If, as I did, you’ve got yarn stuffed into tote bags and bins, spilling out of cabinets and falling off the dryer, no idea what it all amounts to or where to find what, you might have the kind of problem that reality TV shows are based upon. On the other hand, if you’ve got four innocuous little bins* neatly lined up on a shelf, yarns all sorted by weight and clearly visible, with lots of room to spare, then you’ve simply got a lovely little hobby! Am I right?
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*Ok ok, four little bins plus five sweater-quantity sets, but those are also now neatly divided into oversized ziplocs.
Wow. You are brave! And what, please, is the teal, stripy yarn in the top right picture? Not that I need more yarn or anything!
Hi, Sophie. Hm, we might have a case of monitor discrepancy going on. The yarns visible in that top right pic are purple, ivory, black, grey and blue. Do you maybe mean that skein in the bottom of the top LEFT bin?
If so, that one’s a sport weight from Sincere Sheep in a color called Aegean.
Oops! I described that terribly. And yes that was the one I meant! Thank you very much, it’s a gorgeous color, and the name makes me smile.
It is a really pretty yarn. The yellow on top of it is also Sincere Sheep. Each bought at a different Stitches.
You’re right! I have my lovely little hobby stash in a hanging closet organizer meant for shoes. :)
I’m gonna need to see that. Are there pictures somewhere?
yup here ya go: http://joyfulwise.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/stash.jpg Actually I think they’re meant for folded clothes, not shoes.
Oh, funny — I have those exact some ones. Stuffed full of clothes rather than yarn, but that’s a really good idea.
I use that same thing. Plus the “over the door” shoe organizer. Plus large plastic bins. Plus a plastic 3 drawer container. Plus a basket. I have a problem…
It’s not a problem. It’s an opportunity. An abundance of potential.
Great way to reframe that, Karen! Now I feel better! My glass is now half full.
Bravo! I need to do this…asap….
It’s a surprisingly great feeling.
Sophie, oh good — yeah, it is a really pretty yarn. I think it’s probably destined to become a hat.
Amazingly, this is exactly what I spent my weekend doing, too, while listening to my 17 year son’s first album! it was a bit tiring to lug everything out and reorganize but man oh man,did it feel good once I was done!
Right? It’s ridiculous how much work it took — how many separate closets and cabinets had to be cleaned out and reordered — to accomplish what looks so simple in the end.
I’m late to the discussion, just working my way through the archives. I did some organizing a couple months ago and sorted into bins by color. But then when I was looking for bulky weight yarn for a particular pattern, I had to go through all the bins to see what I had. Do you sort your stash by weight or by color? Or maybe just getting things into bins is enough:) Maybe you could add this to your list of questions in Our Tools, Ourselves (inquiring minds want to know!)
Hi, Colleen. It’s funny you bring this up — I was putting away all kinds of skeins on Sunday that were just strewn all over the place, and as a result realized the bins are now FULL. I’m at maximum capacity!
It’s a good idea for a Q for sure, but to answer you in the meantime, I sort by weight.