There was as time, when this blog was mostly about knitting, where I used to take a photo of my stash and analyse it every six months, inspired by other bloggers ‘flashing the stash’. This week I indulged in a bit of stash flashery, in honour of getting my knitting yarn down under ten kilos again:
Except that there’s more than ten kilos showing. A lot more. It’s closer to seventeen kilos. Ten kilos is this:
The crossed out yarn on the left is my sock leftovers. I don’t count sock leftovers as stash. (Or other leftovers if there’s less than a ball left.) But there’s so much of it, that I could easily knit several pairs of socks from it – and probably will.
The crossed out yarn on the right is yarn for weaving projects. I did say that it was my knitting yarn that got down below ten kilos, didn’t I?
The weaving stash is over six kilos and who knows how much the sock leftovers weigh. And to be completely honest, the box with the cones of weaving yarn didn’t make it into the pic because I ran out of space on the day bed – though I am counting it in the overall weight.
Here’s the break down:
Having got the knitting stash down to my goal again, I considered if I should set myself a new goal. Perhaps to reduce the weaving stash by half. Perhaps to get the knitting stash down to five kilos. For a giddy moment there I considered a goal of zero – use up or give away ALL of the stash before buying more.
After all, there’s no yarn that I want to buy, right? Of course, as soon as I asked myself that question, it led to asking myself ‘if I did buy yarn, what would I buy?’.
Having tried Cascade 220, I understand why it’s the most popular yarn on Ravelry. I might hunt down some of that. I was also impressed by Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury. Then there’s Tubey. I’ve been testing non-wool yarns and recently found that Crystal Palace Cotton Twirl would probably work fine.
And I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about with Wollmeise sock yarn.
But not yet. The more I’ve reduced the stash, the more I’ve come to enjoy how it forces me to stop putting off decisions. Like what to use the yarn for, or that I just don’t like the feel or colour and should get rid of it, or it’s time to get over the fear of ‘stuffing up’ expensive yarn and make something out of it, or that I really don’t need to hang onto more than one leftover ball from a project in case I need to repair a garment.
It’s also shown me my bad habits. I need to stop being precious about a yarn because it was a gift or I bought it on a trip overseas. I need to stop moving problem yarns from the knitting stash into the weaving stash. In fact, I need to stop considering weaving yarns ‘not stash’ or all the problem yarn is going to put me off weaving and I’ll waste all my time ‘using up’ yarns instead of learning new methods.
I’m not ready to buy more yarn yet. I am going to see if I can get the whole stash under ten kilos first.
But if a stray skein of Wollmeise happens to come my way, I won’t turn down the opportunity to find out what the fuss is all about.
We seem to have the same affliction… too much yarn, not enough time.
It’s a very common affliction, I suspect 🙂
Is Wollmeise the sock yarn with the very long colour repeats? If so I have some in my stash and have seen some knitted up into rather gorgeous socks. It also makes good small shawls.
Hmm, I don’t think so. The Wollmeise I’ve seen has been in solid or near solid colours. But maybe they do long repeats, too.
You could always try the Stashbuster Spirals socks or the Blender ones from ravelry. Mind you, that only deals with your leftovers, not the real stash.
I’ve knit spiral sock to use up odd 50g balls before, and it’s definitely something I’d do again with my leftovers. The Blender Socks looks like a fun variation, too.
I also love knitting ‘scrappy socks’ which have wider bands of leftovers. Picking a colour scheme is half the fun.