Socktoberfest: Sock stash!

In the next set of questions for Soctoberfest, Lolly asks:

Do you have certain patterns planned for some of the yarns? Do you buy yarn and then choose a pattern?

I don't buy sock yarn with a pattern in mind... because I have a project in mind: socks. As I think about it, this is dangerous. Other yarn I buy with a pattern in mind: a specific sweater, a scarf for someone, a particular felted item, a lace project. I think this approach helps keep consumption down. But sock yarn, this gets tricky! A project is always in mind: socks! So buying sock yarn doesn't require a special idea, just a concept that's relatively general but specific enough to spur on the purchase of yarn.

Having seen some others' pictures, I don't think my sock yarn stash is that enormous. However, it's grown exponentially in the past few weeks, mostly through the generous gifts of fellow bloggers, or in the case of the newest acquisitions, through parental kindness during a recent visit. I'm still missing some Lorna's Laces, though. There are several colorways I like a lot, and my LYS has one skein of all of them. Argh! If it weren't for that, I could use the rest of the gift certificate from the parental visit to add some yummy LL to the stash, but that will have to await a greater quantity of skein pairs at the store.

It's a pretty small stash, but growing, especially since I only started stashing sock yarn this past summer!

Does a certain sock yarn you have in your stash take you back to a certain event? (where you were when you bought/received it? What was going on in your life at the time!)

I could say something about the history of every one of these yarns. Sometimes there's more to say, and sometimes less. One was supposed to be part of the Charlotte's web shawl. One I bought to use for fringe, before I started making socks, and now I have too little yarn for even anklets. Another I received in my SnB's yarn exchange. One I received as a prize. There's the one I passed by but went back for because I was struck by the colors. Several are the proto-socks of gifts. I could go on, but I think you get the picture! All of them are nice to look at, laid out on a pretty dresser, not to mention that they're nice to touch, and to image what socks they might one day become!