How Do You Organize Your Stash? By guest blogger Jana

How Do You Organize Your Stash? By guest blogger Jana.

You may be one of those odd ducks who only have yarn around for the one project you are working on, and you don’t buy more until you’ve finished that and need another. In that case, read no further. But say you have a little less willpower, or you’re susceptible to yarn fumes, or that coworker moving to Hawaii gave you several bags of yarn – and now you’ve got an official stash. How do you keep track of what you have? I’ll tell you what works for me.

First, I sorted my yarn into four weights: bulky, worsted, sport, and lace. Then I sorted each weight by color. Next I made one 3x5 file card for each yarn. The card lists the color, fiber content, brand, and total yardage. I also snipped a 2” strand of the yarn and glued it to the card. These cards went into a small file box sorted by weight of yarn and following the same color spectrum.

Against one wall of my yarn room I put 18”x18” cubes of wire mesh 5 cubes high by 4 cubes wide. The skeins of yarn were put in gallon-size ziplock baggies and stacked in the cubes, again keeping the weight and color sorting scheme intact. Finally I taped on a small label identifying the yarn in each baggie – this might seem like overkill but believe me one brown sportweight alpaca yarn can look exactly like another in dim light. The fact that I have numerous brands of brown sportweight alpaca is an issue we’ll get into another time.

Now when I find a pattern I like, I just go to my file box, check what yarns I have in the correct weight, and see if I have enough of a particular yarn to make that pattern. What could be easier?

If you are on Ravelry, you might want to use its Stash feature to keep track of what you have. I’m a little lower tech than that, and like being able to see and touch my yarn.

 (Sock yarn is kept separately in plastic boxes (I love the Useful Box in the 3 liter size sold at office supply stores) and I don’t keep track of what’s there. I knit socks but I am not a Sock Knitter. Also novelty yarns and dishcloth cotton yarns are put by themselves in a bottom cube and not tracked. Leftovers and one-skein orphans are put in baggies in bins on top of the cubes.)