Sunday, May 1, 2011

Stash Management

I was in the mood for cleaning out my craft closet, so I invested several hours last weekend and yesterday. The closet is set up more or less like the closet in my old house, though I don't sew in the closet anymore. There is paraphernalia for lots of different types of crafts, and most of it was tidy, but my yarn was kind of in disarray.

As you can see in the old picture, I used to have a large bin for new yarn, along with a medium-sized bin for remnants. As the remnants built up and I added some yarn, my space started to overflow, and there were several additional bags of yarn placed in the closet. The yarn had also begun to spread around the house again, so I had to round it all up and do a full reckoning. I no longer buy completely random stuff, and I'm not enticed just because something is on sale anymore, so I didn't end up doing any additional destashing. I just had to pull everything out:



I still have the large bin for sweaters' worth of yarns, almost of all which is designated for a specific item on my queue (Rav link).



I decided to organize the rest of the yarn by gauge this time, regardless of whether it was a fresh skein or a remnant. That's the tower of 6 bins that you see, from bulky yarns at the bottom to lace weight and crochet thread at the top.


Looks like I have a lot of knitting to do!!

9 comments:

  1. Wow, that's a lot of (organized) yarn! Although you do knit it up ridiculously quickly!

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  2. TONS of inspiration and motivation here! I needed some help visualizing what ideal organization would be (where yarn is concerned) and I love your idea of sorting by gauge.

    Two words that kind of scare me: "full reckoning"

    Kudos to you for getting it all done! It looks great and very effective!

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  3. holy yarn batman!! i think i have stash envy! ;)

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  4. Inspiring! Thanks for sharing. I sooo need to clean/organize my craft room and yarn closet. May need to invest in some of those bins.

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  5. LOL! Well, I was hoping someone would leave a reassuring comment, like "oh, don't worry, that's really not so much yarn!" But since no one did, I have to admit it's a lot of yarn!

    @Yoel: I'm afraid I don't knit *that* fast. I may have to do what you did a couple of years ago, though I doubt I'd be successful at knitting down every last yard like you did.

    I forgot to mention that since the last set of pictures, I did destash most of the magazines and most of the fabric because it's important to me that everything still be able to be contained in this space, even if the proportion of the space devoted to different crafts changes over time.

    @Jennifer: the smaller bins are 15qt Sterlite ones with clip closures. I like them a lot.

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  6. OK, here is your reassuring comment: I have a bigger stash, you are not so bad after all. Feel better?

    I feel like a hero when I knit from the stash, until I realize I just bought some more to replace it. Like today. It never gets smaller. Help!

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  7. Wow, impressive! This is really what I ought to do with my stash, I can never seem to find anything anymore - I've even developed a horrible habit of splitting up lots of yarn if I take out a skein or two to ponder, and then put them back in a separate bin!

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  8. @Kristen: thank you, LOL! My thing is how all the leftovers build up. One day, when I run out of room, I'm just going to let all the leftovers go.

    @floderten: I thought about doing it by color or something else, but I think gauge is more useful. Good luck with your stash!

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