Rowan Taste on a Red Heart Budget or, my friends call me the Contessa!

Yo people, this weekend I had a minor realization: I am about as snobby as they come when it comes to knitting and all the various accoutrements and ancillaries that make it possible. Addis and Lantern Moon needles vs. Takumi Bamboos and those metal jobbies you see might see at a Kountry Krafts with a 'K' shoppe? Clearly the former win out. Cashmere/Merino vs. anything acrylic? Do I really need to answer that question? Rowan and Colinette vs. Red Heart and Patons? Please...There is a lot of excessive spending that has been happening here. Case in point: my needles. Let's just say I have a lot of them. And there are many, many duplicates, like at least 4 16 inch size 8s, which will come in handy if I ever invite some triplets over to make baby hats. I went through this weird phase where I would buy new needles for every project, even if I had them at home, Hell, I usually wouldn't even check. I got over that real fast, but I did a lot o' damage. Bottom line: I don't have the bank to be spending what I spend on knitting. I'm a French teacher, not an entrepreneur for crying out loud! This fact was pointed out to me ('80s credit card ho, student loan debt the size of the g.n.p. of Lesotho) by my husband, the lovable Marxist curmudgeon (zero debt, big time saver, HATED the '80s). I made the terrible mistake of asking him to grab a pair of Addi turbos for me from my Kountry Kraft Table, where they are all neatly packed away in their original packaging--yes it's a sick fetish, I know--and he got to have a first hand look at the sinfull excess that is my needle stash. Flipping through those packs of needles (with the price tags regrettably still on the outer package) the way an executive flips through a rolodex, I can only imagine the horrid moment of recognition he suddenly experienced: Mary Mother of God, I am married to the Devil. He accused me of thinking I was an aristocrat. Despite the fact that as a child I always did believe that I surely must have been a member of some royal family somewhere, I most certainly am a peasant in every way. But you wouldn't know that to look at those Addi turbos, that's for sure!