Mission: Stash Organization

So I've been kicking around some ideas for a combination craft room and guest bedroom for a while now, and I finally started to take action. Dad built me this desk armoire when I graduated from college just a few years ago, but when I moved into the new house, I decided to repurpose it. It was going to be an additional clothing and linen storage area. Which is stupid, because I have a walk-in closet, a regular clothes closet, and a linen closet, not to mention two dressers. So it's just been sitting there full of junk for five years. Not anymore.




Yarn is stored in crates and bins by color.


A rainbow of stash.


Variegated and pinks/purples. Note to self: do not ever let Small Children #1 and #2 see the box on the right lest they beg you to knit all sorts of things with it.

The right side of the cabinet also has storage bins for more yarn.




Neutrals and the sock blankie stash.

I also purchased some containers to store needles, buttons, and other notions. The cupboard isn't completely organized yet, but I made a significant dent in the past few days. Yay! Progress on my declaration to improve the house and reduce the stash.

Okay, stop rolling on the floor laughing now about me reducing the stash. Admittedly, the stash has indeed grown this year. But doing this made me realize all the yarn that I've accumulated. It's time to stop buying stash.

Maybe.

If you think I have a lot of stash, check out this knitting space (scroll down a little). Fantastic, isn't it? Totally cozy. This is my inspiration for my craft room, although mine will be much less pink. But I hope it ends up equally cozy in the end.

And if you think that's a crazy big stash, brace yourself, then check this out.

A Wee Bit o' Progress

It dawned on me today that the New Year isn't so new anymore. It's almost the end of February; the year is nearly one-sixth over. Wow. Where did it go? A lot of it got slept away, due to the neverending cough and accompanying fatigue. I'm still coughing, but very rarely now, and my energy is back. I won't say it's 100%, but it's mostly restored.

Despite the illness, I have made a wee bit o' progress when it comes to two of my three New Year's declarations.

First, regarding the declaration to reduce the stash, I have made moderate progress. Small Child 1's sweater is now off the needles and awaiting buttons (picture coming soon), as is Mom's Thermis.



Combined with the 520 yards worth of stashbusting I did in January, I think I'll be close to 1500 yards by the end of the month.

I've also cast on a new pair of socks for February and have joined The Great Sock Off group on Ravelry. This group and the Stash Knit Down group are keeping me motivated to knit from stash.


Hello. We are Dragonflies in Amber, and we are here to keep your feet warm.

Yarn acquisitions? Well, I did sign up for a three-month membership to Plucky Classics, a yarn club run by Michigan's own Plucky Knitter. I love, love, love her yarn, and I feel good about contributing to the Michigan economy. The January shipment was a skein of superwash merino fingering weight in a perfect pink colorway called Hey Cupcake. I don't have a photo (stash photography is on my list of things to do), but you can see it here. Even with the acquisition of this skein, I'm still down a few!

The only other new yarn to enter the house has been from the Blankie Mania group swaps that I have joined and helped run. My pile of five-gram balls, skeins, and "bow-ties" has grown significantly in the past couple of months. But this doesn't really count as stash, right?



Playing with the colors makes me happy. It's like having a box of crayons in yarn.





I knit a few squares. Just a few. Just to keep the mound down to a respectable level. You know, it sits on my coffee table, and after all, I would like to be able to see the TV from the couch.



I have also been working on my declaration to get healthier, particularly when it comes to eating local. Lots and lots of news on that front, but I'll have to come back and let you know about my discoveries soon. I'm out of energy for tonight! And aren't the Oscars on or something?

A New Year's Declaration

Happy New Year, everyone!

I've never been one for making resolutions, because I tend not to keep them. The problem, I think, is that they tend to be too specific and therefore set up for failure. I resolve to lose 20 pounds this year. I resolve to repaint the house. I resolve not to buy yarn until I have used up at least 30 skeins. What if the above person loses 17 pounds? Repaints 3 of the five intended rooms? Buys a single skein of Dream in Color Smooshy on sale because it is a colorway she has been admiring for a long time, but otherwise does not add to the stash? Has this person failed? I say no. After all, she is 17 pounds lighter, has 3 freshly painted rooms, and has reduced the stash by 29 skeins.

So this year, I am making a declaration rather than a resolution. I declare that the following is a list of things I would like to work on this year...

Get Healthier
I have to face the fact that I'm approaching... um, well, let's just say I am now closer to 40 than 30. And my body is telling me that I can't treat it the way that I treated it in my 20s. Weight doesn't come off the way it used to. Gluttony now results in indigestion. Two beers make me sleepy, more make me drunk. Yes, I'm such a lightweight. Ideas to work on this part of the declaration:

• Eat more locally produced foods. I'm not going to adhere to a strict 100 Mile Diet, but I would like to be more mindful of where my food is coming from, eat foods that are in season, and support local producers of food. Shop as much as possible at farmer's markets, the Lansing City Market, local farms, and join the Locavores group on Ravelry.
  
• Eat out less, and when I do eat out, make reasonable choices.
• Save "blowing it" for special occasions.
• Fully utilize my cookbooks and Cooking Light magazine.
• Go on more walks.
• Get my bike restored so that I can use it this summer.
• Join the Runagogo group on Ravelry.
  
• I'm not giving up Diet Coke, so don't even think about it.
  

Improve the House
I've lived in This Old House for over five years now, and much of it is the same as when I bought it. Yes, dollars were being spent on going back to school for my social studies endorsement and the front porch rebuild, but now that those are over, I need to move on some other things. Here are some ideas:

• Organize closets, drawers, cupboards, and storage area.
• Work on the breakfast nook to make the kitchen more usable.
• Reorganize the side entry.
  
• Replace ugly light fixtures.
• Paint.
• Work on a landscape plan, even it if doesn't get carried out this year.
• Work on a plan for a backyard deck/patio, even if it doesn't get carried out this year.
• Have the dead tree removed from the back yard.
• Fix and finish the fence.
• Switch the bedrooms (guest bedroom becomes my bedroom, and vice versa) and get better mattresses.
• Area rugs before next winter would be a really, really good thing.
• The bathrooms? Ay, ay, ay.

Reduce the Stash
I've been knitting for a little over a year now. Over the past year, friends and family saw me purchase yarn and books and tools. They reminded me (sometimes gently, and sometimes not so gently) that when I start a new hobby, I usually go full speed ahead and then burn out in a few months. They saw it with scrapbooking. They saw it with genealogy. So their concerns were not unreasonable, but I have one thing to say to them: Fooey on you! You tell me that I am like a little old lady with my knitting needles and that this too will go by the wayside, and yet you covet my knitted goods! I laugh in your face! Did you see the list of things I knit in one year? Knitting is not going away, and neither is this blog!

Rant over.

I tend to have the Yarn Harlot's philosophy when it comes to the stash. We wouldn't tell a budding artist not to buy paint and canvas, would we? So why do we feel guilty for the size of our stashes? I don't, not one bit. I do, however, wish that a bit more of the stash would be turned into the projects that I had in mind when I purchased the yarn. (Yes, I'm one of those knitters. Rarely do I buy yarn if I don't have an idea of what it will eventually be. Unless it's sock yarn. Or unless Rob is pushing again.) I also wish that I would use more of the patterns and books that I've purchased. And so... here are some ideas:

• When a new project crops up, consult the stash first before immediately running out to buy yarn.
• Half-used skeins are a problem. Organize the stash so there is a specific place for half-used skeins, and label them.
• Join Stash Knit Down 2009. Log your progress.
• When a new project crops up, consult the patterns and knitting books as well as the free patterns on Ravelry before buying a new pattern.
• Do not buy any more knitting books. Ask for them as presents or participate in swaps, but do not buy them for yourself. You don't really need them.
• If there is a single pattern you want out of a knitting book, see if you can get the book from the library.
• Read your knitting books so you know what's available in them. Sticky possible future projects, especially gift projects.

So that's it. My three declarations: get healthier, improve the house, reduce the stash.

And this has been an entirely too serious blog post, and way too text heavy, so I now leave you and turn over the blog to Scooter.