To stash or not to stash

Looking at the growing pile of yarn in my closet and thinking about the odds and ends I left behind that I plan to return to, I fear that I have acquired a stash. How did this happen? I'm careful to buy yarn with a specific project in mind, but my project-related ambitions are greater than the time I have to knit them with. In the time between purchasing yarn and the present, the intended project often shifts and shifts again while the yarn languishes in the closet waiting for me to make a final decision.

So I have a stash. It's not a large one, but it is definitely a stash of some variety. This may not be a bad thing. Plenty of knitters have a stash and enjoy it. That's fair enough. But since I'm mentally gearing up for a huge move in the next 6 months or so, having a stash makes me nervous. I won't be able to take it all with me if it grows any more. I can hope that I'll get around to making all the things I intend to make with all this yarn before June/July 2010, but I don't know if it will happen.

Case study:

(excuse the re-used picture)

I ordered this Sweet Paprika yarn for a gift knit. When I received it I fell in love and after some hemming and hawing decided to use it for an Ishbel for myself. Then I questioned that decision when I found Herbivore by Stephen West. I love the colour of the original scarf/shawl, and my yarn happens to be a similar green (though less variegated and more semi-solid), and hey. Love. Then there's the matter of my 101 in 1001 list: #4 is knit a lace shawl. Ishbel is lace, but Herbivore isn't, so if I end up knitting Herbivore with this yarn, I'll have to get some more to make Ishbel / other lace shawl. I definitely intend to knit Ishbel eventually, like everyone else in the universe,

But until I decide between the two patterns - or find another entirely - the yarn gets to sit all skeined up in a plastic bag in my closet. Stashy stash.