Snips. They may be the very last bit of a treasured hand-dyed and hand-spun skein. A teensy remnant of a healing shawl you donated and will never see again. A short piece that's cut from overestimating the long-tail cast on for your first hat. Or a wisp of softness left after seaming a baby sweater for a grandchild. Some of my favorite snips reside in a glass vase near my knitting chair. From time to time, I let a stray few decorate my coffee table. Others are employed as bookmarks or are scattered outside for the nest-building birds. Occasionally, when they fall artfully on our hardwood floors, they are left there for a while, to be admired. Yarn Love.

As we approach the season of warmth and gift making, new snips seem to appear everywhere. One clings to my shoe. One miraculously hugs the elbow of my sweater. Another finds its way into my jacket pocket and there, making friends with a handkerchief , it travels along with me to the grocery store. Later it falls out on the checkout counter. An unexpected meeting with a little piece of fun fur or cashmere can give a moment of yarn wonder to those who find them. A short strand of angora can open surprising conversations about treasured mittens and gloves, about the intrigues of needles and hooks, about knitting and crocheting and about the memories of loved ones--mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and even grandfathers--who made things.

Random snips randomly share our Yarn Love with others. But what would happen if we did this deliberately?

One summer, the fictional "Lupine Lady" of Barbara Cooney's classic picture book, Miss Rumphius, "her pockets full of seeds, wandered over fields and headlands, sowing lupines. She scattered seeds along the highways and country lanes. She flung handfuls of them around the schoolhouse and the back of the church. She tossed them into hollows and along stone walls."" And then, to her delight, "the next spring, there were lupines everywhere."

What if this winter we yarn players were like Miss Rumphius? What if we brightened the world with our tiny treasures, sharing their beauty and spreading our Yarn Love. What if we created a wooly trail with choice bits and pieces of our snip stash. Mindfully, we could slip several inside the books we return to the library. Delicately, we could lay a lace weight strand beside our lattes. Heartfully, we might slide a few into a letter to a friend or along with a card bearing our best holiday wishes. Maybe we will even include a promise for a pair of warm socks, a cuddly afghan, or a stack of handy washcloths. We could even artfully shower a handful about as packing around a handmade gift. There are a million ways we could plant the seeds of Yarn Love. One snip at a time. And who knows, come this spring, we might just sprout a bumper crop of new yarn players.