Why everyone needs stash

Image Details: ‘Globe’ by pixagraphic, via Flickr

It’s been exactly 57 days since I was separated from my stash. 57 long, gruelling and inspiration-lacking days. 82,820 minutes since the movers came and packed up all my favourite toys for the move to SA. The Minstrel. The sewing machine. 3 crocodile boxes of yarn. 2 of fabric. My sewing box!

Whilst this pining for material belongings may seem a little over-dramatic to some, I have noticed a disturbing correlation between distance to stash and crafty mojo. I intend to call this Shinybees’ First Law of Stash. This law states that distance to stash is inversely proportional to crafty mojo: as distance to stash increases, crafty mojo decreases. This should explain why my crafty mojo has taken a bit of a hiatus over the past few weeks as my stash sailed south, and why I have had a renewed sense of inspiration since landing in SA, as our shipping container is in Durban, waiting to be transported by rail to Pretoria. Once they fix the railway line, that is.

There is something to be said for surrounding yourself with stash to bring out a bit of creative flair. It only takes one skein of hand-dyed loveliness and I’m rifling through the shawl patterns on Rav like a woman possessed, quicker than you can say agree (1). I have found plenty of projects over the past 4,924,800 seconds that I have been dying to start there and then, but having your stash half way round the world away from you is like kryptonite to your average craft afficionado, let alone to a serious one! It prompts the reply ‘I’ll start that when the crate arrives’. Then it is filed under a ever increasing to-do list whilst you are actually to-doing very little. Even an impromptu splurge on fancy DPNs and sock yarn couldn’t tempt me out of my creative funk until I set foot upon these antipodean shores.

But now, I feel the mojo rising. I’ve cast on the socks. I’ve started That Bloody Collar on the bolero for the Babybee that has been wailing at me from my bag for weeks to drag it from cosy hibernation. I’ve even come up with a blogging master plan. And the stash is still around 620 miles away. That’s roughly the distance from Brighton to Inverness!

Oh and whilst I have been at all this, I’ve invented a new branch of physics: Quantum Craftonics. I wonder what Shinybees’ Second Law will be…