Sunday, November 20, 2011

Surmounting the Stash

Friday evening I continued with my quest to catalog my stash. I think I'm about half way through. I have cataloged 212 listings. I am up to 351 skeins. 207 of those are sock yarn and 29 are lace. A handful of those sock yarns are doubled because they are 2 50g skeins. For lace 19 of those are actual colors. Wow, I am kind of scared to find out what the actual count is when I am done.

So far I'm up to 94,006 yards ... and some are missing because I couldn't find them in Ravelry.

This does not include my hand dyed 14 skeins of sock yarn and 3 440 yd skeins of lace weight.

Now its down to the craft room closet and finally down to the plastic totes in the basement. Then my entire stash will be cataloged!

I find it very interesting that I have several skeins of yarn that I purchased more than one of ... without ever knitting the first one I bought. How do I know I even like this yarn? What was I thinking? That they may get lonely without their own kind?



I haven't quite finalized all of the details for this, but in 2012 I will be hosting a Surmount the Stash A-Long here. At this time I would like to know if you are interested in participating and what you think of the following:

1. Frequency of posts: Weekly, Bi-Weekly or Monthly?
Participating will involve posting on your blog a running count down and up of how many skeins of stash you have used (given away, sold, etc) and how many you have added. You can start with a total count, but if you don't want to catalog your stash, then don't.

Clearly as you can see I am not banning myself from yarn purchases ... that just won't happen. I am hoping though that if I am fixated on this being a regular posting, then I will be more likely to turn to my stash to knit from so that I have blog content. My hope is to get my stash down to a manageable size and stick with that size in the future.

2. Categories: Strictly Yarn or Including other Crafts?
Would you be more likely to participate if this was strictly yarn related or if this included fabric, crosstitch and any other crafts?

3. Prizes?
What would a prize be? We're trying to control our stash aren't we, do you want more? How about a "badge" or "award" that you could post to your blog and be the winner of the week or month?

Maybe patterns, books or knitting accessories - something to help use up stash? This would be more difficult to control if several different crafts are involved. Thoughts or suggestions?

4. Ongoing Stash Exchange?
I can create a page on this blog and post photos and info on yarn (other items if several crafts are involved) you would like to trade or give away. Interested parties can contact me and I'll forward along (this way your email, etc. are not posted). Thoughts?

5. Splitting the A-Long into Quarters?
This would allow for sign ups throughout the year. Having deadlines to complete projects? Maybe have different themes, knitting certain things at different times of year?

Let me know what you think. Either way I will be Surmounting the Stash in 2012, but I think it would be more fun if I had a party along for the ride!

6 comments:

Minding My Own Stitches said...

I would like to participate in something like this.

Posting frequency: once or twice a month I'd think.

Categories: I need to work through my fabric stash (quilting) as well as my yarn stash.

Prizes: I'd like badges ... like 10% of goal, or Sticking-with-it for posting several times in a row.

Stash Exchange: I'd love to be able to swap sock yarn remnants of about 15 yds or so ... secretly because I'd like to make a Beekeeper's Quilt with no two hexipuffs the same. But I'm always up for an exchange!

Splitting into themes: I'm ambivalent about this. I'm pretty bad about doing what I'm told, or even what I should do.

Lots of great ideas!

Kitten With a Whiplash said...

You wrote "and 3 440 yd skeins of lace weight".

I read "and 3,440 skeins of lace weight".

I thought "EEEEEEEEK! Somebody could, maybe, just possibly, have (one or two) more skeins of yarn than me!"

I once tried to do a stash database, when my stash was much smaller. I'm just not that organized.

Deb said...

I just wanted you to know that thanks to you I've started loading my stash.

Baby steps, but it's a start...

pinkundine said...

I'm currently working on my stash reduction plans, so this is quite timely ;) I'd probably be posting about them fairly infrequently, monthly most likely, so I'd join in on that basis but I wouldn't worry if others did it more regularly if that suited them.

Stash exchange sounds a lot of fun.

Deadlines - definite no for me personally - I know some people thrive on them but for me it's a surefire way to give up entirely ;)

Alyssa said...

I would like to participate, too. I'm not interested so much in stash paring, but just getting everything in order and figuring out what I'm going to DO with all of it! I think keeping it to knitting and crocheting would be best, but I wouldn't care if other crafts joined it. I think monthly goals would be good and um... that's really my two cents :)

Melanie said...

Well, you've got me beat on sock yarn stash. But not by much. lolol