Day 3: Tidy Mind, Tidy Stitches

Tidy Mind, Tidy Stitches- How do you keep your yarn wrangling organized? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organization exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organized at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organized, blog about an aspect of that organization process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organized stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

Bwuahahahahahahaaahahhaahaha...! (gasp) The idea of me having my yarn stash organized is hilarious! It's not. There are only 2 yarns that are organized in my stash. My sock yarn, which I keep in 5 large plastic boxes stacked on a shelf in the room I laughingly call my knitting studio/store room,

5th box not pictured

and the yarn I bring home from Knitwits for the charity knitting-which I keep in a box in the dining room. The rest of it is in boxes and bags wherever I could stash them so they'd be out of the way.

The sock yarn is organized by accident. After a couple years of it all lying around the house in small piles where it could easily be touched and admired (there was a lot less of it then), I decided to keep it in the plastic boxes to protect it from the creepy crawlys, dust, and light because I have a serious penchant for hand painted indie sock yarns, which are rather expensive-thus worthy of extra care. I started with 2 boxes. I just recently purchased a 5th box.

The yarn I bring home from Knitwits is yarn that has been donated to the group specifically for us to use for our charity knitting (or crochet). I keep it separate from the rest of my yarn for that reason. I take it's purpose seriously. I would never use it for a personal project. Frankly, I don't need to. I've got a yarn shops worth of yarn that I own for personal knitting. There is only one cardboard file box that I use to store the Knitwits yarn. I keep it confined to the size of that box. I take the yarn back to the group meetings if there are leftovers, or I've decided I'm not going to use it after all. That way someone else in the group can use it.

My needles are fairly well organized. That's because I keep them in their cases when I'm not using them. It took several years, but I finally learned that if I put them in their case, I can find them when I need them. What a concept, eh?

I own mostly circular needles. I stopped using straights a long time ago. I have a few that I keep in a vase in the above mentioned knitting/storage room. I gave the rest, along with all my double pointed ones, to my knitting daughter. They are her problem now.

For my circulars I have two cases. Obviously, I keep my Boye Needlemaster needles in their case. The rest I keep in a circular needle case made by Ellen's Originals. Unfortunately, they are no longer in business, which is a shame because their cases and totes were wonderful. They were a popular purchase in my shop. I wonder what happened to them? Anyway, Herrschners has a quilted one that is very similar in design.

My needle case is made of upholstery material in a leopard print. (I just happen to have a knitting tote that matches it, also from Ellen's Originals.) with clear plastic pockets for the needles. I have Addi Turbo needles, with the occasional Inox, Boye, or Susan Bates As you can see in the picture I've taken of it, it is stuffed to bulging. Any more needles bought and I will need another case. I'm already stretching the velcro closure to the max.

Live long and prosper. \\//