Stashing your Yarn - Part I

​Since Needles and Knits just had a 25 % off sale, I’m sure a few of you are now wondering where to store the yarn that you just bought.  You have added to your stash and now are thinking, “Okay… where it is all going to go? 
 
I struggle with this and know many others who struggle with it as well.  Even a successful wool shop owner struggles with keeping her stashed yarn organized, as per the picture below.   

But it usually ends up in a closet and then it overflows into the guest room closet, under the beds, or into the basement.  It basically goes wherever we can find a place for it.  That works okay until you need to find a particular yarn that you know you have but you just can’t seem to put your finger on it.
 
Here are some ideas on how to “stash your stash".

Organize your Yarn

​One must find it all, drag it out, and then sort it.  Yes, as painful as that sounds, you must do it in order to know what you have. 
 
Before you even think about where and how you want to store your yarn, you need to give some thought to how you would like to organize it. 
One can organize it by

• Colour
• Fiber content
• Weight
• Brand ( ie. all the Rowan is in one place)
• Single skeins, partial skeins and bigger quantities of yarn
• Sock yarn
• Tiny balls or leftovers

 
Or you can organize by

• Real projects ( ie. you have multiple skeins of)
• One skein projects
• Custom worsted weight projects (ie. stuffed animals)
• Scrap
• Get rid of/give away

 
Keep works in progress away from rest of yarn.  Put them in project bags – they don’t have to be fancy.  Gift bags work.
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Catalogue your Yarn

Once you know what you have, then you can match your yarn to projects.
For any partial skeins, weigh them on a digital scale, attach a label with the weight and put in one place labeled. If you don’t have a digital scale, Needles and Knits would be happy to weigh your partial skeins for you. 

The Stash tool on Ravelry lets you list yarn that you have either for sale or trade if you don’t want it anymore.
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Of course once you have your yarn organized and tucked away in its boxes, baskets or whatever means of storage you've come up with, you still need to have a system. The system of knowing exactly where the yarn you want to use is when you need it.  You can create a database on your computer that tells you type, quantity, location in your house.
I personally have never done this as it seems time consuming and I don’t really want to know exactly how much yarn I really do have.  
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Storage for your Yarn

Basically it comes down to how much space you have, where it is and how much you need to store it. When storing wool or other animal fibers consider air tight containers to avoid insects, mould and mildew problems.  I like to put a bar of  Irish Spring soap in each bin or lavender works well too.

We will check in with the wool shop owner in a few months to see an "after" picture of what her stash room looks like, after following these tips, so stay tuned!

Last but not least, get knitting! 

We would love to hear any tips that have worked for you or not worked for you  Just add them in the Comments below.