You go to the same yarn shop twice in an hour to buy enough yarn to make one tiny little sweater as a gift. I always try to buy something really easy-care when I knit gifts for small children, but then I discovered that the Debbie Bliss yarns were 30% off, and the cotton cashmere came in such a perfect color and would work so wonderfully for the pattern I wanted to do. So I bought six skeins, enough for the smallest size. Halfway home, I realized that it was just cruel to give a sweater that required special care to a family who was about to have their second child. Cruel to the sweater, that is. What if they, in a sleep-deprived stupor, put it in the dryer?!? (Cue the scary music.)
But the yarn was on sale, and therefore couldn’t be returned. What to do? Then I realized that just one more skein would be enough for a Carrie-sized sweater, so I went back to the yarn shop to buy another skein of cotton cashmere and picked up a machine washable/dryable yarn (also very pretty) to knit the gift sweater in. Bonus? That yarn was also 30% off.
Never mind that I have more yarn, projects and kits than I could ever knit in my lifetime. No knitter in her right mind could possibly pass up cotton cashmere for $5.25 a skein, especially to make a lovely, lacy sweater for her baby girl. :)