In Which the Pirate is Organised.

Day Three: 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches.
How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

Once upon a time, my entire yarn stash fit into this picnic basket. The top tray held all my tools, needles, and the ball bands from yarns I’d used. Underneath, I put all the yarn I owned. These days I laugh at that. The top tray of the basket still holds tools, but the main compartment is now completely reserved for handspun yarn – and it’s filling up!

I bought a bunch of large plastic totes at Costco, and sorted my yarn into them. One holds only sock yarn. Two are stuffed with raw alpaca fleece waiting to be carded and spun. A third has my collection of dyed fiber and a fourth has batts that I’ve carded and haven’t yet gotten the chance to spin. Yet another tote is for heavier yarns and leftovers from previous projects. I don’t have a picture of the totes, because it’s not really that impressive.

Right now all of this resides in my loft room, but the plan is to move them downstairs when Pirate-Husband and I finish building out the craft room in the basement. That should open up a lot of space for me upstairs. Who knows, I might even start letting the cats go in there!

Almost every yarn I own has been photographed, and each one has a listing in my Ravelry stash. That helps me to keep track of what I own, and when I’m having a bad day I can pull up the stash photos and think about the different projects that I’m going to make with all that beautiful yarn. I like making lists, so I’ve crosslinked my yarns with the projects in my queue. Of course, I don’t always work from my queue in order… but at least the organization is there.