What I need to carry with me for those "down" times: Waiting for appointments, in between gigs when I don't want to go home...
My thrifty nature is satisfied: It's called stash busting the remnants of other socks.
Combining these two yarns, randomly with purpose, colors are pleasing to me. I haven't found many remnants that I wouldn't accept in pairings. And no pattern except 2x2 ribbing, trading yarns every row or every other row. When I get to the end of the row, I play genius and decide if I switch or continue. Since both yarns have many colors, my mood determines what I do next. I wonder if it will work for two socks...?
SALE! Time to reduce and eliminate inventory... My stash is out of control!
Due to an unusual conversation yesterday, I have decided to start my third or fourth career (but who's counting?) and give up knitting.
I've always had a bit of my mind telling me that I really wanted to "start over" and buy a franchise (to be determined). Pondering this I woke up to the fact that knitting is taking up too much of my life, so I'm ready to separate myself from my stash. See my Ravelry page (stash) and first come, first to walk away with some great yarn. FREE, for any shipping costs if applicable.
Who doesn't want a Blue Peruvian Rabbit?
There's more where this came from! I've thought of combining scraps for socks. Then I saw the "Think Outside the Sox" book and patterns that use lots of colors. As I tentatively began these socks, I thought of how wrong this could be, but the pattern (Dripping Candles from think outside the box) is truly amazing! I love these! What a stash buster!
I can see a great future for this pattern! So far I have 6 different yarns and ready to repeat. Only two colors are used at the same time. Heaven!!
I would like to decrease my stashes of all items found in drawers and closets, and on shelves and in the garage and in the shed, but... one thing at a time.
My life consists of lusting after yarns. That’s an overstatement: I have more of a life than that, but one of my downfalls is that I really REALLY have a difficult time walking away from yarn that is for sale.
The wools, and sock yarns, and other fibers cry out to me. Their colors dazzle and stun. But I am resolute! I will do my best to use stashed yarn until this summer. Then I will surrender to a plethora of shops in Bergen. It would be too cruel for me to give up yarn shopping then. Otherwise, in the past 8 months, I’ve been quite good.
Yes, and you know what happened 9 months ago? I was in Norway, and Maine, and WEBS and... I succumbed to the temptation.
I have a lot of yarn in my stash that I have purchased and not used at all. All good intentions, mind you, of using them someday, and here goes another “contest”!You have 48 hours (or until some arbitrary time at the end of Monday) to guess how many stashed yarns I have at this point and haven’t used. I just counted them up and made my own arbitrary list of those I consider eligible for this distinction... I’m just saying, I have a number. And GOSH! I have yarn to award to the person who comes closest to that number, over or under.
And now, without knowing the true count of my yarn purchases in the past 8 months (remembering I had a possum-related lapse in my diet when I was in New Zealand), I will now count up how “good” I’ve been, and therefore deserve to take a vacation in June!
That would be:
Number of purchases since mid-July, 2010: 8
I’ve used 3 of them.
Four of the purchases were made in New Zealand, so those were totally appropriate purchases... And one of the 4 was actually purchased not by me, but by my daughter along with a pattern for her little one.
Summary: My stash grew by 5 purchases, not saying how many skeins, in the past 8 months. Have I been “good”? I certainly haven’t suffered--I stay away from those ^&%**#@# shops!
Sorry folks, (Eskimimi, will you forgive my creative impulse to NOT use the titles you obviously labored over for a year?) I really enjoy reading your prompts but my mind races on and on... This week is an attempt to “organize/organise” the knitters and crocheters to write about assigned (suggested) topics. This is day three and so far, I have managed to tweak or, as the movers and shakers of this project would say, change the titles and write such loosely related topics that they are connected only somewhere in my little pea-brain! Alas, I digress, again, and again, so on to the topic. Click here to see the original topics.
I like a tidy mind! I wouldn’t mind being organized in my world but I live with a cat or two...
Is that a good excuse?
The truth is, I live many lives, (eew, another cat-like excuse) and just when I get a handle on one of them, something turns my fancy in another direction. I’m one of those who goes from room to room changing direction and thoughts as I pass each object. I could be putting dishes away and midway reach for the phone, and not finding it in its cradle go to another room where I sit down to do a crossword puzzle, return to the kitchen to get a drink and realize (like at this very moment) that I made a list earlier of urgent things to do ASA I got home today, which was 6 hours ago... (Here is my time out from blogging so I REALLY can get those two items crossed off.)
Ah. done. So back to the topic:
I really have only one word to say about tidy knitting, patterns and stashes:
RAVELRY
I HEART you!
BR (Before Ravelry) in 2008 I realized I had to do something drastic if I was to knit several projects at once, and put any of them down for more than an hour or two! I got myself a booklet and wrote down everything I 'thought' I needed to remember.
It was mostly successful but I remember looking up things and finding I hadn't written down the yardage. Sometimes I refer to it now. But, then I found Ravelry! December 2008.
And now I feel confident and anal about putting all my eggs in one basket and trusting the wonderful, ingenious people at Ravelry.com to keep me in line.
I'm sure I use only a portion of their services, but I'd like to share with you how it makes my life and knitting possible:
Number One: Projects are stored. They have the data fields that I didn't know I needed! When I return to a project and find there are no needles in it, I can call up that info in Ravelry and the day is saved!
Number Two: My stash is stored. My marriage is saved! I refer to Ravelry to find the weight yarn I need for that project I want to start tonight, and not in a few days when I can get to the LYS. (I have a lot of yarn stashed...) And I can FIND it. There's even a place to mark WHERE I've stashed it, as if someone would stash yarn in more than one place... I know you're out there!
Here are a few places...
In the closet
Under the shelf
Of course, even in the "entertainment center".
I would look for a pattern, need a sport weight yarn. Look at my stash page and find:
Then I would locate it in the "E drawer". Here it is!
I think they are very clever at Ravelry to help me out like this!
Number Three: The library!! I have books, and magazines and all sorts of booklets... and single patterns. I can search my library and (quite often) find the pattern I'd like to use.
Number Four +++: Messages, friends, groups, news, more patterns,
Let me count the ways, oh, Ravelry!
Sorry, folks, about the previous title... It was late at night...
Other ways of reducing is to be on the "yarn diet". Lots of my recent projects have been exclusively from my stash. Here's Elsebeth Lavold's Cable Cotton purchased September 3, 2009 in Albuquerque at Village Wool.
Girly Cardigan by Mission Falls
Most yarn I buy with a project in mind, and if it isn't started immediately, it often languishes in my stash until... an imminent project arises. See my CONTEST PIECES which are all from stashed yarn. And contest prizes will contain yarn! Win-Win!!
The sofa bed is gone! And a small shelf, and many quite a few books. Video cassettes I sorted through 'ruthlessly' last Fall, but somehow they have been living in the trunk of my car. I don't use the trunk much. Today is their day.
While the rage is to be independent of possessions, I really don't see the point. Sometimes (yes, sometimes, only) I feel a little guilty looking in my closets and seeing items that my daughter will never want, and things that others would enjoy or use. And many of these fanatics think that 100 items is to strive for. ???? I call that crazy. I take more than 100 things in my luggage! I have more than 100 stashed yarns (not counting multiples of each yarn).
Do these shelves need a sorting? I think so too. However, the truth is, I just finished and took about 60 books off of it.
My daughter, the striving minimalist, is visiting. She's my cheerleader! When asked she says, "I don't want anything! (except a MacBook Air...)" I think she was a little surprised when I picked up the phone and asked ARC to drop by and pick up the sofa bed. The books are a drop off at the back door of the public library. How easy is that?
BET YOU CAN'T DO JUST ONE THING!
So why now? It started with a mural that was painted by my teen, ca. 1998. It's on a long wall in her bedroom. Every time she comes home, she offers to paint over it, and this time, I decided it's time. So, how do you do that?
1. Get rid of the 2-ton sofa bed in front of it.
2. Clean where the sofa bed was.
3. Move a bookshelf so that there's room to move the sofa bed through the doorway.
4. Unload everything on the bookshelf. (It was mightily stuck in the carpet.)
5. Clean the shelves, dust the books, and clean behind the shelves.
6. Sort through all the books.
7. Replace the books, and box up the ones that are not wanted.
8. Take a picture, and realize... what's the diff?
I've tried to make sense of it, but until I do, action now! My stash comes from an overwhelming urge to be a pack rat thrifty. It's in my genes. Although my daughter would hate to admit it, she has things stored since her 10 years of parental independence, and "out of sight", her flat has been clutter-free.
My house has rooms and closets, a storage shed, a garage... and a lot of yarn. With the help of Ravelry, I have been diligent, some would say obsessive, about noting where I keep each acquisition, and with a click, I can peruse my stash in photos or sorted into many lists. Thank you, RAVELRY! Even with their help, I found that after my last purchase(s), it was getting out of hand. I was looking for new places, and many of those places weren't exactly "out of sight". First I tried the closet:
#1 stacking cubes
And more of the closet... and then added a bag in the closet
#2 Magazines and containers
#3 A big bag
Then drawers were enlisted, under the bed, and one in the file:
#4 In progress projects and yarn
#5 Top drawer of the music file
The obvious place would be to display them as art in my living room:
#6 Entertainment Center
And what about those pretty baskets?
#7 Baskets (in living room)
#8 Baskets and pretzel jars on the quilt rack!
Or MORE baskets, and plastic containers!!
And then, then,... where is this going to live?
#9 On the guest bed
So I bought a few more places to organize the closet, labeled drawers, and was able to eliminate... not so much. (#'s 3, 8 and 9 are gone, plus some items have shifted from the other hiding places.)
I call it a success! (Ahem... unfortunately that closet was FULL before I started this... A trip to the shed is imminent.)
...Is this stash going to be controlled, or will it control me?
I have to ask myself: Why do I have 144 items listed in my stash list? And how can I even think of buying more? 1. Yarn shops are in business to sell. They put out models of projects, and they display yarn. Is that all it takes? 2. I have a long history of touching yarn. The sensitivity of my fingertips as I squeeze fiber... (This is getting sick!) 3. I have the $$$ means. 4. I have no one but myself to answer to. No one to stop me. 5. If there was a war, or I should become destitute, or depressed, or unable to leave the house... I'm set for life! 6. Hey! It's all good!!!!
I'm a lucky person. For real temptation I have to drive at least an hour to my LYS! And I travel a lot. LOL (Yarn diet until 2011.)
