Tidy Mind, Tidy Stitches

2KCBWDAY3

 I've been a little afraid of today's post. The topic for today is to share how you organize your yarn and I'm not what most would call organized. I am to some extent, but not as much as I would like. Yes, I have all my yarn listed on Ravelry, but I like lists. And that's about where it ends. 

So I'm going to just do it. I just went ahead, walked upstairs and took a few quick (yet surprisingly painful pictures) of where my yarn is stored (and I threw up a quick thank goodness that I had put all my yarn away before I went on my trip last week).

My main yarn storage space is in the closet of my guest bedroom (I urge all guests to not hang anything up, or even open the closet for that matter). It is stored in bags and boxes next to an old (unused) vacuum and my wedding dress (as well as other various boxes from when I moved in 4 years ago, but those are out of sight). The doors to this closet generally stay open and the bedroom itself is used only a few times a year.

Now let's break it down:

In this blue storage box you can see much of my acrylic stash. This is mostly unused and from over a year ago. I also have extra small project bags in here. Hmm, now I feel like going and organizing it. Oh! And that's my niddy noddy made out of PVC pipe in the background.

 

These are some of my yarn bags. You can get a glimpse of the yarn for my Essential Cardigan (when I finally get back around to working on it), the yarn for the Audrey in Unst cardigan (when I get around to actually starting it), some Fibre Company Organik, and three bags full (I know!) of Classic Elite Fresco in an burnt orange type shade. 

 

And finally, the enormous vacuum sealable bag which basically holds the rest of my yarn stash. I would say most of what I acquired in my first year of knitting is in there, after that, well, I've shown you the overflow.

This is the little basket, in the guest bedroom as well, where I keep the leftover bits of yarn. I mean really? Does anyone throw away yarn if you still have a gram or more left? I don't. I think it may be an obsessive compulsive sort of thing. 

 

My final yarn storage space is in this wicker laundry basket I bought at Michael's years ago for $5. This basket is in the dining room in the corner next to where I like to sit at work at the table. Lately, this bag has been holding any new yarn arrivals that come into the house. I also have all my mini-skeins down here. I brought them down from upstairs one day to kind of sort through them and they haven't made it back up yet. There's also a couple projects in this basket, the beginnings of the Essential Cardigan and the School Sock, I think.

See, now aren't you proud of how honest I was? I do care for my yarn. I keep most in their plastic bags or move them in with another yarn to share its bag.  I would love to have all my yarn organized in neat bins or on a shelf in a brightly lit room but let's call a spade a spade. That's just not how I roll.