Wednesday 10 February 2016

The Big Weigh In

Well I finally plucked up the courage - and energy, to weigh up my entire yarn stash.  I'm following Linda's example (from Linda's Crafty Corner) and facing up to the truth - I'm also very curious to find out the actual numbers.

I've mostly been very good and haven't bought any yarn since my mad binge at Yarndale last year.  So I've been working my way through the stash, but it does seem never ending.  By weighing the stash, I felt that I could monitor the stash to see how quickly (or slowly) the stash goes down.

My stash is spread over five rooms; the study, the living room, the dining room, the storeroom and the small bedroom.  So first of all I gathered everything together in the living room.


I started with the smallest stash first, the one from the study (this is destined to become my craft room later in the year).


This box contains (very old) bits and pieces of novelty yarns and leftovers of chunky and lace weights.

This weighed in at 1155g.

Next the yarn currently residing in the living room.


This mostly is in bags and baskets and is the projects I'm working on at the moment.  There's 2 shawls, 2 cardigans and a granny square bag in the making.

The unworked yarn weighed in at 1949g.

Next, the dining room stash.


The hamper contains my Aran weight leftovers - I don't have any unused Aran in the stash.  There's a box of crochet threads and another of 4 ply leftovers.

This little lot weighed in at 3492g.

The storeroom stash next.


This is made up of my supply of 4 ply cottons, more crochet thread, yarn that has been frogged from old cardigans and sweaters, a large ball of purple Aran given to me recently from Grace from her leftovers and a bag of Stylecraft Special DK from a recent order.

This stash weighed in at 3945g.

Finally, the yarn stored in the small bedroom.


This is my serious stuff.  It's mostly acrylic DK with my stash of Jamieson and Smith wool, my sock yarn stash and the remaining Yarndale stash waiting to be used.

This weighed in at a healthy 7739g.

So the grand total of all the unworked yarn in my home at the moment is 18280g or 18.28kg.

That seems like quite a lot, but hang on a minute - what exactly is the definition of stash?

A significant proportion of the yarn I have is made up of leftovers, bits and pieces (and believe me, there's a fair bit of it that is just small pieces).  Many of these bits have been around for years and years, waiting to come in useful, but they are never going to be used in anything significant.  So I reckon, you can't count these as stash.

My Stylecraft Special DK and Bonus DK consists of a range of colours that I can dip into whenever I want.  I regard these as essential supplies, and as such they are topped up on a regular basis.  They are therefore 'stock' rather than stash.

The same can be said for my range of colours in the Jamieson and Smith wool (essential for Fair Isle knitting), my crochet thread (some of which is so old it belonged to my Grandmother) and my 4 ply cottons.

Then I don't think it's realistic to count frogged yarn as stash.  It has, after all been already knitted once.

So the actual, actual stash consists of sock yarn, the Yarndale purchases and the 4 ply I bought especially to make Eve's cardigan for her birthday.  This amounts to just over 2000g.  That's virtually next to nothing - I'm yarn impoverished!

I feel it's imperative I remedy this situation as soon as possible with a healthy injection of new yarn.  Don't you agree?

14 comments:

  1. Janet come on own up to it you are a serious stashaholic in total denial and you are about to feed your stash addiction FIGHT IT! I say haha yarn impoverished that's so funny I think I'll adopt your reasoning and go and see if the garden centre has any of that reduced yarn left, better still he might have reduced it even
    further...there's no hope for either of us! :) xx

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    1. Oh Linda, you see right through me. Yes I am in denial. I don't think there's much hope for us. Thank you so much for inspiring me to weigh up the stash. It was a fun exercise and certainly very enlightening.

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  2. You have fun with the shopping/re-stock!! I have only just discovered your blog. This post made me smile as you revealed each new stash of yarn. I thought you argued very convincingly (to a non-hoarder). I am always planning not to add to my stash/stock but somehow the wool 'devil' always wins. Good luck with your craft room when you set it up. I have one which is a total blissful ''mess''.
    Your cardigan is beautiful.
    I am not a blogger, just a reader of them and have now added yours to my list of favourites.
    Abbi

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    1. Hello Abbi and thank you for your comment. I love the concept of a wool 'devil'. He's sitting on my shoulder right now!

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  3. Oh too funny!!! I reckon - seriously - that my stash is somewhere just north of 2000 grams, I have 1500 grams of stylecraft special wrapped and unopened and the rest really is small bits and cannot weigh more than another 700 or so grams. I do have 8 needlework projects waiting to be finished this year after the one I am trying to get done now though - they are all unstarted I should say. So perhaps that is my stash! And the fabric of course!! xx

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    1. Thank you Amy. You're obviously only a beginner at this stash lark - watch and learn from us professionals and you too will soon have a stash completely out of control.

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  4. Did you know that you can export you Ravelry stash as an excel speadsheet? Kinda helpful and scary at the same time!

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    1. Thank you Helena. That's interesting to know. I'll have to give it a try.

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  5. I love this post, I've been trying to explain the concept of stash t my husband. I think I shall use your example. My own stash has been built up over a couple of years. I'm going to Yarndale this year as my birthday falls on the Sunday, can you imagine the stash potential of that! xx

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    1. Thank you Jo. Men just don't get the subtleties of the stash, they just see yarn. I loved Yarndale last year, but it is deadly. A combination of Yarndale and birthday could prove fatal!

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  6. I had a very big stash until last year when I went ten whole months without a yarn purchase, I used loads of yarn up from my stash and donated even more. Now my stash is still of significant size but it is smaller than it was.
    Hugs to you Janet,
    Meredith

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    1. That's very impressive Meredith. I'm hoping that I can substantially reduce my stash over the next few months. I'll have to knit faster.

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  7. Wow thats some yarn and my hubby moans at my stash, im sending to look at your blog x

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  8. What a fun blog this is, especially today! But seriously, don't you want to reduce the not-really-stash to about zero? That's my aim for this year. There are so many bits and small leftovers and however you want to call them in my stash, and I am trying to get rit of them. For example by knitting multi-coloured socks, using those small parts of yarn. So at the end of 2016 I hope to only have half and complete balls in my stash. That's making things more synoptic to me.
    You did so well last year, on the Tour de France on Ravelry, why not try to do that again? Maybe promising yourself you can buy new yarns when you have used up those little bits in your stash?
    Whatever you decide, enjoy!
    Anja

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