Do you succumb to "gottahaveititis"?

Since I joined the ranks of cross stitchers who look online for supplies and patterns, I've greatly increased my stash (and my stash spending). Unfortunately, due to the many forms of enabling on the internet, I've also gotten gottahaveititis a few times.

Most of the time, my inner tightwad can overcome the gottahaveititis, but not always. For instance, I came across the many Brittercup Designs patterns of cats and kitties and fell in love with them. I decided I had to have them all. I bought them all. Then I actually stitched one. ACK! I found it very boring to stitch. (Note to self: always stitch at least one pattern by a designer before "collecting.") But I still think they're darn cute. ☺

And then there's Prairie Schooler. Now, I have stitched several of these and do enjoy stitching them. And since PS has many out-of-print (OOP) patterns, it is very easy to get caught up in PS acquisition frenzy. I admit to having several OOP Prairie Schooler patterns. I got most of them off of eBay.

But I've learned to be very careful. While I love PS, I don't love all of them. I try to only buy patterns that I like and know I will stitch (someday). I don't want to have patterns just to have them or to "collect" them. I learned that lesson with Brittercup Designs. And I'm a stitcher, not a collector.

Anyway, this was brought home to me when I came across an eBay auction for PS #6 Barn Cats. This pattern is very hard to find and OOP (and the auction had 20 minutes left with no bids). Well, I like PS and I like cats, so I started to bid on the pattern. Then I looked more closely at the larger picture in the auction. YUCK! I thought these were the most dorky looking cats I'd ever seen and would never waste time/materials stitching them!

So there are ways to avoid gottahaveititis, you just have to be aware of them. Most of the time I can avoid it. Most of the time. And for the other times, I plead the fifth.