Stash Organization

Today is a big milestone: my stuff, including my yarn stash, is all in one place for the first time since 2002. That's six long years of being scattered. My life has been in flux and reflux(with all the heartburn the latter term implies) for the whole of these six years--moving, back in school, moving, marrying, moving, working and now (I hope!) stable.

So what about my stash? I have been doing stash triage since I first moved from my old house in 2002. A few projects at hand with the idea that the move was temporary. At the time I thought it was. Hah! Silly me! Temporary turned into six years. My stuff is packed, but it certainly isn't organized. Two subsequent moves have made things even worse. There is still stuff buried in well packed and repacked boxes that I haven't found. I find yarn, but not the pattern, the pattern, but not the yarn. Projects are scattered, tools in multiple locations. Ugh. It's tiring. I know I have stuff and it is irksome, but easier often to buy new needles or patterns or whatnot. I have things half done because the necessary finishing components are buried. My stash is huge. I mean really huge, so whipping it into shape it is a herculean task.

I have 'resorted' (OK, that partly a self-enabling excuse to get more yarn) to buying more yarn when I find myself 'projectless'. By that I mean nothing is readily at hand. I must admit that I have at least 31 projects in the queue, many of which haven't even made it onto my Ravelry site, and more I could organize if I could easily get to my stash. I started a project list from memory on my clie (which is also mislaid in the move), but of the 31 projects I have down, only 2 are where I can get at them. I have a few more, which are more recent purchases, but the time has come for drastic action.

My plan, such as it is, is to try and arrange project plus a photocopy of the pattern in one project bag, as much as I can. This is also advice I would give to knitters with big stash facing a move. Pack a pattern copy with the yarn. You may change your mind later, but at least your original option is there, too. When I stored my stuff initially, the locker it was in had a small leak. Luckily no stash was hurt, but I lost some books. None of the books were of note, but I could have been in a heap of hurt if one of my out of print knitting books was lost.

So, Me, my husband and all our stuff are in one place. Now the real fun begins. Wish us luck!!

I finally made good my threat...

I have been threatening to start a blog for eons, and I have finally jumped in with both feet. I have no idea (or at least almost no idea) what I am doing, but I am doing it anyway. Yet another blog, I know, among millions on the web. live in a really great (but isolated place) and this is a way to connect with distant and scattered friends. Mainly, this is will be a knitting blog, but I also intend to post on my other loves: food and cooking. So, here goes...!