What comes first...the chicken or the egg?

[keelan]

Or, in our case, what comes first...the project or the yarn?

See, here's the deal: I love yarn (ok, who doesn't, right?) but sometimes I get suckered into a fiber frenzy, especially when they're on sale. Then I'm stuck with yarn that's begging to be knitted but I have no immediate pattern for them.

Conversely, I surf the internet for free patterns which I avidly download and save in a binder but don't have the exact or appropriate yarn for at the moment.

So in the end, I'm left with two pieces of the puzzle that don't quite fit.

The answer to this dilemma, of course, is just to know my yarn so I can do substitutions, but I wanted to put this question out there to see if anyone can save me: do you find yourself more often than not starting with a pattern then hunting for the yarn? Or do you fall in love with yarn and go trawling for the appropriate pattern?

An addendum to my initial question: if you do stumble on a great yarn sale (Michael's is having a faboo sale on Moda Dea yarn right now), but don't have a project in mind, what is the standard amount of yardage you'd invest in? 500? 1000? Or does it depend on the yarn? :thinking: