Stash management strategy

January 26, 2007 at 10:26 pm (Uncategorized)

Okay, I can so do this. I know how to manage my huge stash of yarn.
1. When you find a lucious yarn, do not simply buy one skein if you choose to buy some at all. This will lead to you looking mournfully at the skein, thinking “I can’t knit anything with this tiny skein!”, and it will be stored in your stash. This could be tricky. See, here’s my problem. A girl with a yarn budget like I have can’t usually buy more than one skein of that wonderful cashmere blend. One skein has very few possibilities for usuful knitwear, expecially since luxury yarn usually come in smaller skeins. I always end up with wristbands. Don’t get me wrong, wristbands are wondeful things. But at our school, our Wise and Benevolent Principal of Goodness thinks that they are gang signs. So… my wristband never get the usage they deserve.
2. Calculate yardage very carefully, and return all left over skeins. All those leftover skeins of yarn from those projects, even if they’re not a result of reckless stash enhancement expeditions, make me look like a wonton yarn shopper when they’re all piled up together. Overheard at my house:
Me: Ugh… I need to go to the yarn store.
Concerned Family Personage: But look at all the yarn you have!
Me: I can’t make anything from that!
Concerned Family Personage: Make something striped.
See the problem? Even when I do work from the stash, I always end up barely making a dent in my leftover skeins. Seriously, what do you do with a load of half-used skeins in colors that, if used together, would clash more than Che Guevara and Peron.
3. Sort yarn by color, and then sort the colors by weight. This helps. Really, it does. Seeing all my lovely skeins of worsted weight blue yarn all in a big bag together brings inspiration for more lovely, blue knitted objets d;art.
4. Get a better plan for stash control. Seriously, this will never work. Order and chaos constantly battle in my room. Guess what wins?

Sigh. Back to the drawing board…