yarn buying strategies

I think discussion of accumulation strategies for yarn is needed. Oftentimes when I go yarn shopping, I end up contemplating exactly how much yarn to buy. Specifically:

• How many different scrumptious colors should I get?
• How many balls/skeins of each yarn on sale should I get?

The decision ultimately comes down to what I can make with the yarn. What usually ends up happening is that I want a little bit of everything! I buy one ball of this, one ball of that - one in each color so I can have them all! The problem with that is that I'm stuck with only being able to complete small projects. You can't make a sweater out of just one ball. But then...I'm also scared of big purchases. For some reason, buying 5 balls of one color of one yarn is a lot harder to do than 5 different balls of yarn. I want to break out of this habit, but I think that perhaps I should first find a larger project I want to commit to and specifically buying the yarn for it. That sounds a less scary than buying a whole bunch of a random yarn that I would have to continue to knit/crochet with.

On that note, this Crochet Butterfly Wrap Sweater from www.SuperCrafty.com is very cute! Both the short and long versions are so cute and I love the shape of it. Hm. I think it would go well with that blue-black goth-lacey dress I got from Nordstrom's. I could wear it to the Evanescence concert in November! :D That'd be awesome! I need to get on that...

I checked my place in the Ravelry line. There's still 15,384 people in front of me! They posted on their news blog that they are now able to invite 500-600 people in daily now. That's still another month before I can get in. ;_; Booooo.