The Problem With Store in the Stash

I have a need for a couple small things.

Number one:  I need to make a hat for my neighbour to wear while shoveling snow.  She has been giving us her excess garden produce all summer and I am grateful.  She didn't think she would wear a pair of socks, which I could have given her at the drop of a hat, but asked for an actual hat instead.  I've been pondering what hat and what yarn for several weeks now and am struggling.  A hat for snow shoveling is not a fancy slouchy hat.  It's a work hat.  So I need to make a closely fitting hat that will stay where it is put and will be warm.  To me, that means something ribbed from a good sturdy warm yarn.  A basic toque pattern or a watch cap is the right kind of pattern,  but I'm a bit stuck on the yarn.  

Number two is a tea cozy.  I cannot find the very large and thick tea cozy I made at me wee house.  

It was lightly felted and kept my tea wonderfully warm.  It also took up half a drawer when it was not in use.  It was the no spout kind of cozy, sitting right over pot, spout and handle, holding all the heat in.  It may be less pretty than a tea cozy search from Ravelry  show many tea cozies to be, but this style is a much better insulator for the tea pot.  If you put one of these over your teapot and your teapot is sitting on a felted hot pad, you have tea that will stay warm for hours.  

I refer to my tea cozy in the past tense because it is missing.  When I unpacked here, it wasn't in the box with all the dish towels and dish cloths where it ought to have been.  I need a new cozy and it doesn't need to be fancy, just effective.

The problem with both of these projects so far as the stash is concerned, is that my stash is a sweater stash.  Everything I buy, bought, see, begins with a picture in my head of what kind of sweater it would be.  I don't have a large stash of worsted weight or heavier yarns in single skeins that would be right for this kind of project.  

I do have many yarns bought early on in my yarn career, where there will be plenty of yarn left over, but the ones I have used, I'm sort of hanging on to because there is enough for a vest.  Or sometimes a second sweater.  

The fact is there is plenty of yarn and more yarn choices that would be great for both of these small projects, but I am struggling with letting go of the idea that it all needs to be a sweater.  

The problem in the yarn store sized stash is not in the stash, but in my head, you see.  It would be easy to choose from if it was just any old yarn.  This yarn stash is curated by love and admiration of colour, of fibre, of the way a yarn feels in my hand. Is it possible to be emotionally connected to the stash?  This yarn stash is precious.  

My precious.

The problem of the stash is that I am yarn Gollum.