My housemate J comes up with the most original ideas. On Sunday night she held a dinner party, to which invitees had to bring 300 words of creative writing on the theme of 'the moment'. Despite feeling like I was back at school and doing homework on a Sunday afternoon beforehand, it was actually a really cool event. 12 people brought along some really great pieces of writing. Each piece was read aloud by someone other than the author (with authors remaining anonymous) and then we all voted on our top 3. Trying to kill two birds with one stone, my 300 words were a re-purposing of my blog entry from the weekend on my stash. Because I didn't think non-knitters would know what a stash was, I ended up changing the motif from knitting to books, but before I decided on that change of direction I went looking in the Oxford English Dictionary for its definition of the word 'stash'. Here are the definitions:
Stash
[verb] Store (something) safely and secretly in a specified place. Their wealth had been stashed away in Swiss banks.
[noun] 1. A secret store of something. The man grudgingly handed over a stash of notes.
A quantity of an illegal drug, especially one kept for personal use: one prisoner tried to swallow his stash.
2. (Dated.) Hiding place or hideout.
You can see that the word is intimately related to secrecy with a splash of danger and a hint or illegality in there. This leads me to the issue of the excellent no-guilt stash manifesto by Bells and Amy. For those of you who took the pledge, how is that working out for you? Has the guilt eased since you signed up? Was there a euphoric honeymoon period and then a back-to-reality return to guilt? Well, I reckon that what we all need is a new word. Stash is just too loaded a term. So let's put on our thinking caps and come up with a more liberating term.
Post your suggestions as a comment. I've made some quick but crap suggestions here so you get the idea. I'm sure there are some very talented wordsmiths out there who can do much, much better (acronyms welcome) or perhaps you know of some guilt-free synonyms already in use.
piles of furry soft joy
yarn sanctuary
RBY: reserve bank of yarn
sanity insurance collection
mood enhancement storage scheme
What's cooking
2 days ago
2 comments:
I've been using "boodle" for a while now. It's friendlier.
I have been known to refer to my stash as my knitting superannuation (which is ALWAYS a good thing to add to).
I don't have stash guilt, but do have odd moments of shame - quickly overcome.
Secondary cupboard insulation.
MRF - My Retirement Fund
And when you have a project you've used stash for (fabric or yarn) you can say it cost you nothing!
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