B, you mentioned that you had not been very impressed by the quantity of yarn that I purchased while I was at camp?If you pop over to my knitting blog you will see how I have used my West Shore yarn purchases as the basis for a number of potential projects.
I have put them with different yarns in complementary colourways. These could become a number of mixed fibre scarves and shawls, suitable for gifting as Christmas or birthday presents over the coming year?
Not only are these good commuter projects for the train, they give me the opportunity to experiment with yarns that I have not worked with before, to see how they knit up without a large cost outlay and also, before I commit to a single large project without knowing what the yarns are like to work with and how they perform (wearing, washing) - I am forever practical?!
Mind you, that said, I could use some of my yarn purchases on their own. Contrary to your concern, some of the skeins I bought have sufficient yardage to be worked up into scarves or wraps on their own.
There is lots of pattern support for small projects in some of these yarns. Simply because they are considered luxury yarns - hand dyed and in some cases, hand spun. The colours are difficult to repeat and the yarns are expensive.
So knitters on a budget might be unable to resist the purchase of a single skein but may not be able to afford the yarn for a large project.
Also, I should point out, that while hand dyed yarns are lovely and do create a beautiful effect on a small scale or if used ingeniously (scarves, socks, children's garments), their variagation can be more difficult on a larger scale. Generally, they mean, sideways stripes or they can mismatch across a garment (although there are patterns that deliberately exploit that as part of their design, to great visual effect):
See what I mean?(Photos from the internet, used to make a point about yarn behaviour only - if one of these is your photo and you object to its use, please leave a comment and I will remove it immediately.)
