Stash Management Revisited
Now I'm not the most New Age-y girl you're likely to come across, but even I have to sit up and pay attention when the Universe whacks me upside the head three times with the same idea.
First THE Wendy announced her Knit From Your Stash 2007 pledge. Then Laura wrote about whipping (knitting?) her stash into shape. Then today Dallas and I talked about the same thing during a long (very long) (very wonderful) phone conversation.
See what I mean? The idea's out there and it isn't going away. When your stash has the half-life of uranium and will outlive even the most ambitious knitter by at least a dozen years, I say it's time to take stock and stop visiting the WEBS site on an almost-hourly basis.
I managed to fight my way into my yarn-clogged guest room, climbed over a mountain of Schachenmayer Stretch, elbowed past some Noro Implessions and shoved aside more Sirdar Highlander than I'm willing to admit owning and still couldn't find what I was looking for. Wherever the book was, it was buried in yarn of all weights, all colors, all possibilities. If I hadn't been laughing so hard, I might actually have felt a smidgen of shame. Covetousness, thy name is Knitter. I am the missing Collier sister, except instead of accumulating newspapers, I hoard yarn.
And, knitters, we are reaching critical mass. It was cute when only a closet or two were impacted but now we're threatening entire rooms, full basements, unsuspecting neighborhoods.
It's time to stop the madness!
I hereby pledge to knit from my stash and my stash alone for the next few months. (I can hear you laughing from here. Considering the fact I'm not knitting at all right now, this should be a breeze!) Maybe through June. Maybe through September. What, I ask you, is the point to all of this gorgeous yarn if I don't knit any of it?
I'm still searching for an answer . . .
posted by Barbara Bretton at 11:19 PM
11 Comments:
I met a pair of wise men at a fiber festival once who shared with me the secret of the universe...
She who dies with the most wool wins.
Laura, I bet they were yarn vendors . . .
LOL! My stash is manageable and sort of organized -- just four big rubbermaid bins for sweater yarn, and four shoebox-sized ones for sock yarn -- but my patterns are totally out of control.
So, while everyone else was planning to Knit From Your Stash, I pulled out every knitting magazine and pattern leaflet I own, organized them across two large tables, and am now indexing them. It's taking forfreakingever.
Good luck with your stash diet, and have fun with your stash! (How can you not. "Stash" and "fun" are perfect synonyms.)
Yeah, right ... everyone's going to knit from their stash. I'll believe it when I see lots of pics of "stashables." LOL!
I should add that I'm probably the worst offender when it comes to stashing. I tell myself it's okay because I keep everything nice and neat, stored in boxes according to color, etc. But I keep buying, darn it.
I did make that striped purse out of leftovers, and will create a few more "stashables" complete with pics as I finish them.
Fran, are you bugging my house? I'm embarrassed to admit that I placed an eBay yarn order five minutes before I declared myself a Knit-From-My-Stash girl.
Barbara, maybe we need to have a "Stashable" month? Everybody make something - for themselves or someone else - out of their stash. And they have to post a picture.
I haven't really built up much of a stash yet since I only started knitting again about a year ago. It fills just one small cardboard carton at the moment.
I tend only to buy yarn for a specific project because I'm not expert enough to improvise. That means I have odds and ends left over from projects but nothing waiting to be turned into one.
So I may not qualify for "de-stash" month. (Stop throwing things at me, Barbara!) ;-)
You're a braver woman than I, Barbara. You'll recall that during that long - and definitely wonderful - conversation yesterday, I was careful not to say I was going to knit from my stash, only that I was thinking about it. I'm still thinking.
I have, however, passed up several skeins of sock yarn that wanted to come home with me and you know my weakness for sock yarn so I'd like to think 2007 will be the year that I at least use some of the stash, even if I keep adding to it.
Some of us have to believe that we who have the most will win, I plan on being the winner in the yarn department, fabric and embroidery floss. And I am not a vendor, just a fiber addict. I plan on buying more and more, but will knit some from my stash. I will need room for the new stuff, I can only buy so many storage containers with out the hubby taking notice
I'm all in on knitting from the stash! It's time to make some room! Glad we're all doing it. Is there a group set up or anything?
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