Over the last decade, my yarn stash has grown to gargantuan proportions. I could run a store out of my craft room, except that my craft room is a horrible mess. Was a horrible mess.
It was kind of sad because being in my craft room normally makes me happy. But over the past year it turned into a catch all junk room, and walking into it just made me depressed.
About a week ago, I bit the bullet, rolled up my metaphorical sleeves – because long sleeves are entirely optional in Texas – and started cleaning. I cleaned the storage space off the laundry and moved Kid 1’s soap and candle making supplies there. I boxed my sewing supplies and moved them to the storage too.
I threw away the blanket and other things, like the cardboard sewing mat, which had been ruined by Batty, our semi-feral cat, during her brief stay in the room while her nose healed. It was the only place we could’ve sequestered her from the other cats and she kept escaping.
I sorted my art supplies and bought a tall plastic dresser into which I would stuff my paint and knitting needles once it arrived.
I spread plastic on our new garage floor, and dumped all of my yarn in a massive pile onto it. I emptied the shelves, the bins, everything.
I swept and mopped the awful concrete floor. The next day my husband kind of quietly disappeared in the morning. After about 45 minutes, I went looking for him and found him in the craft room. He had spare rubber floor tiles left over from when we made our home gym and he laid a new floor in the craft room for me. He didn’t say anything about it. I just walked in and there was a new floor. It’s soft. š
Once everything was out, it was time to deal with the yarn pile. I sorted through it for three days. The weather was nice and the garage faces a well-walked street. Some masked neighbors stopped by because the site of me crawling around in the garage around a mountain of yarn was very amusing. I gave away two 25 gallon plastic containers worth of yarn. One of our neighbors knits blankets for feral cats, which is all kinds of neat.
Also a Texas millionaire stopped by to welcome us to the neighborhood. He lives in a house down the street. He was riding his fancy motorcycle down the street, pulled a U turn, and drove into our driveway, mostly to talk to Gordon who had come outside in solidarity and was sitting in the sun, reading his Kindle.
They talked about the bike a bit, and about the previous owners, and how we have lived here for three years now and he is both shocked that much time had passed and sorry that he hasn’t come by sooner. At some point, he told us that some neighbors were moving to a 20 acre ranch and scoffed a bit, “That’s a play ranch. A ranch is about 500-600 acres. I had one. Best years of my life.” You get these a lot in Texas. They don’t wear expensive clothes, but you can usually tell there is money there by what they drive.
It became clear that the amount of yarn I have greatly exceeds our storage. I blame my therapist. No, seriously. A few years ago, I had the mother of all burnouts and I went to therapy. I had an absolutely amazing therapist, who tried very hard to figure out what I actually liked to do for fun. And it was determined that I like buying yarn, but I also felt guilty, because most of the yarn I bought hasn’t been used. She said, “Does the yarn make you happy?” I said that yes, it did. She said, “Buy the yarn and stop worrying about it.” See? I’m blameless.
Okay, I sounded like Ascanio there. But still, blameless.
The right answer to the overabundance of yarn is, of course, to buy less yarn. When I told that to Gordon, he gave me this man look reserved for when wives say something that husbands believe to be absurd, and told me that the answer to this crisis is more storage.
I bought a really neat plastic cube set and built another storage unit out of it. My plan is to sort the yarn even further. Right now I have it separated by weight and somewhat by fiber. (That means I set cotton aside, if you’re wondering.) I could probably separate it by color, too, since I have a lot of sock yarn.
While sorting through all of the yarn, I found some half-finished projects. So here is my hall of shame. Behold all the things I worked on and didn’t complete.
2/3 Of a Sweater
A sweater and a sleeve. Worsted wool. Probably made for one of the children. I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t know how many stitches there were for the other sleeve or how to join the sleeves to the body. I don’t know what pattern this is. I do have the yarn, however. It’s rolled into a ball. Without a label. Mystery yarn.
Probability of finishing: Maybe. 50%. I mean, it is 2/3 of a sweater, so that was a lot of work. I just don’t know how I would finish it since there is nothing in my pattern library that remotely resembles this. Did I free-hand it?
1/8 of a Shawlette
I do know what this is. This is Hitchhiker by by Martina Behm. Knitted in Silver Shiny from Destination Yarn. The pictures don’t show it well, but it’s very shiny. I remember why I stopped this. While the yarn is gorgeous, the pattern is very… well, it’s just miles of garter stitch.
Probability of finishing it: Meh. 30%?
1/3 of Crochet Shawl
This is Blue Heron Rayon Metallic yarn. It’s very sparkly, which you can’t see in the pictures, and the colors are gorgeous, but there is zero elasticity. It’s like cotton. This can be put to a really good use when mixed with wool.
This is a shawl I knitted in 2017. I blocked it once to open the wool lace sections, and I haven’t had to block it since, because the garter sections of Blue Heron are holding it open.
I am not sure what is happening with the partial green-brown shawl above. It’s crocheted lace at the appropriate gauge for the yarn weight but the lace holes are huge. This is not a functional garment. This is more of a decorative garment and I am not sure if it is pretty enough to justify that label. I clearly meant it as a summer shawl, which I will wear in Texas never, because it’s 50 degrees, 50 degrees, and then 102. There is no in between.
Probability of finishing: Meh. 30%.
1/4 of a Shawl
This is The Joker and The Thief by Melanie Berg. And this was a gift from Laura, who decided that she would never make it herself and sent it to me with one request, “Make it and wear it.” I am the worst person. The worst.
This pattern had ends. And ends. And ends. The grey sections were painfully awkward and weaving in ends drove me nuts. I must’ve been having a hard time when I tried to knit this, because I remember thinking, “This is too hard and I just can’t do it.” Looking at it now, what’s so hard about it? It’s garter stitch, mostly.
Probability of finishing: Probably. 75%. Guilt factor is high.
3/4 of a Blue Shawl
Okay, so you can’t tell from the pictures, but this thing is massive. It has over 1,000 yards of sock weight yarn in it. Looks like 2 full skeins and I have about 2/3 of a skein left. Judging by the speckle on the final yarn, probably Hedgehog Fibers.
I remember this one. It was during the phase when everyone on Ravelry was doing these enormous fade shawls. I decided to free-hand one because I wanted something mindless to knit. I am going to pat myself on the back and say that the quality of fade on this one is quite good. It is quite pretty and will be prettier once I block all the weird stitches into uniform fabric. This was stress knitting and it shows in a couple of places.
Probability of finishing: Probably. 75%.
Once I am done with the craft room, I will take pictures. Or maybe not. Depending on how guilty I feel about the size of my stash. But the craft room is now 95% done and it makes me very happy. And while I didn’t finish some of these things, at least I now know they exist and where they can be found. š And knowing is half of the battle.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
I am a hobby soap maker and my stash of fragrance oils is insane. I see a name or a description of something that sounds good and sample is in my cart. 100s of samples. I canāt even make a batch if soap with a sample.
Ooh, I love soap molds, they are so varied and beautiful, I have a terrible weakness for them. But I personally have extreme sensitivity eczema etc so always make my own batches super plain which never look as good in the molds. As for my family they are mostly male and tend to be a bit grumpy about some of my style choices for their soap requests. . .
Your post and the subsequent remarks of the hoard made me so happy.. it’s good to know that I’m not so alone or unique in hoarding hobby supplies.. it’s a hoard of mes out there!!!!
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As always, you bring laughter and joy with your posts. Seriously, these works I progress are beautiful. I hope you finish them or at least make make them into beautiful, zany blanket;)
I donāt have so much yarn as I have fiber. Pounds and pounds of it. Eventually it will be yarn.
I also have polymer clay, fabric, beads, wire, paint, and more.
Iām determined to make 2021 the year of destash and project finishing only buying something if I need it to finish something.
I love how your floor was quietly done and suits you. Thatās a Curran moment for sure.
You are so talented! Iāve tried knitting and crochet, both stress me out – a lot. My sister is talented with knitting, sewing, cross stitch, she belongs to a fiber guild. Iām in awe of her and you.
Wow. Some of that yarn is beautiful.
My yarn stash wasn’t nearly as big, but I managed to get rid of a lot of small balls by crocheting a granny square (small square) lap afghan and giving it my mother for Christmas. Some of my yarn had been inherited from my grandmother after she died… in 1989.
My Christmas gift to myself was a DreamBox, since I don’t have a craft room. š Unfortunately, it only holds about half my craft supplies and none of my yarn. At least my paper supplies are all in one place now.
Buy the yarn. Release the guilt. Keep the husband.
Signed,
Quilting fabric hoarder š
There’s always another solution, which you kind of already stumbled upon…which is to buy yarn, and then give it away or donate it. Buying pretty yarn makes you happy. Would it also make you happy to know other people were making things with the yarn, especially if they sent pictures?
My church has a bunch of ladies who like to knit and quilt and they do stuff like make blankets for women who have survived domestic violence. It’s really sweet! The church has a huge stockpile of yarn now, because lots of people bought yarn to donate.
Then you can have all the joy and none of the guilt, without more storage! š
You should auction it off and see if the price for the item is worth finishing it.
I would love to bid on the shiny hitchhiker item.
Gordan’s more storage comment sounds like something my husband would say bout my fabric stash and sewing notions.
Periodically I straighten up my sewing stash. I just tidied the “closet of doom” aka the closet that holds odds and ends of sewing stuff . Yes, I have 4 closets full of sewing notions and fabric.
I hear you… I love (love love love!) buying craft stuff and craft kits and craft books…but I very rarely make any of the things. Over lockdown I bought a Cross stitch whale kit, a pink and turquoise macrame plant hanger kit, pompom making gadgets, tiny packets of coloured felted fluffy wool, oil paints, brushes, 2 canvasses and a huge bottle of gesso, air dry clay, 2 pottery books and snazzy coloured crochet hooks.
This is only during the first lockdown which in the UK was 6 months approximately.
With this crazy amount of craft stuff I have made 2 tiny felted yetis the size of the palm of my hand.
Does this make you feel any better…?!
I love the blue shawl and the purple one…just beautiful! I knitted one blanket with a broom stick knit…once. I did it while in my undergrad to relax so I could sleep at night. It worked well then. My area of hog wild was arts and crafts for my daughters. I finally have thinned them out into craft donations as those same daughters are in their mid twenties. I have no guilt. Neither should you. They served a purpose and may still for you. As to the cleaning and sorting, itās one of those projects that gets done when the cosmos comes together and you feel itās time. ???? No worries,
Wow!! Aren’t you on any crochet /knit groups on facebook? We all love to buy yarn and don’t use the majority of it. As for not finishing projects I blame it on living in the south. (I am in OK) By the time we are half way thru a project we are well into the next season and our wip is no longer appropriate. When that season comes around again we have lost the pattern, hook size, don’t know where we bought the yarn, etc. I have long embraced the fact that I have a very absurd hobby (since I don’t finish anything) and I have accepted it. But it makes me happy. Buy your yarn!!
I re-arranged my entire office shelving this weekend to make space for my blocking matts and random box of Christmas balls that I keep knitting but never block and stuff. Turns out I didn’t 1,000,000 empty apple boxes-I would rather have founds some hibernating projects.
I agree with both your therapist and with Gordon. More storage to do what makes your heart feel good…I have found that I feel much better when I do āallowā myself to do what I like if Iāve met my responsibilities and Iām not hurting anyone or anything else…
That purple shawl is gorgeous.
Interesting. I have a history of starting a “relaxing” job and not quite completing it. Periodically, I gather together my interim projects, invite my friends and/or family over and confess that I have lots of unfinished projects “See, I just ran out of impetus. Would you like to claim and finish any of these? Please!”.
This works pretty well, especially if life is dull. It used to be my friends picked up the projects, then as my kids grew, they picked more of them up. Now, my grandkids do a lot more, even coming to my place and interacting with me. Fun for me anyway. I am 78 and still don’t have greatgrans to share with.
DRAGONBOGLE…. Keep up with your great books, I’ve read all I could find.
It’s like “I don’t need fewer books, I need more bookshelves.”
As a reduce-stress crocheter, I do only the simplest stitches and patterns, so that I don’t have to worry (stress) about tricky things or much counting. But I love touching and looking at yarns. I want your yarn stash! No, what I want is your yarn budget — and your helpful and understanding husband.
Ilona. your knitting looks lovely. my mother used to knit. (didn’t they all?) I had a bulky white wool sweater that I wore for many years but that too is lost somewhere back on the road of life. Don’t be disheartened, it is not the destination, it’s the journey. sometimes that path can be rocky but yours, yours is a path that brings joy to so many. thank you.
p.s. storage works but sometimes so does letting go.
Wow Ilona, you have selected some absolutely beautiful yarns and are lucky to be able to knit such wonderful scarfs and sweaters. Gordon putting in a new floor in your crafting room was a great surprise for you, and then he earned double husband points by suggesting more storage for your yarns and projects! The two of you make such a great team. A final note, I thank you both for writing Blood Heir, I am anxiously awaiting my Kindle download on Tuesday.
SISTER!! I ha v e a good si zed stash that is badly in need of organization. I have a 1/2 rule. Try to finish if 1/2 or if mentally not good idea frog and repurpose. I believe seasoning frogged yar n is necessary at times. if stuck for some reason, I make baby blankets and afghans and donate to a shelter for teens or abused families. Lots of times I open the bins and just plan for the lovely day when i have great hands and all the motivation in the world!!
Wow! I I am so proud of you. I have spaces I have needed to clean out for a long time and you actually did it. This is inspiring! Also I recommend watching the Netflix series Home Edit for inspiration about storage.
https://youtu.be/XPg_BE6EA94
2 1/2 years ago I moved into a 562 sqft senior apartment. My yarn stash came with. It had been living in about 15 decorative boxes and got shoved between my bed & the wall. Which makes changing my sheets a PITA. But this summer I pulled out my stash and started making blankets for shelter dogs & cats. Very interesting colors and patterns but the recipients donāt care. Then when fall started I switched to hats & scarves for people.Donated 6 sets along with gloves I bought. I went through enough of my stash that I have actually purchased some new yarn.
My recommendations:
Can you change the sweater to a vest?
Can the shawls be used to wrap up and bring home preemies? Or sent to a women’s shelter?
Happy knitting ????
I canāt have finished buying yarn. I havenāt won yet.
O itās snowing. So I made your bread! Awesome and easy to make !
Don’t worry about it. My mother has repurposed rooms of the house for her quilting. Dinning room now that the kids have moved out – Quilting room. Old quilting room – storage. New addition above the storage room, more storage mostly for backing etc.
When I downsized my house I gave away 10,000 books. They were all my friends and I had to rehome them.
It took forever. Im sure they all thought I was nuts and took them to appease the crazy woman. So kudos to you for rehoming some of your friends!
I really enjoyed the meme that said:
“Too many books?” I believe the phrase you are looking for is “not enough bookshelves.”
I am basing my 2021 around this since buy and having book makes me happy. Do whatever makes you happy and fix the storage to accommodate it š
I loved this post and I donāt even knit or crochet. I do, however, have more than enough āstuffā I should be sorting…someday… š
Your stash sounds like mom’s and mine. I love using varigated yarn, and I have 6 or 7 plastic totes full of it. Mom make knitted afghans using blocks. Average is 63 blocks I think. Anyway, she makes each block with a different pattern, and usually picks three base colors to use throughout the afghan. Takes her just under 300 hours I think to make one, usually queen size. Her yarn is sorted by color and fills 25 or so plastic totes. When I moved here back in 2006, we spent three days combining yarn stashes, because I had some solids also, just more varigated.
Hello! This in unrelated to your blog post, but I received my copy of Blood Heir in the mail today, and I just finished it and Iām soooooooooo happy!!! For a whole day I was able to forget about all the awful shit that has happened to the world and to me in 2020 and feel the light hearted joy of reading a good book! Thank you so so so much ā¤ļø And this is greedy, but I truly hope you are able to develop this into a series (if everything pans out) because Julie is phenomenal and Derek is phenomenal and the both of you are PHENOMENAL! Just had to express my happiness and gratitude, thanks again! Stay safe xx
P.S you donāt happen to have the second book already written as a glorious surprise by any chance, do you? ????
We are so happy you enjoyed it! <3
Buying yarn is a perfectly acceptable hobby. I buy books. Right now, I have more books than I will probably be able to read before I die, but you never know. I may live to 105 with good enough vision and mind enough to still enjoy reading.
Knitters have TBK guilt pile and readers have guilt TBR pile. Donāt feel bad. Just enjoy the āfull cupboard during a snowstormā feeling. My books did that for me. I wish I had photos of my library. (I had to downsize a few times because my employer forgot to trickle down at least a measly cost of living increase in nearly nine years. ????)
While in theory I know that itās common for knitters to have any number of semi-finished projects gathering dust and to feel guilty over the existence of them, and that that fact should make me feel better about my own sad, neglected dust gatherers…it doesnāt really help. I feel really, absurdly guilty.
I wonder if thereās a Knitters Anonymous group. āHi, my name is blahblahblah, and I bought four more skeins of hand-dyed merino even though I have nine unfinished projects lying around and I havenāt actually finished more than a beanie in the last six years.ā
LOL, loved this post. Also, I want to go to YOUR therapist. To have someone seriously say I should buy more yarn because it makes me happy is brilliant. I will tell you what I told Meghan Cianna Doidge, don’t stress yourself to finish stuff you don’t LOVE and WANT to do. Gift it to someone else, they can take it apart and rescue the yarn. You only have to ship it to a lucky reader, you have a whole plethora of people who would love to divest you of that guilt of not finishing a piece. And about that one you took from someone else and didn’t finish? Find someone (just ask I’m sure there’s someone who’d love to finish it) to take over where you and the first knitter stopped. What a great history on that piece just think of it!!
Anyway, I’m just glad to have you and Meghan encouraging us all to knit and crochet, my jam is crochet and I’m so grateful to be back to it. I won a skein of Mudpunch from her and just finished a gorgeous scarf, holy heck batman, those colors make me happy! Can’t wait to see your craft room (I hope you don’t feel guilty about the yarn, therapy yarn should be a thing!!). Happy knitting.
Organizing can be SO satisfying. The Iāve been doing smaller scale (closets) organizing myself and the feeling of accomplishment I get is definitely disproportionate to the actual amount of work completed. But it makes me feel good. And Iām super envious of your knitting/crocheting skills. I can sew, embroider, etc but canāt seem to get the whole knitting thing.
We all need things that make us happy, regardless of its usefulness. Maybe you can find a neutral base and combine the shawls to make a comforter or wall hanging. That way you donāt have to finish the individual pieces but make a new one.
I really like the color patterns from the yarns. Iām sure the complexity of the patterns help relieve the stress.
Oh, just to have a craft room! I have an āart areaā and an overflowing stash that I also emptied out, reorganized and intended to sell off before the Holiday Season.
Somehow the idea of weighing partials, calculating shipping, which in many cases from Canada could cost more than the yarn, it all just became overwhelming.
I am now a firm believer in Gordon’s concept, just buy more storage!
( Although anyone wanting an entire stash shipped as one š )
First, your husband is AWESOME and a total keeper. So is mine and this just sounded so much like something Michael would do. He is always trying to make things nicer, easier, safer for me. You and I are blessed and I’m sure we both know that.
Second, if you have a lot of crafts (or just one craft but a lot of stuff) then I have a link for you.
https://www.createroom.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA6Or_BRC_ARIsAPzuer_LS2Z1jPtTIENZFvV_GEV03ItLR6m-xzJU3qNeKVEgTPvI2a7KlzMaApOUEALw_wcB
I own the old version of this and it is AMAZING. The old version had fabric totes instead of the nice plexiglass bins, and even the old version is a game-changer.
You need about the space of a refrigerator for the footprint, but you need wall space on each side if you want to open this up all the way. It holds a crap ton of stuff.
Looking forward to my pre-ordered Kindle copy of Blood Heir— thank you SO much for revisiting Kate’s world for us! We have missed them so— even though we love the Hidden Legacy and Innkeeper worlds, too! AND we love the Edge world (which I am rereading right now to tide me over until the 12th).
OMG!!! O_O
Amazing cabinet!
Right?! They are like some puzzle box that has doors that open and then open again. I honestly wish I had the space for a second one because I would love to have one that was just for sewing and needle crafts. They are pricey, but really worth it.
You have my sympathy. I am also sorting and straightening up my sewing/yarn room. I think you need to get a sock machine, a circular sock machine. I have a ton of shock yarn and I donāt knit very fast. So, my answer is to order a Circular Sock Machine from Erlbacher Gearheart. Once you get the hang of it, you can knit a pair of socks in about an hour. And, itās fun. I love HedgeHog fibers too and you should look at Wollmeise. Martina uses it in many of her designs. Okay, I will stop trying to enable your addiction but, you should think about a sock machine.
You already know this but it bears repeating: You have a WONDERFUL husband.
I’d love to see pics of the various storage bins/dressers/whatever. I can always use inspiration for storage (especially in a one-bedroom apartment).
Buying yarn and using it are two different hobbies.
My sister suffered from depression and she bought yarn. When she passed my nieces gave me her yarn stash. I went from two 50 litre crates to about 40 crates. I started a charity craft group at my local church. I still buy yarn and knit baby blankets for charity.
Kudos to Gordon. He has successfully evaded martial trap #3471. Had he agreed with your desire to evict the yarn, he ran the risk of being blamed for getting rid of the yarn. Since it was his idea. By encouraging you to acquire more storage, responsibility for regretting getting rid of any yarn can not be on him.
Well played Gordon. Well played. š
When you knit and/or crochet collecting and stashing pretty wool is 30-70% of the fun depending on your current mental health in my opinion. Embrace the stash lol
First, I adore your loving spouseās immediate response: more storage! I am blessed with a kind Spouse as well.
I love the 1/8 of shawlette! I totally see it as a neck wrap, flourish, or even twisted into a broach pin.
My yarn hoard is plentiful, but my cross stitch patterns are a hoarders delight. Regrettably, my carpal tunnel is a pain. I have several ālapā throws that should have been much larger.
Thank you for sharing your organization experience. Iāve been trying to find the gumption to tackle my own, and spent part of my lovely snow day here in central Texas sorting patterns & rediscovering ālostā projects.
Nice shawls!
I hate garter stitch with the anger of the heart of a fiery sun. Hate. Hate it. Oh my word it is so boring, I can hardly handle it. Yeerch. Just thought I would share that. š
My stash went astronomic when a nearby LYS went out of business and was selling everything at bargain prices. In the meantime my mother kept sending me “interesting” yarns she found at all sorts of places, thrift stores, garage sales, etc. I begged and pled, please, no more yarn. She just kept mailing it to me. Finally when she was able to visit I showed her the sixteen 30-gallon bins I had that took up most of my tiny craft room, holding most of the yarn. (Seriously, it was not a room anymore, it was just a yarn closet.) At last she stopped.
Get rid of it? What, what did you say? Sorry, these words do not make sense to me.
Oh boy. I should send you a picture of my craft space…I am a Maker, I don’t stick to one craft. I papercraft, vinyl, sew, knit, crochet…the list is endless I love creating! Unfortunately, my space reflects that. I have barely enought space to operate in it so I feel your pain but I agree with Gordon! More storage!!!
This post is literally the best thing of my day! Please post your craft room. There is no such thing as too much, particularly too much of something that makes you happy.
I am wondering if there is an Instagram site for pictures of peoples craft rooms I can follow…
I dream of a craft room… working from home has squashed that notion for a while ????
Sooooo looking forward to Blood Heir!!!!!