Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Stash knitting challenge

We took advantage of dada's time off during the holidays to do some things we've been meaning to do for a while: we rolled up all our change and brought it to the bank, dada made a gazillion trips from the top floor to the basement to move all our books from our former home office to our future finished basement (for now, it serves as a depository for stuff that just doesn't belong anywhere else in the house!), and painted the nursery!


I say we, but really it was all dada. I just set up the unrealistic time frames and said "I'm sorry I can't help you more" and "I wish I could be more helpful" a lot! But dada got it all done and our office is looking more and more ready to be home to my little lemon drop.

I love the cheerful colour in there now. It's by Behr and is called yellow corn. I'm planning a yellow, orange and white colour scheme in there. Truth is, I'm tired of everything blue and green and since this little one will spend a lot of time in Julian's blue and green hand-me-downs, I'm trying hard to bring in some more cheerful hues into our lives ;0)

I felt bad that hubby was giving up his home office and even worse that since we don't have a new one set-up in the basement yet, the computer had to come in our bedroom!!! But it's really not as bad as I thought. We found a nice unobtrusive desk at Ikea that fits in well with our other bedroom furniture and I have to say dada did a good job at hiding all those wires.

So what does this have to do with my stash knitting challenge? Well daddy had to give up his office for the nursery and I have to give up my yarn closet (the brown armoire in the picture above) so lemon has a place for his clothes. Sure he won't have that much clothes for a while so I can totally still use a couple of shelves in there to store the yarn... but I need to seriously reduce the stash first.

So it's all about stash knitting for the next little while. Since we had to move all the yarn to paint the nursery, I took the time to count it. And it was really scary. I don't recommend you do it because it could totally freak you out. To me stash yarn feels like a big to-do list hanging over me and I totally feel the pressure to knit it up...fast! So getting rid of a bunch of it will feel like a load off actually, and it will be a nice treat to buy yarn on a project by project basis going forward (incidentally, I think that was totally my New Year's resolution last year, but I mean it this year ;0)

So here are my numbers:

  • 131 balls of enjoyable yarn earmarked for specific (or general) projects
  • 21 balls of sock yarn earmarked for, well, socks!
  • 54 odd balls of 'before I was a serious knitter' crappy acrylic I have no interest in actually knitting up but feel is my duty to knit up anyway since I spent money on it'
  • 31 balls of yarn I am considering destashing in the very near future because it's been in the stash forever and I still haven't found the right project for them

Yikes! That's a total of 238 balls of yarn! And just thinking about it makes me a little queasy to tell you the truth. And it all looked so innocent too...

My challenge then in the next three months before baby arrives is to reduce the stash by 100 balls either by actually knitting it up, selling it or donating it. I think that is totally do-able considering the donate and sell options available before me. But then again we all know I'm seriously deluded when it comes to yarn so who knows ;0)

Time to make those needles fly! Anyone else brave enough to take on the challenge? If so, you have to come clean with how much yarn you are currently hording and declare a number of balls to clear out either by a specific date as I did, or worse, "before you can buy more yarn!"

I should say that this is not really a knit-along though. Think of it more as a come clean about your stash meme! Be sure to let me know if you play along...I'm hoping to find some comfort in knowing that I am not alone!

14 comments:

  1. oh believe me, you're not alone. :) I'm doing that 'knit from your stash in 2007' challenge and am taking it seriously. I just recently reorganized my yarn and didn't count it like you did... but it's a lot. Lots of odds and ends to use up.

    I love the color of your nursery! I also love the idea of bringing in more yellows and oranges. Our house is virtually all blue and green. I was planning on painting our nursery blue/green as well but now I'm rethinking that. A sunshiny room sounds like a great idea.

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  2. Anonymous10:20 p.m.

    Re: crappy acrylic yarn. If you truly don't want to knit it, definitely donate it. You'll be making someone else very happy. I had a ton of acrylic that I was using up fairly well in charity knitting, then I saw a blog reference to a project that wanted yarn. Poof! Mine was gone. The receipient was delighted and so was I. One recommendation I got when I talked about donating yarn was to check with nursing homes. Often the residents would love to be able to knit and/or crochet if they had the materials.

    Best of luck with your stash reduction project. As Red Green says, We're pullin' for ya.

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  3. Anonymous10:57 p.m.

    Wow! That's a lotta yarn! Most of my stash (98% of it) is "crappy acrylic". I have only really bought good yarn a couple of times and tend to buy just enough for whatever project I'm working on.

    I'm going to try to make a bunch of the teddy bear sweaters I had posted on my blog for next year's Oktoberfest at the elementary school. Thought it would be a good way to make some Christmas money for '07. I'm looking for other "so cute folks just have to buy it but it doesn't take me forever to knit it" ideas.

    Hope you're feeling well. I really have to update my blog and stay on top of it. Some days it seems like such a chore. I haven't even taken many pictures lately. I still have to rest up from the holidays...I'm not ready to organize anything yet!

    love,
    r

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  4. I have 428 balls of yarn - does that make you feel better?! I counted it the other day in preparation for Knit from your Stash 2007...it kinda scared me how much I've managed to accumulate in quite a short period of time...good luck! (and I love your nursery colour scheme too!)

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  5. Anonymous8:20 a.m.

    The nursery is really pretty, it is a very cheery color.
    I am a big fan of donating things that you don't love. So I say get rid of all your crappy yarn that you have no plans for. I learned to knit with yarn that other people donated. Someone else could be thrilled to find your giveaways.

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  6. Anonymous8:30 a.m.

    Kmkat has the same suggestion I have about the crappy acrylic ... donate to a nursing home or senior center. People on a fixed income would love just about anything to knit/crochet with and that yarn is great for toys or dodads! Think of how good it'll make you feel giving someone else the joy of using the yarn you don't want. And that's over 54 balls GONE! I use to give all my left overs after a project to my Grandmother because she enjoy the variety of colors that she couldn't afford to buy to go into her projects. She's gone now, so I do need to find someone else to give to. I'll give my stuff a count this weekend maybe.

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  7. Anonymous9:47 a.m.

    I love the nursery! It looks awesome. :)

    I don't need to de-stash my yarn I need to re-stash it. All my nice stuff is gone (due to my 2006 de-stashing) and most of what I have left is crappy acrylic. Yuck.

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  8. Having moved at the beginning of December, I know that I have tubs and tubs and tubs of yarn. I don't believe I could even _find_ all the places I have hidden yarn/UFOs/craft stuff to give you all an accurate count!!!

    Project Linus is a wonderful thing and if anyone crochets, a little blankie in an open shell stitch makes the best of some of that crappy acrylic since there is so much not crappy acrylic space in the piece.

    Just sayin'.

    Of course, having ordered the advent calendar (thanks a lot, enabler anny) booklet, I'll need small amounts of different colors. Right?

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  9. My first reaction was, "Holy cow, that's a lot of yarn!" And then a quick mental tally revealed that I have 95 balls of yarn that I can recall off of the top of my head (so there is undoubtedly more), and that's after I donated at least 100 balls of acrylic to charity before I moved last summer.

    Good luck finding a new home for some of your yarn, and using up some of the nice stuff!

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  10. Anonymous5:42 p.m.

    Ooh lots of yarn, but I am too scared to count my stash. I hope mine is not over 400. I too am thinking of joining knit from your stash this year, and I am determined to knit quite a fair bit of it. Finishing off all my UFO's should help out with that too. I think if you wanted to get rid of the acrylic yarn then you could ask on your blog if anybody would like it, and some people actually knit or crochet blankets for them for the homeless, and nursing homes do those things too, like some other bloggers suggested. I love the color of the nursery, yellow is such a happy color, and I am sure the new baby will be too. I cant wait to see what new items you knit for him.

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  11. Anonymous9:52 p.m.

    I think it happens so easily because when you first start stashing, you do it in sweater quantities...that means like 10-15 at a time!!

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  12. I'm amazed that you took the time to count all your yarn, that the first step to destashing. It's totally motivated me to go through my yarn closet. As far as the acrylic goes I'm with everyone else, don't knit it donate it. This way you can provide a new knitter with some much needed pratice material. Not to mention that giving it away makes you 54 balls of yarn closer to reaching your 2007 goals.

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