Step One: Organize the Stash

Or perhaps I should have started with Step 0: State the resolution. (See three posts, below)

So, how do I go about this CRAZY idea of not buying yarn for a whole year? Well, I had off from work between Christmas and New Years, and from Dec 26-30 I spent the entire days and nights shredding charity mail from my kitchen table (it's a major problem) and organizing my yarn closet. I have a walk-in closet at the front of my house, which also contains a real closet. I had so many photos (artsy-fartsy ones), framed, that I took myself, and of course, yarn. Needless to say, I couldn't even walk into it.

I started by taking out all the photography and banishing that to an upstair's closet. Maybe someday these things will sell. But for now, I'm not getting a decent ROI. And knitting is SUCH immediate gratification!


Then, I tried to organize the yarn. I had a giant bin, about 18x24x18, full of Homespun, and on top of that a basket full of Simply Soft Brites. Beyond that, towards my front door (unused door, of course), was a growing pile of bags of Homespun and other nonsense, which were making great insulation. Too bad I didn't take a "before" picture. Perhaps that comes under the 5th Ammendment. I was able to reach for the bags on top pretty easily, but as I worked my way down, I had to bend over the yarn basket. Before I realized it, I'd lost my footing and found myself literally resting on top of the yarn, my feet and arms dangling, literally SWIMMING in yarn. I laughed so hard for a good ten minutes or so, realizing how crazy I was and wondering if my son would hear me.














Well, a few days later, I'm in CH Martin (which by the way has extremely good bargains and I'm not getting paid to say that), and I see these perfect, inexpensive, cheap plastic shelves. Modular. And I say to myself, what if I turned them on their side and put them on my dresser in my walk-in closet? So for $12.99, (or was it $11.99?), I buy one, and love it so much I buy another one a day or so later. In minutes I have 2 of the 3 shelves put together, which I then rotate 90 degrees, and put on top of my green dresser in my walk-in closet. Then the fun part. I populate it (can you tell I work for a management consulting firm?) with Homespun and Simply Soft. Oh, how beautiful. My boyfriend says it looks like art, like an installation. (Translated: special art work created specifically for a gallery space, for you non-visual artists out there.) The photo on the left is from the packaging. The photo on the right is what I did with it.

And I'm in Heaven. My yarn. Visible. Not in my upstairs closet beneath the vacuum cleaner and beside the rolls of toilet paper. Downstairs in my walk-in closet in plain view, taking precedence, and looking beautiful.


And I soon realize that not everything will fit in my little plastic world of yarn. No matter. Put likes together, and then those likes in attractive plastic or paper or cloth bags, and hang it off the knobs of the dresser drawers.





And for the really pretty mohair, just put it in a nice basket, let that sit on the hard wood floor, and call it a day...