks magnificent and it is still fashionable today - fashionable because it really is a work of art as well.
"Did you buy anything?" she asked me.
"No, nothing at all."
How on earth did I manage it?  Mind you there is still evidence of SABLE in the house.