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?