Here are the results of my Cold Sheep Project for last year. The last time I bought any yarn was February 15th, 2014***, so I am coming up on the 1 year mark soon! For the record the last yarn was this:
And I immediately started a lace stole and haven’t worked on it since. Too many other things going on!
So, I knit or gave away a total of 4701 meters worth of yarn. I bought 1476 meters (that pretty red lace). So the net out is 3224 meters gone from stash. I have 337,503 meters left in the stash, give or take a few thousand in accounting errors. In looking at my database, there are a few yarns in there that I might not have subtracted when they were used up. It’s a close enough number.
I was very tempted to buy new yarn to celebrate the new year, but I went in to my closet and looked at all of those ridiculously stuffed yarn boxes. And considered the stark reality that if I only use up 4700 meters of yarn a year, I am going to have plenty to last me for a very, very long time. I have committed to not buying yarn just because it is pretty or shiny, or because it’s 11 PM and I’m bored. I might consider buying yarn for a specific purpose, such as a gift if I don’t have something appropriate, but otherwise there is bound to be something in that 337,503 meters that should satisfy my new project itch.
What about you? What is the state of your stash?
***Edited later: And the blog doesn’t lie, most of the time. That February date sounded wrong to me, so I searched back a bit. I bought that pretty red yarn on MARCH 16th of 2014. So I am coming up on the one year mark, just not as soon as I thought.
I can relate to being bored and either trawling yarn sites or Ravelry patterns, in order to get ideas to trawl yarn sites. I don’t know how much yarn I have other than over 250 individual yarns (of varying numbers of skeins) stashed into Ravelry, with perhaps a 30-gallon container or two of additional yarn that haven’t been catalogued yet. I don’t need any more yarn either and should commit to knitting from stash. I have, however, culled many many unused skeins and put them in a separate carton to take to my local craft consignment store. I liked the idea of Berrocco’s Suede, but hated the resulting knitted fabric. My daughters have pretty much outgrown scarves knit out of eyelash yarn. I am keeping some of the more jewel-looking novelty yarns to knit wool slippers that will be felted….at least, that’s on my project list.
Wow, I’m impressed!
Um. I’ve been knitting a lot from my stash. A lot for me, that is. I did buy a little bit of yarn last year, but I don’t think I bought any the year before…
Those numbers paint a very stark picture. Congrats on morphing back into being a knitter from being a yarn collector. 😉
I don’t have much of a stash…maybe a few dozen skeins. I’d love to come stash dive in yours!
I plead the Fifth.
That yarn is awfully pretty. I would have had a hard time resisting it. I try really hard to keep my stash within bounds, but the occasional slips add up. I feel so virtuous whenever I knit something from the yarn of years past.
My stash is pretty well out of control. According to Ravelry, I have over 105,000 yards in there and that doesn’t include the ~80+ pounds of spinning fiber. EEK! I know I have over 40 pairs of unknit socks. I have a tendency to buy yarn as souvenirs when I travel and I used to collect fleeces. I joined a couple of yarn clubs in the past few years, but I do at least knit up some of the club projects so am partly keeping ahead of that. I’ve barely touched the spinning stash in the past year, but it hasn’t been growing either. Nonetheless, it is certainly time for a yarn buying moratorium!
If only I were organized I would probably be terrified by the quantity of my stash, but I knit on in blissful ignorance and still ignore the fact that I’m on a yarn died. If I spun all my fiber I would be in deep trouble.
I recently returned to knitting after a 10 year hiatus. I currently have 2 skeins of yarn that I’m using for a baby sweater. I have no stash. My goal is to buy yarn one project at a time and actually finish the project before moving on to something else. We’ll see how long that lasts.