This could be a long rant!
Some of you are aware that I am more or less a lipstick fiend. I buy new lipsticks all the time, even though the last time I actually used up the last of a lipstick was probably in about 2008. The lipsticks I tend to buy range from $12-24 depending on how flush I’m feeling (thanks, Chris) and what kind of color I’m in the mood for. I do have a $37 Guerlain lipstick but it gets saved for special occasions, and I’d never spend that much on one again. (That was a souvenir from the UK this past summer, so the splurge seemed worth it. At this rate of use I’ll still have it in 2026.) Every now and then I get bored with a lipstick and send it off to Diane for her amusement.
Some of you – possibly the same very observant people – are also aware that I am a yarn fiend. No “more or less” about it. I buy new yarn all the time, although my rate of “using up yarn” is a hell of a lot faster than my rate of using up lipsticks. Due to my excessive (irrational?) desire for high-quality yarns, the yarns I buy also tend to be in the $12-24 range. I hang onto unused skeins for a long time, until I either get sick of looking at them or someone on Ravelry wants to buy them from me. But – and this is the cost analysis rant part – I would never consider just giving away yarn!
Which baffles me.
I did, actually, give away a couple skeins in December. I’d just won a raffle for a full set of HiyaHiya interchangeable needles (which I’d been going to buy anyway, and so it saved me $80), and these were skeins that I’d dyed badly – yet someone still wanted them. I didn’t think I’d be able to get much for them on the open market, as it were, so I spread the Christmas joy by sending the skeins off for free. But I really don’t understand why it’s so easy for me to give away lipsticks, and not yarn. Especially when I can log onto Ravelry and find someone, probably within minutes, who would dearly love my unused yarn, if it were free…whereas when I ship these lipsticks off to Diane, half of them end up in the trash!
I believe a paradigm shift is in order here. Please stay tuned. If I ever manage to give away any yarn, you’ll be the first to know.
Of course, if you’re reading this and you want any yarn (hi Kristi!), give a shout. (I’d say “hi Rebekah,” too, but I don’t know if she reads my blog.)
The US Picks 