The mailman is starting to back away so I should cool my ardor a bit. Little padded envelopes keep showing up at my doorstep from Bernice, Julie, Deborah, Nancy, and Janice – and while I was hoping he’d think I was part of a Columbian cartel – the gals keep perfuming the packages.
One look at my gut precludes there being a romantic angle, and I’m afraid the last perfumed kilo gave me away.
It’s knitting yarn.
The shrinks would have a field day dealing with fly tiers, there’s 240 crayfish in a single skein of Bernat boa, but how many skeins will be needed over a lifetime?
… and is that just my lifetime, or do I need to include my brother, his buddy, my fly-less fishing buddies and their friends as well?
Hoarding is the equivalent of gathering up a mound of sand on the beach and if anyone looks perplexed, just point and exclaim, “this is infinite sand grains, exactly.”
It’s why your math teacher didn’t give you credit if you didn’t show your work – as both math aficionados and psychiatrists love to pore over your hoard-reasoning, similar to siphoning a trout’s gut to see what he ate – only mental.
Each of us has a imprecise system of amassing feather dander, because we’ve been caught short multiple times on common-turned-rare materials. These being the halcyon days of fly tying – with real materials from real animals, and as each one is pressured into oblivion based on its fur, taste, habitat, or simply steel belted radials – we wish we’d had the foresight to stock up.
Yea, you’re right – it’s never going to happen to you.
What funny is we’re still in the 80-20 phase, 80% of the materials we use for flies are natural, 20% are synthetic – and a couple generations from now that may be drastically changed. Will subsequent tyers hoard synthetics as we do vanishing species? I think so, partly due to the packrat nature of the hobby, and partly due to the lure of “better” – as originals are always better than substitutes.
For every tyer that used Swan for his Royal Coachman, there was an old guy looking askance at some younger tyer’s work, exclaiming, “.. close, but it won’t work as good as Swan, too stiff…”
Now I’m salting away skeins of synthetics – snapping up colors that says “crayfish” to me – while the rest of you shake your head in wonderment. Flamingo, Phoenix, Cardinal, or Hawk, may yield a better fly and none of these colors are currently being made. That’s no surprise as what’s fashionable is over in the blink of an eye, then it’s “last year’s” model – like bell bottoms or double knits.
Synthetics, especially those from the fashion industry, may have a shorter production life than natural materials, and we may have to purchase them accordingly to ensure a steady supply.
Better yet, do I hoard what I can find, then sell pinches for exorbitant amounts, akin to Polar Bear, Baby Seal, or Golden Bird of Paradise? You never thought “Aunt Lydia’s Rug Yarn” would be on par with Blue Chatterer – and will you be man enough to abscond with your parent’s bathroom throw rug when you discover its value?
Old guys learn to accumulate, young learn the hard way by missing the boat and wishing it were otherwise. Genius can lie in pawing through some box of forgotten treasure, searching for Puce rabbit and finding a pound of something no longer available – sparking the creative process.
Somewhere between the moths getting it all and your kids tossing it after your demise, these flights of fancy will yield umpteen flies any of which could be the next Light Cahill, Adams, or Pheasant Tail nymph.
Amassing all this is just one of many excessive habits, justifying the drawer space consumed requires imagination and immersion, ferreting out the obvious and unexpected uses in an orgy of creativity.
With 500 yards of Dark Olive Ultra chenille, and 1000 yards of perfumed Mallard Bernat Boa, something that fish eat should result. It may not be the next Zug Bug, but it’s the fastest stonefly nymph I’ve tied. A couple of whacks of the scissor to shorten the top fibers into wingcases, a couple cuts to clean the bottom of fiber and you’re done…
It’s knitting yarn, a synthetic hackle, a Matuka streamer wing, a rabbit strip imitation, and a nymph style … so far … and it’s in short supply.
So, Lemme get this straight. If Paris Hilton isn’t wearin it, we brown water types can’t fish it? Uh,…what kinda beer can we buy?
Your Mum’s rug would be safe with Solway Haaf-net Fishers. Its the
owners and rod fishers upstream that want rid of them, that she should be worried about.
rdt
I’m not so sure the Haaf-net crowd is above reproach, rug yarn would be handy to mend nets and shore up sodden clothing.
I’d sell the rug upstream for a few quid then get some linen thread and a pint, myself.
The nice thing about having a wife who knits, sews, and quilts is that I get the leftovers from all of her projects. Saves me the embarrassment of actually having to purchase the stuff, as well as the problem of storing it. When she asks what color scarf Uncle Mike or Auntie Sue might like for Christmas, I always respond with “a nice shade of olive.”
That’s pure genius!