http://blog.yarn.com/31-days-to-get-organized-how-to-organize-your-yarn-stash/
Day 13: How To Organize Your Stash
This day is tips on how to arrange your stash. Which way do you find best to sort your yarn. By color, or weight, or fiber? By project? By care (machine washable versus hand wash)? Is your yarn just for show? And how do you contain your scraps?
Right now I’m sort of arranged by project. Those yarns that have a project already, or are easy to assign to a project stay in one bin. I surf this bin quite frequently. Usually when I’m itching to cast on something.
Then the rest of the yarn goes in a second bin. No real rhyme or reason, but I am trying to group yarns by type. Acrylic goes in one big gallon-sized zip-top bag. Wool goes in another. Cotton in another.
Choosing containers:
That’s easy. Plastic bins.
I used to keep my yarn open for viewing on a bookcase, but that’s no longer the case. I don’t want to make it easy for critters to munch on my yarn. Also- with the older stuff- it gets dusty out in the open.
No baskets. I’m not a fan of baskets. To me- a basket sitting around is an open invitation to accumulate stuff. And it may not be new stuff, but stuff just ends up migrating to the basket.
No decorative containers. I have a cat with very little regard for pretty. Things get knocked over all the time. It’s just not worth it to put out pretty glass jars of yarn, with Shadow on the hunt.
My stash is limited to the space in a see-through, water proof, plastic bin. I haphazardly organized my yarn by color but I never didn’t put a lot of thought into it because 1) I wanted to get everything to fit and 2) I’m not sure what everything is yet. After reading your posts on stash organization, I’m inspired to find a better way. Perhaps by weight, then fiber? I really like sectioning things off in plastic zip bags… I might give that a shot once I have a better plan.
My plan kind of materialized out of a need to keep my cat out of my yarn. I gift a lot of my items, so I need to keep cat hair to a minimum. So the plastic bins came first, then the zip top sandwich bags (which come in a LOT of sizes). He’s not allowed on my lap while I’m knitting, and all my finished objects get washed before making it to their new home.
Sorry for the out-of-thread reply – I can’t figure out how to edit it so that it goes here instead.
As someone who is seriously allergic, you have my undying thanks 🙂 Dish washing gloves also work really well for getting cat hair out.
My need for bins came from living in a damp apartment and having the closet mold over. We run a dehumidifier etc but just to be sure, we got the waterproof bin – and only one of them so that I couldn’t accumulate more yarn than I could work with since people kept giving me a ton of it.
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