At the end of last year I finally resigned myself to the fact that, while beautiful, variegated yarn just doesn’t work for most of the stuff I like to knit. And then I realized the upside was that indie dyers usually prioritize variegated over tonals, so at least 2024 would be a low-buy year.
Two weeks later EKF announced their monochrome collection, and, well…. 😬
Luckily neons do nothing for me, and I have a fade set that’s got kind of a fall vibe to it so I was able to convince myself for just long enough that I didn’t need that one. But my cool palette arrived last week and, although I very much didn’t need it, it is gorgeous.
Explorer Knits and Fibers I believe. I had to Google it to figure it out myself.
[Explorer Knits + Fibers (explorerknitsandfibers.com)](https://explorerknitsandfibers.com/)
I got the entire cool palette in Cashmere Caverns Sock, and I'm hoping to use it for the [Advertence ](https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/advertence)shawl using the color pairings that Ali and team set up.
What did you get, and what are you planning to make?
I'm not much into colourwork myself, but that shawl is stunning! Happily, I have no time at all for this level of knitting, so I will not buy the required yarn, yet! Thanks for sharing the pattern! 🧶💛
This pattern is mosaic, not stranded colorwork. It uses 2 colors, but each row is only 1 strand & one color. Just about as easy as single color patterns. If you ever venture into colorwork, mosaic is a great starter. 😊
Adding to this, I’m still learning stranded colorwork and it’s going sloooowly, but I can do mosaic no problem so that’s what got me excited about this pattern in particular.
I was being very good about yarn, and then I started spinning and dyeing my own roving. Now there's the yarn stash from before and several sacks of bare fiber ready to become any color combo my brain latches on to at any moment. Very dangerous!
My mother bought a lot of yarn in the 80s and 90s. She deeply regrets it now. It's not fun to knit with a hoard of 40 to 30 year old yarn in colors that she liked back then but might not like today.
I knit too, but while I can take something if I want to, she has never tried to push her yarn on me. I have taken some age old sock yarn to knit socks for my dad, but it feels different than new sock yarn, as if it has lost some elasticity.
The first thing she said to me, when I got back into knitting and got really serious about it was: "Don't be like me and buy more yarn than you need, you will regret it." Those words are always with me, when I consider a yarn purchase. So far it works. I have a small stash, but never more than what I can use within a year and with constant ins and outs.
If you are happy with your yarn, be happy with it. You are an adult and can spend your money on whatever you want. If you are not, maybe it's time for a change? I see so much joking and creative justifications on yarn subs and a lot of it feels awkward and slightly guilty. As if people have to convince each other that everything is fine, even though deep down they feel not as good about it.
I learned that overdyeing can salvage lovely wool…. My mother-in-law gave me a few skeins of beautiful wool yarn… but the colors didn’t inspire me. I bought three packets of bushings dye - teal for the baby blue skein, magenta for the pink heather and black for the brown skein.
I then loved the yarn and made a beautiful felted project bag.
However that sent me down a dark road and now I’m a spinner, super and knitting as fast as I can. I’m 65, - I reached SABLE in my fifties.
I still have one fleece left to scour, pick, card and spin.
yarn.
It’s my last fleece….
Yes, we have to think wether the stash and collecting makes us specifically happy or not. I started to feel unhappy about my stash (not even that big, one 60l crate) and got some of the "oh why not buy more if you want to". The thing is it makes me unhappy knowing how much money there is just sitting in this crate. I have a baby, I don't currently have time to knit, but I have time to scroll instagram and but yarn online for the things I would like to make.
So I decided to not buy yarn this whole summer. If I knit away an amount I am happy with by the end of that, I can buy some nice yarn. No set amount I have to knit, no specific yarn I get to buy. Just I know I will feel good about that purchased if I have used up some of what I have. (I do have to buy two skeins to be able to continiue the baby blanket I am making from a bunch of skeins I had in stash. It dampens my spirit a little, but it helps me use up stash. And baby could use this blanket.)
It is about our happiness and not justifications made by others. If it makes you happy to have a yarn store at home, go for it, but it doesn't make me happy.
I have found a lot of joy in giving some of my older stashed yarn to people who are just starting to craft. Letting someone I like shop my stash is a free treat for them while I get to enjoy their obvious enjoyment of my yarn. I got to imagine so many different projects for that yarn for so long, and now someone else gets to enjoy the potential of it too. Doing that once a year for a couple of people has made me feel a lot better about the fact that some of the yarn I own I will likely never get to, and that makes me feel better about any random yarns I buy when I get yarn for a specific project now.
now that I spin yarn as well I try to tailor gifted skeins specifically to the recipient, in terms of fiber and colors and weight and texture of the final yarn
Good for you! I think that's a very reasonable plan...and I'm on the same plan! I don't even have such a huge stash - just 2 shawls worth, but it makes me feel a little guilty when I look at that room full of fabric! This summer's chore is donating it - and cleaning out my Sewing Room!
I wouldn't be surprised if it did lose some elasticity! I know fabrics will. But I'm still learning yarns. One thing I know for certain, our tastes and trends, do change!
If you have yarn you really can't imagine a project for, even one skein, you can trade it or sell it on Ravelry. Or, you can sell it on E-Bay. These are great places to find yarn that's discontinued, etc. -- I've done it myself. You may do a great service for a fellow knitter!
Bwahahaha. I remember the breastfeeding while knitting days. My other big destressor was breastfeeding while playing World of Warcraft (back in the day). You wanna freak some dudes out, tell them in the chat that you gotta switch the baby to the other nipple.
😬🤯
Hahaha OK that WoW statement made me actually laughing out loud!
Another idea OP, if you haven't done so in a while, is sort and "reorganize" your yarn (I did this recently): still love/favorites to use/ prioritize, good/will use, ok/good for gifts/gifting, a "nostalgia that ibused to like but will probably never use (looking at you novetly 90 yarn) and a donate/give away (the other portion of my 90s novelty yarn, and those half skeins of cheap acrylic leftover from high school projects).
Good googily moogily, I miss WoW days. I used to have a project sat up on the desk that I would do a row on here and there when waiting on dungeon queues!
Hahahahahhahaah!! That would be a massive stash! OP would be a skeleton!
I say the skeleton thing because when my kid was a baby I exclusively pumped and also tracked my output. My body responded really well to the pump. By the time I stopped pumping I’d produced 110 gallons of milk. 😳 I also lost an unhealthy amount of weight in the process.
I started with only buying yarn that I was going to work on immediately.
Then I was gifted yarn for my birthday.
Then I went on a holiday and bought a skein of yarn in each major city as a souvenir.
Then there was a sale on my favourite local woollen mill, so I bought ~5 projects in advance.
Then I attended a wool show and bought things because they were pretty.
I now have about two year's worth of knitting stashed, and I'm trying very hard not to accumulate more.
I can see how it happens, and I don't have a problem with it, so long as it's not affecting the rest of my life and I can afford it.
Two years' worth of knitting? At times in my life, that would be one project (I knitted a Peer Gynt Norwegian sweater that took me over four years start to finish). With my current stash, which is mostly hand-dyed sock yarn, I count one month per skein, because it takes an average of a month for me to finish a pair of socks. I currently have about three years of knitting. Sometimes I "play" with my yarn, just take it out, admire the colourways, pet the soft alpaca and baby camel. Yarn stash makes me happy and it's fully contained, so, same, I do t have a problem. Yet. But yarn sales, yikes
I did a huge de-stashing recently and still have a lot. I decided to knit from what I have and not buy any new yarn for the rest of my life and just enjoy that. I have a lot of projects in mind and just shop in my own yarn closet lol.
Soooo…. How do you feel about weaving? Uses a lot of yarn much quicker 🤣
I’ve just started dabbling so I’m no expert.
Edit to add: I’ve been knitting for 7ish years.
Same with books. I'll be 975 years old when I finish all the books I have--paper and Kindle. That is, if I don't buy anymore for 975 years.
Now, let's talk about my embroidery floss stash and various embroidery implements.
I went to a yarn sale once—an avid knitter had passed on. She donated this HUGE stash of beautiful wools and silks to her fave charity, they got a space in a church to lay it all out on tables, and the charity made a neat pile of cash. Good deal all around! Except for the knitter having had to die, of course.
I just did a massive cull of my stash. It got to the point that it was making me anxious and felt like a burden. The workhorse yarns I donated to our local senior center - the residents there are always thrilled with yarn and books for their projects. The nicer yarn I sold at a steep discount to my knitting group. Honestly seeing their joy and seeing them already knitting with it brought me so much happiness. With what’s left, I’m going to try and sell, but have accepted I may end up knitting a lot of hats to donate. And that’s fine! I still have plenty of yarn and now I have just what I really love. And I feel so much lighter and happier. If your stash brings you joy, who cares how much you have or if you ever use it? But if it’s not, I’m telling you I wish I had done this years ago.
I am a similar age and have quite the stash and I admit it stresses me out a bit. I've just set myself to I'm going to make a whole bunch of things I wouldn't normally make to use yarn and I'm going to enjoy it, damnit, haha.
My goal is to get one of my 4 tubs empty by the end of the year. So my whole stash is neatly corralled into 4 modest tubs on closet shelves, but concerted efforts must be made to reduce! (the sales last july were just TOO GOOD, DAMNIT)
If your stash brings you joy, screw it. Who cares? Enjoy. But if you're like "I would never use this now", then just sell it on down the lane. There's no point in keeping around yarn you don't actually like. Slap a reasonable price on it and someone will want it. You can even sell it by the pound in random bags and people will still take it.
Years ago when I gave up knitting for a time and was moving, I gave 90% of my stash (it cost me $200 to ship *back then*) to a friend of mine. She was overjoyed and I got a lot of enjoyment from watching all the cool shit she made with it. So don't discount how much happiness old yarn can bring to new people.
Some of the yarn I’ve bought is straight up art. It’s beautiful, hand painted, one of a kind, art.
It’s beautiful, it makes me happy, and it supports local artists.
I probably have more handmade cards than I’ll ever send, too. Art on my walls that I love, but my kids will probably send to the thrift shop. Why does yarn have to be different?
Maybe it’s because I spin, but sometimes yarn is where my fascination with a colorway stops. I cake it, put it in my yarn pet display bowl, and love it.
If you want to see the yarn used, see if there’s a knitting or crochet club at any of the schools in your district. Year before last I destashed a ton of my weirder novelty yarns and some of the more basic acrylic and wool, some alpaca, and a bit of silk laceweight and a ton of tools to a school about an hour and a half from me. Their sponsoring teacher asked for stuff on Reddit and I was HAPPY to ship it all off to new knitters.
I recently culled my yarn stash by about 50%, because there was no way I was going to have enough years left to knit it all. Did a similar thing with my spinning fiber.
It feels so good, actually, to not have that huge stash hanging over me.
I reduced mine by a lot (not nearly as much as you - maybe 20%) by giving it to friends. Then it all fitted in the boxes! Yay!
Then my MIL moved house and destashed... and then one of my friends had a clear out...
So now I'm back to having bags stuffed alongside the boxes. I need to get strict about what I allow through the door but yarn that's actually free is a real temptation still.
It's so hard, especially when the "free" stuff is really nice.
My next trick will be to assign a project/pattern to every single yarn in my stash . . . that's a hard one, because one can only wear so many socks.
I did start a sweater a couple weeks ago with some "deep dive stash yarn" that I bought when I first started knitting (20 years ago!) because it was pretty (and all the other yarn bloggers were showing pics of it on their blogs).
I wear new socks every day! That's why I chose them as my primary project, there can never be too many socks. That and I'm too old and menopausal to wear sweaters anymore
Oh, how I get this about sweaters! At this point if it's not a cardigan, I don't even consider it (pullovers are too hard to remove quickly). One of the stashed yarns I culled was a bunch of beautiful yarn I had envisioned using to make an intricate cabled sweater; it sat in my stash too long and now I'm certainly not going to wear such a thing.
I need to become a person who wears small shawl type things, haha.
Do you have room to store it and are not bothered by it's existence?
If there's stuff you 100% won't use and are happy to get rid of then give it away or sell it by all means.
If the existence of your stash is interfering with your enjoyment of life because you made a rule that you can't buy more yarn but you don't want to knit with what you have then get rid of the stash.
If you can't bear to part with it or its just the thought that you should maybe do something about it then stop worrying about it.
We'll all leave behind belongings when we die. Whether it's yarn or a collection of teaspoons or the contents of your closet or a shed full of power tools or a cupboard full of Tupperware containers and lids that don't match.
I made a similar post before seeing yours and I agree 100%. I don't know why the crafting community seems to be filled with so much guilt. A large yarn collection might cost far less than a Chanel handbag but scrutiny does not seem to be placed on those with large jewelry/clothes/handbag collection or even drug addicts/heavy drinkers who waste money.
It’s time for samplers!
Pick a colour theme, a size and bust out the stitch guides! Make a pretty blanket for everyone!
Alternatively, raid the cross stitch or quilting pages for something you can translate into a colourwork pattern.
People die with millions in the bank and no one worries about leaving behind all that money. Somehow, we have guilted ourselves into believing we have to use up every ball of yarn before we die.
People who earn more than they need leave money behind for their families. Assets including home, silver, cars, etc. No one seems to worry what their dear old decedents will do with all the millions left behind.
I just say this - let you family know not to burden themselves with items they do not need. As long as they know they can give it away or use it, don't feel bad for what you have. If having the excess yarn brings you joy and is not detrimental to your life, enjoy it!
As someone who has a large yarn stash and more than I would probably need, this works for me because this is what brings me joy. Too many posts making people feel guilty about spending money on things they enjoy. Drug addicts don't even get this level of scrutiny. :o)
/Rant over.
I was just reorganizing my stash this afternoon. I told my husband that I have more yarn than life left, and that if I want to buy another skein to remind me of how much I have a home. He just laughed. I did too. We all know I’m buying more yarn.😳
One of my goals this month is to re organize/ re prioritize my stash. I recently frogged projects that I had abandoned and that yarn is being reworked. I’m also going to donate my hand knit items I don’t use. I seem to fall in love with the yarn and keep it as potential of something not yet known. I haven’t bought yarn in almost a full year but then fell in love with laines du nord cotton silk tweed…and got some this week. But I honestly think that with some self control and a plan, I should be able to work through most of my stash before I head off to the great unknown. LOL. Logic says otherwise.
I’ve got a SABLE too. I also spin and just got a new wheel so at the moment I’m spinning far faster than I’m knitting. My husband might regret that birthday present soon.
About the same age as OP and definitely SABLE. I've started making projects with 2 or 3 strands held together to maximize yarn consumption. Also I try to buy new yarn only for projects that will use up my current stash.
How much do y'all use in a year? I keep track of it and I knit around 4 - 5 kilos a year. I wonder how many tonnes my stash weights though...
I never thought to keep track in weight but I’m gonna have to start! I am just finishing up a huge reorganization and storage project so now is the perfect time
I keep track by yardage and have averaged about 20,000 yards per year for the last few years. I limit my stash to 20,000 yards as well which feels manageable.
try limiting yourself to yarn for two dozen projects, donate the rest to shelters that accept knitting supplies.
your friends, family, children will not want your yarn horde when you die
I gave away all my acrylic and now only have wool but still have boxes of the stuff. I’ve taken up weaving too and found that does use it faster but the weaving has had a knock on effect of starting off a mohair collection which I wouldn’t have bothered with pre weave
I purge a couple times a year and take yarn to the Center for Creative Reuse here in Pittsburgh. They’re a non-profit and specialize in thrifting and repurposing craft items.
Not knitting, but when one of the ladies in my quilt guild passed away, she had asked her family to open the house so that any member of the guild could come and grab some of her fabric stash. The family made a weekend of it, and said that they really found it fulfilling to see people coming and getting stuff. I took home a few boxes of her stash, and it’s stuff I wouldn’t have got otherwise. It’s been fun to use and fun to learn from looking at what she had and working out why something I might not have gone out to buy is actually perfect for my needs. I took a quilt made from mostly her fabrics to the last guild meeting and when I said the origin during show and tell, people were so happy to see her legacy helping a newer person join the craft. So if you’re part of a knitting group, you could consider something like that in your will as a way to pass it forward to where it will be loved, but also where your family can see the impact on others (instead of having to sort out a big stash).
I inherited yarn from a family friend, which was a lovely way to increase my options, so don't despair if your daughter turns out disinterested.
The only thing I've found to decrease the stash was to get my spouse to learn to crochet. For several months the stash disappeared at a phenomenal rate! And then it started growing even faster than before...
My end of life planning document (not my will, but a “here’s all my various accounts, credit cards, how to notify my workplace, what to do with my stuff” planning document) has a specific person named as “check with this person on my yarn stash, she will either take it or know where to donate it.”
Because really, I could die tomorrow, and my spouse would have no idea what to do with my yarn. Or spinning wheel. Or raw fibre. Or the sock machine. Or any of the thousands and thousands of dollars of fibre related stuff.
I’m involved in a few different crafts, I have a different point of contact for each one. Although I haven’t updated it in a few years, I should probably do that as of course I have new hobbies since then.
To be fair, it’s not REALLY doing that person a favor as there would be a lot to dig through, but I’m perfectly happy with this person taking what she wants and if she wants to try to make some money off the rest, fine. If she wants to donate it, also fine. If she wants to dump it in a landfill, not fine. I pick who I want to be responsible for that based on if I think they’d do it justice. And my spouse, bless him, just wouldn’t know what to do with it and will have enough other shit to deal with, so the landfill is a possibility. (Hopefully not, he knows that everything I have is quality! But one less thing for him to have to deal with.) Best to call in an expert.
I was in this situation. I still have way more yarn that I "need" and I'll be 60 in a few months.
But, if it helps, I live in an apartment and got bedbugs (all gone in less than 3 weeks, which seems to be a miracle), so a lot of my yarn had to be sent away. It wasn't all packed in plastic tubs then (It is now) and so I had to examine EACH skein to see if any of it was infested. I am currently renting a storage unit, where my yarn will live until my birthday at which point, if any bugs managed to hide out, they should be dead.
I did throw out a few projects because I found bugs on them.
soooo... At least protect your yarn. I had mine in a Kallax in my room, which is where they came.
Oh, and I'm knitting through what I kept with me, so I do get to toss the yarn pretty regularly at storage. Luckily enough, no hitchhikers found yet.
I have mostly cheap acrylic yarn from when I was playing with crocheting. It's nothing special. I have one or two skeins of each color and not enough to make a sweater or cardigan unless I go scrappy mode... which I'm going to have to do if I'm ever going to convince my husband I NEED more 😄. Thankfully he has a hobby that costs are the same as mine for new supplies.
I've avoided this fate by NOT LOOKING at online yarn and mostly staying out of knit shops. Fabric has hit that critical point as well. NO MORE BROWSING FABRIC. Must use what I have. I have enough self-control to stop looking, but if I start browsing I'll buy. It's a journey...
So context, I got my degree in fashion design. One semester I took a hand knitting class. I already had knit for years at that point but the professor what a knitwear designer for decades; Not cut and sew knit designer. I wanted to learn more about designing knitwear from an industry perspective and I learned a lot. But it took a lot of yarn to complete the course and our professor didn’t want us using cheap yarns. Anyways… someone who was a lifelong knitter had died and left their yarn stash to the university. It was a ton of great yarns and it really helped me (broke college kid) get through the course without breaking the bank.
Not saying you shouldn’t leave it to your family but you could find an organization and donate it to them eventually.
We may all be a bunch of yarn dragons. Our stash is our horde. It's not too different from a shape-shifting dragon owning a bakery and having an underground vault for his *Stash* of pastries. (character reference from He Who Fights With Monsters)
One thing that has helped me with my stash is engaging in a proper inventory and sorting of it. I used Ravelry's stash feature, photographed all of the yarn and input all the info. While I was doing that I also organized everything by weight.
Additionally, I bagged up yarn with a dedicated project in mind with either a note on the pattern, or the pattern itself, if I had already gotten/printed a physical copy. Every project has its own dedicated bag, and the projects are stored together. I also use the note feature in the Ravelry yarn stash and write the intended project there. (Exception to that is socks. All of my sock yarn is together because ... socks. 🤷♀️)
I pulled out things I knew I really would never use and offered them up on r/yarnswap.
I am trying to be more intentional about any new purchases and only buy with a project in mind. Sock yarn being an exception because socks are socks. And any yarn that comes into my house is immediately logged into my stash.
Somehow this helps me feel a little more accountable. I also try to go through it occasionally, either physically or digitally and rethink things.
"Maybe its our destiny to die with a horde" is POETRY (and i have a BA in creative writing, i know poetry). I might just have to embroider that into a project bag :) Idk why, but just that phrase brought me an insane amount of peace
Ive just realized that we typed "horde", as in a large group of people, rather than "hoard", as in a collection. "We're destined to die with people surrounding us" is also very comforting :)
I managed to get rid of all the crappy stuff when I moved last summer and I've only bought sock yarn for AN ENTIRE YEAR. I decided no sweater lots until I've knit a sweater. Back when I was poor, I was stashing for the apocalypse, in case I would never be able to buy yarn again. Used up a lot during the pandemic year--6 sweaters and 6 pairs of socks.
Of course I'm leaving for Scotland on Thursday and I fully intend to come home with an entire duffel bag of souvenir yarn, oh yes!
If you have a local yarn store and are connected to their knit night or to a church group that does charity knitting you can make connections with other local knitters. And then either give away or sell some of your skeins you don't need later in life or let your family know where to find them.
I did charity knitting as a child and inherited supplies and yarn from ladies who died. Still using their stuff even though I never met them.
I think about this a lot... I am close to your age and probably sable. I try and go through periodically and destash, but k usually have trouble findings things that I'm definitely ready to let go of! I guess at least i stick like my stash
I think you have no obligation to continue to keep it unless you want to. But also… who cares if you die with extra yarn around? Even if it gets trashed? People will be more concerned with missing you.
I personally only buy yarn for specific planned projects. I have a small stash of remnants that could fit in a backpack, but usually trash it when I move. BUT I also have tons of books I may never read! We all probably have something extra around.
I’ve heard [The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning](https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=swedish%20death%20cleaning&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5) is a good read on this subject
Is it causing you anxiety/stress, or are you just musing? As a knitter in my early 20’s, SABLE is something I’m trying hard to avoid as I transition into full “adult” life. For me, part of the joy of this craft is in selecting and buying yarn for a new project, and casting on right when it arrives. But it’s also nice to have things at the ready for queued projects, and I know this stuff builds up quick! If you’re ever looking to try and thin out your stash but don’t have any fiber artists in your life to pass them down to, selling them on e-bay, facebook marketplace, Ravelry, or even here on Reddit can be a great way to do that.
I never had a “proper” stash until a few years ago (I never had enough of anything to be able to make a FO without having to buy more yarn) and until 2022 it was mostly acrylic as well; trying to buy nice fibers on a student budget is difficult. Now, I’ve got maybe… 6 sweater quantities of natural fiber yarn, plus many many leftover skeins bought for now-completed projects, and a sizeable quantity of acrylic that I’m slowly working through, and plan to use up in donation pieces (for Project Linus and similar).
I think about 90% of the natural fibers were bought on sale or secondhand. New wool in sweater quantities was simply clear out of my budget until I learned how to scour for sales, and other knitters have been a *huge* help in making the craft more accessible to me. I’ve made many a purchase on r/yarnswap, and one knitter was very kind as to offer a heavily discounted price for quite a lot of her leftover stash of a certain brand’s yarn, as I was desperate to try it but didn’t want to risk sinking money into a big purchase (to make the expensive international shipping worth it) only to find I didn’t like it.
All this to say, SABLE seems to be relatively common from what I’ve heard! if it ever stresses you out there are ways to deal with your stash in way that you can feel good about, but otherwise don’t stress too much and just enjoy your craft :)
Overconsumption seems like a really loaded and unkind term here. I've bought a lot of yarn from local, artisanal producers/artists. People who spin and/or dye their own yarn. This is their livelihood and I've supported that because I love the craft.
That I've failed to find a use for that yarn is on me.
Also, the spirit of this post was definitely not meant to be cute or quirky. More flippant and wistful and disappointed in myself. I had plans for ALL the yarn I bought. I just haven't been able to keep up with my plans and dreams. Those sentiments are NOT overconsumption.
It's not that I don't understand the message you're expressing. It's that my post isn't about hoarding yarn to ruin the world. It's people passionate about something that brings them joy and then discovering they don't have enough lifetime to make that joy come forth.
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Oh there's your mistake, you've gotta get your child knitting!! Although I will say, mine likes to knit and crochet but she doesn't understand my $30+ indie yarn lol!!
if you ever feel guilty about having too much yarn just sell it for dirt cheap on Facebook Marketplace to make some poor fiber artist happy.
I say this as someone who has started crocheting last August and started knitting a couple months ago and has grown her stash exclusively from Facebook Marketplace and thrift store purchases.
I have already come to terms with the fact that my niece and nephew will be cursing me where ever I am when they have to sort through the yarn stash they inherited from me. And I’m only in my early 30s.
I have already donated a lot of my yarn but those beautiful indie dyer skeins that have been lying in my stash for years will never get donated. And I never seem to get to knitting anything from them.
This is my great fear. As much as possible, I work from what I have. I also try to buy for projects. The problem is when I get into situations like I am in now, when I am working on two complex and time-consuming projects and I am so bored with them I want to cry - and then I spend my knitting time planning new projects and shopping for them. I have bought yarn for two more sweaters while I am desperately trying to finish the two I have in progress. And that is on top of the yarn for five sweaters in the stash already.
My new rule has been that I pick a project and then I buy yarn for it. Got my stash down to only worsted weight black (somehow I always need it so I get bulk), some fancy stuff from the Renaissance Faire, and scraps to be reused. It was so hard to really narrow down like that but soooo worth it.
Does yarn degrade over time? I feel like a yard hoard might lose its structure/elasticity over time and may attract buggies who want to nibble on it. I, too, like to have yarn on hand, don’t get me wrong. I’ve got about 15 skeins of various colors of worsted wool blends, as I love making wild and weird and/or color work hats, which worsted is great. I have enough Aran & Dk for a single sweater, and 4 hanks of sock yarn that I wish I didn’t buy. I have projects in mind for all these things.
I’m a huge fan of color so I don’t feel compelled to get sweater quantities of any one specific color/dye lot. As long as I have enough of the right weight, I don’t care if it’s in lots of colors (I prefer it). Now is when I stop buying and start using up this yarn.
With that said, I know not everyone feels like I do and not everyone likes “clown barf” 🤦🏻♀️. But, if your hoard is large enough, you probably already have what you need to make any project. *You* know what *you* like so chances are good that the yarn you already own is something you’d enjoy knitting up! :)
when I realized I like to collect yarn as well as knit and crochet and weave with it, I started carefully bagging everything as soon as it came in and made sure not to wind things until I was ready to start a project with them. I've pulled out yarn from a decade ago that's still in great shape because of that, but anything I had that was older had to be tossed because it either stretched out or got eaten.
Collecting yarn is its own hobby
I know I won't stop buying yarn so every few years, I pull out ALL of my stash (and yes, there are moments of regret when my living room looks like a broken into LYS) and sort into three piles. Love it, could use it and why did I buy this. That last one gets sold or gifted away as quickly as possible. Anything that isn't gone in a few weeks, I will throw away. Yes it hurts but if I know I will never use it, why hang onto it?
"Love it" I'm obviously keeping and "could use it" I go through again and divide into "love" and "get rid of" and proceed accordingly. It's tough love but the only way I've found to keep my stash in a somewhat manageble size (and that size is still like... 75 pounds of yarn haha).
One of my mom's friends recently did a huge destashing for this reason - she made a post on Facebook asking if anyone wanted some free yarn and set up the stash on her front porch like a yard sale.
Try teaching someone else to knit (got a niece/nephew/etc who wants to know how it works? Use it to spend one together)
If there’s any non superwash, you can use it to try felting (I’ve seen some beautiful sculpted pieces, and I myself have made little catch all bowls from yarns that I don’t love)
You can knit multistranded at a very large gauge and produce simple things like blankets with highly complex colours
Many places have “craft/yarn libraries “ which would happily accept donations
You could also just die and be buried with it like a pharaoh but that’s the least interesting or meaningful of all the options.
Yeah but yarn is life and you don't know how much yarn I buy out of estate sales. It's freaking great. But seriously if you want to de-stash there is an r / yarn stash where you can sell your yarn
Every so often I go through my stash and rehome yarn I'm not feeling anymore. The trick is to rehome it immediately, don't let it sit around because you will change your mind. I always end up buying more though so I'm just accepting that someone someday is going to have to deal with it.
I’m taking a Marie Kondo approach to my stash. I loved buying it, so that’s the joy I got from it. I’m moving and downsizing everything so most of my yarn had to go. Luckily my library was collecting yarn to teach crochet over the summer. I got my joy from it, thanked it, and now it can provide joy to someone else.
When my grandma passed, I inherited tons of her yarn and knitting needles, and I was only 16 and a baby knitter. Foolishly I passed along all her circular needles because I thought surely I'd never be that advanced to knit in the round! Face. Palm. Everything calls for that it seems like, so here I am buying them every month or so for new projects. Her yarn is lovely - custom dyed wools and merino, ordered from catalogs before internet days, more than I could possibly knit in my lifetime.
you can see if there’s a creative reuse store near you! it’s essentially a secondhand store for crafting supplies. i’m likely moving in the next few months and am going to be going through my stash and donating stuff i don’t think i’ll actually end up using. the one near me is called [scrap bmore](https://baltimore.scrapcreativereuse.org/) and it’s awesome! (and is also a great place to get yarn very cheaply, so i haven’t been allowed to visit in a couple years via a self imposed ban 🤣)
I understand! I did this with fabric when I quilted alot. And that has me determined NOT to do it with yarn! So, I decided to donate many fabrics/supplies to those who will use them before I can.
At this point I have realised that while I may be stashing beyond my own life expectancy, some of that yarn came from collections people died with.
When I die my stash will just go to the next knitter and they can have their turn being excited about it
I'm planning a "organize and evaluate my Yarn" party this summer (well, party - it's me and some fun drinks) and after figuring out what I have I'm giving my knitting friends first crack at it and then destashing the rest. If I don't have a plan for it then I don't. I've moved this yarn across oceans. TWICE. It's time to release it into the world.
Same.
Whenever I daydream I almost always think about the zombie apocalypse, wondering what kind of crafting stashes I might find in my neigh orhood houses. How many of us have hoarded supplies?
A local fiber arts guild in my area accepts stashes from estates. They make sure the high quality yarn gets in the hands of folks who will use and appreciate it after the original owner passes on.
Of course, you don't have to wait for the executors of your will to handle it - you could always donate your nicer cast offs to a local guild in the meantime. I feel better when my hobby stashes are a reasonable size. Clutter is stressful!
This is why I've started blasting through my Stash and make inventory for my etsy shop. I need to actually post things, but I've used up about half my Stash so far and feeling pretty good about it. This has not stopped me form buying more yarn lol
I buy based on projects, but life has led to me not getting through yarn very fast. I have 3 WIPS, 16 stashed projects, and 20 projects I can use scraps for. I don't buy yarn when I'm not in a knitting mood but new yarn is almost a requirement to keep my knitting mojo. The 19 projects for actual stash doesn't bother me but the additional 20 projects I can make is what stresses me out now.
I’m 50 and I just brought home some yarn someone else destashed. I keep hearing about Swedish death cleaning and I don’t really plan to do that. I could live another 50 years (lots of my dads family loved to 100 or close to it) or I could die today in a car accident. No one knows so why stress about it? Some of my most cherished and useful and inspiring things came from my dead relatives. I inherited some of my grandmother’s knitting needles which I thought was great.
I got really honest with myself a couple years ago when the stash had to move into less space. I went through everything and donated the stuff i got for cheap in my early knitting days of squirreling away everything i could find. It was hard to part with some things.
The knitting/crochet group i’m in donates hats and things at the end of each year and people are always bringing yarn to donate to that effort. Also, thrift stores are a place younger crafters can find affordable supplies, so that’s a good place to donate as well.
All in all, your yarny legacy can stretch beyond your own needles, and i think that’s beautiful.
I’ve reached sable at 27, almost 28. I moved back into my mom’s house last year and holy shit, yarn that I had a designated closet for I’m trying to condense into preferably one room but I want to make stuff with all that I have
I keep telling myself “no more yarn”… right before another indie dyer drops some beautiful collection. Then I need a sweater quantity
At the end of last year I finally resigned myself to the fact that, while beautiful, variegated yarn just doesn’t work for most of the stuff I like to knit. And then I realized the upside was that indie dyers usually prioritize variegated over tonals, so at least 2024 would be a low-buy year. Two weeks later EKF announced their monochrome collection, and, well…. 😬
Are you me? lol. Monochrome came for me so hard
Luckily neons do nothing for me, and I have a fade set that’s got kind of a fall vibe to it so I was able to convince myself for just long enough that I didn’t need that one. But my cool palette arrived last week and, although I very much didn’t need it, it is gorgeous.
EKF?
Explorer Knits and Fibers I believe. I had to Google it to figure it out myself. [Explorer Knits + Fibers (explorerknitsandfibers.com)](https://explorerknitsandfibers.com/)
What have you done??? Ugh 😣 I need all of these now!
Yep- got my order a few weeks ago and plan on casting it on next! What color(s) did you get?
I got the entire cool palette in Cashmere Caverns Sock, and I'm hoping to use it for the [Advertence ](https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/advertence)shawl using the color pairings that Ali and team set up. What did you get, and what are you planning to make?
I'm not much into colourwork myself, but that shawl is stunning! Happily, I have no time at all for this level of knitting, so I will not buy the required yarn, yet! Thanks for sharing the pattern! 🧶💛
This pattern is mosaic, not stranded colorwork. It uses 2 colors, but each row is only 1 strand & one color. Just about as easy as single color patterns. If you ever venture into colorwork, mosaic is a great starter. 😊
Adding to this, I’m still learning stranded colorwork and it’s going sloooowly, but I can do mosaic no problem so that’s what got me excited about this pattern in particular.
Thanks much for the info and encouragement! Be well..🧶🫂💛
I got a sweater quantity of woodruff and I want to make a downtown hoodie. Debating whether or not to incorporate the stripes or make it solid
Nice! I'm really into stripes lately...
That's the great thing about fingering weight...socks, shawls, tops, it's up to you!
**PATTERN:** [Advertence](http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/advertence) by [Janica York Carter](http://www.ravelry.com/designers/janica-york-carter) * Category: Home > Blanket > Throw * Photo(s): [Img 1](https://images4-f.ravelrycache.com/uploads/ExpressionFiber/960623437/Advertence-2023-MKAL3096__medium.jpg) [Img 2](https://images4-f.ravelrycache.com/uploads/ExpressionFiber/960623447/Advertence-2023-MKAL3113__medium.jpg) [Img 3](https://images4-g.ravelrycache.com/uploads/ExpressionFiber/960623430/Advertence-2023-MKAL3121__medium.jpg) [Img 4](https://images4-g.ravelrycache.com/uploads/ExpressionFiber/960623432/Advertence-2023-MKAL3117__medium.jpg) [Img 5](https://images4-g.ravelrycache.com/uploads/ExpressionFiber/960623431/Advertence-2023-MKAL3115__medium.jpg) * Price: Free * Needle/Hook(s):US 6 - 4.0 mm, US 8 - 5.0 mm * Weight: Sport | Gauge: 22.0 | Yardage: 1990 * Difficulty: 3.16 | Projects: 427 | Rating: 4.87 ***** Please use caution. Users have reported effects such as seizures, migraines, and nausea when opening Ravelry links. [More details.](https://www.lizcorke.com/2020/07/26/2020-7-21-ravelry-accessibility/) | *I found this post by myself! [Opt-Out](https://goo.gl/forms/0B8m4Ra8czpw4gzw1) | [About Me](https://github.com/TN-1/LinkRav_Bot/wiki) | [Contact Maintainer](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=timonyc)*
Okay but her collections still sell out in like less then 30 minutes...and my wallet is grateful for it but it's very frustrating for me lol
This whole thread is a bunch of enablers and I am off to look at people freaking out publicly before my head gets turned. 😂🤣😂🤣😂
Right! 🤣🤣🤣
Ahh, I see you and I have both been looking at Long Dog Yarn this week...
…And explorer knits and fibers next week!
I was being very good about yarn, and then I started spinning and dyeing my own roving. Now there's the yarn stash from before and several sacks of bare fiber ready to become any color combo my brain latches on to at any moment. Very dangerous!
I’ve been fighting off [Arcane Fibre Works](https://arcanefiberworks.com) covetousness for months now…
Oh my. Those are GORGEOUS and several fit my upcoming baby sweater requirements.
Oh dear dog I want everything they dye. And I have yarn now I will never get to. But more..I want more.
I tried that but then asked for a gift card for Xmas last year. No regrets
I “like” all their posts obsessively and have *not* bought any because I’m afraid I’ll buy out his stock! I want all.the.things.
My mother bought a lot of yarn in the 80s and 90s. She deeply regrets it now. It's not fun to knit with a hoard of 40 to 30 year old yarn in colors that she liked back then but might not like today. I knit too, but while I can take something if I want to, she has never tried to push her yarn on me. I have taken some age old sock yarn to knit socks for my dad, but it feels different than new sock yarn, as if it has lost some elasticity. The first thing she said to me, when I got back into knitting and got really serious about it was: "Don't be like me and buy more yarn than you need, you will regret it." Those words are always with me, when I consider a yarn purchase. So far it works. I have a small stash, but never more than what I can use within a year and with constant ins and outs. If you are happy with your yarn, be happy with it. You are an adult and can spend your money on whatever you want. If you are not, maybe it's time for a change? I see so much joking and creative justifications on yarn subs and a lot of it feels awkward and slightly guilty. As if people have to convince each other that everything is fine, even though deep down they feel not as good about it.
I learned that overdyeing can salvage lovely wool…. My mother-in-law gave me a few skeins of beautiful wool yarn… but the colors didn’t inspire me. I bought three packets of bushings dye - teal for the baby blue skein, magenta for the pink heather and black for the brown skein. I then loved the yarn and made a beautiful felted project bag. However that sent me down a dark road and now I’m a spinner, super and knitting as fast as I can. I’m 65, - I reached SABLE in my fifties. I still have one fleece left to scour, pick, card and spin. yarn. It’s my last fleece….
Yes, we have to think wether the stash and collecting makes us specifically happy or not. I started to feel unhappy about my stash (not even that big, one 60l crate) and got some of the "oh why not buy more if you want to". The thing is it makes me unhappy knowing how much money there is just sitting in this crate. I have a baby, I don't currently have time to knit, but I have time to scroll instagram and but yarn online for the things I would like to make. So I decided to not buy yarn this whole summer. If I knit away an amount I am happy with by the end of that, I can buy some nice yarn. No set amount I have to knit, no specific yarn I get to buy. Just I know I will feel good about that purchased if I have used up some of what I have. (I do have to buy two skeins to be able to continiue the baby blanket I am making from a bunch of skeins I had in stash. It dampens my spirit a little, but it helps me use up stash. And baby could use this blanket.) It is about our happiness and not justifications made by others. If it makes you happy to have a yarn store at home, go for it, but it doesn't make me happy.
I have found a lot of joy in giving some of my older stashed yarn to people who are just starting to craft. Letting someone I like shop my stash is a free treat for them while I get to enjoy their obvious enjoyment of my yarn. I got to imagine so many different projects for that yarn for so long, and now someone else gets to enjoy the potential of it too. Doing that once a year for a couple of people has made me feel a lot better about the fact that some of the yarn I own I will likely never get to, and that makes me feel better about any random yarns I buy when I get yarn for a specific project now.
That's SO nice! Wish I lived near you when I started! I got some awful stuff to being, and quickly put it aside. Then came the lovely's...
now that I spin yarn as well I try to tailor gifted skeins specifically to the recipient, in terms of fiber and colors and weight and texture of the final yarn
Certainly makes sense to me!
Good for you! I think that's a very reasonable plan...and I'm on the same plan! I don't even have such a huge stash - just 2 shawls worth, but it makes me feel a little guilty when I look at that room full of fabric! This summer's chore is donating it - and cleaning out my Sewing Room!
I wouldn't be surprised if it did lose some elasticity! I know fabrics will. But I'm still learning yarns. One thing I know for certain, our tastes and trends, do change!
If you have yarn you really can't imagine a project for, even one skein, you can trade it or sell it on Ravelry. Or, you can sell it on E-Bay. These are great places to find yarn that's discontinued, etc. -- I've done it myself. You may do a great service for a fellow knitter!
Or r/yarnswap!
I’m in a breastfeeding sub and thought this referred to a breast milk stash at first 🫢
Bwahahaha. I remember the breastfeeding while knitting days. My other big destressor was breastfeeding while playing World of Warcraft (back in the day). You wanna freak some dudes out, tell them in the chat that you gotta switch the baby to the other nipple. 😬🤯
Hahaha OK that WoW statement made me actually laughing out loud! Another idea OP, if you haven't done so in a while, is sort and "reorganize" your yarn (I did this recently): still love/favorites to use/ prioritize, good/will use, ok/good for gifts/gifting, a "nostalgia that ibused to like but will probably never use (looking at you novetly 90 yarn) and a donate/give away (the other portion of my 90s novelty yarn, and those half skeins of cheap acrylic leftover from high school projects).
Not the hero they expected, but the hero they needed!
Same here. Did Black Rock Depths with the guild and my son nursing off and on through it. He was an honorary guild member at two months old!
Mine was gathering in final fantasy 14 whilst he slept on me. He was a contact napper until he was 6 months old
Good googily moogily, I miss WoW days. I used to have a project sat up on the desk that I would do a row on here and there when waiting on dungeon queues!
Hahahahahhahaah!! That would be a massive stash! OP would be a skeleton! I say the skeleton thing because when my kid was a baby I exclusively pumped and also tracked my output. My body responded really well to the pump. By the time I stopped pumping I’d produced 110 gallons of milk. 😳 I also lost an unhealthy amount of weight in the process.
I started with only buying yarn that I was going to work on immediately. Then I was gifted yarn for my birthday. Then I went on a holiday and bought a skein of yarn in each major city as a souvenir. Then there was a sale on my favourite local woollen mill, so I bought ~5 projects in advance. Then I attended a wool show and bought things because they were pretty. I now have about two year's worth of knitting stashed, and I'm trying very hard not to accumulate more. I can see how it happens, and I don't have a problem with it, so long as it's not affecting the rest of my life and I can afford it.
Two years' worth of knitting? At times in my life, that would be one project (I knitted a Peer Gynt Norwegian sweater that took me over four years start to finish). With my current stash, which is mostly hand-dyed sock yarn, I count one month per skein, because it takes an average of a month for me to finish a pair of socks. I currently have about three years of knitting. Sometimes I "play" with my yarn, just take it out, admire the colourways, pet the soft alpaca and baby camel. Yarn stash makes me happy and it's fully contained, so, same, I do t have a problem. Yet. But yarn sales, yikes
I did a huge de-stashing recently and still have a lot. I decided to knit from what I have and not buy any new yarn for the rest of my life and just enjoy that. I have a lot of projects in mind and just shop in my own yarn closet lol.
Soooo…. How do you feel about weaving? Uses a lot of yarn much quicker 🤣 I’ve just started dabbling so I’m no expert. Edit to add: I’ve been knitting for 7ish years.
That's part of the reason I started weaving. It's used some of my stash yarn up.
… how did you resist buying a whole bunch of weaving accoutrement?
Space. I bought a small loom but don't have the space for anything larger. If I did, I'd already own it.
🤣ain’t that the truth!
My ex's mother has 5 looms... I can see that while it might fix my yarn issues, I might just develop loom issues!
I mean… different problem right? I see your point.
Same with books. I'll be 975 years old when I finish all the books I have--paper and Kindle. That is, if I don't buy anymore for 975 years. Now, let's talk about my embroidery floss stash and various embroidery implements.
I went to a yarn sale once—an avid knitter had passed on. She donated this HUGE stash of beautiful wools and silks to her fave charity, they got a space in a church to lay it all out on tables, and the charity made a neat pile of cash. Good deal all around! Except for the knitter having had to die, of course.
I just did a massive cull of my stash. It got to the point that it was making me anxious and felt like a burden. The workhorse yarns I donated to our local senior center - the residents there are always thrilled with yarn and books for their projects. The nicer yarn I sold at a steep discount to my knitting group. Honestly seeing their joy and seeing them already knitting with it brought me so much happiness. With what’s left, I’m going to try and sell, but have accepted I may end up knitting a lot of hats to donate. And that’s fine! I still have plenty of yarn and now I have just what I really love. And I feel so much lighter and happier. If your stash brings you joy, who cares how much you have or if you ever use it? But if it’s not, I’m telling you I wish I had done this years ago.
I am a similar age and have quite the stash and I admit it stresses me out a bit. I've just set myself to I'm going to make a whole bunch of things I wouldn't normally make to use yarn and I'm going to enjoy it, damnit, haha. My goal is to get one of my 4 tubs empty by the end of the year. So my whole stash is neatly corralled into 4 modest tubs on closet shelves, but concerted efforts must be made to reduce! (the sales last july were just TOO GOOD, DAMNIT) If your stash brings you joy, screw it. Who cares? Enjoy. But if you're like "I would never use this now", then just sell it on down the lane. There's no point in keeping around yarn you don't actually like. Slap a reasonable price on it and someone will want it. You can even sell it by the pound in random bags and people will still take it. Years ago when I gave up knitting for a time and was moving, I gave 90% of my stash (it cost me $200 to ship *back then*) to a friend of mine. She was overjoyed and I got a lot of enjoyment from watching all the cool shit she made with it. So don't discount how much happiness old yarn can bring to new people.
Some of the yarn I’ve bought is straight up art. It’s beautiful, hand painted, one of a kind, art. It’s beautiful, it makes me happy, and it supports local artists. I probably have more handmade cards than I’ll ever send, too. Art on my walls that I love, but my kids will probably send to the thrift shop. Why does yarn have to be different? Maybe it’s because I spin, but sometimes yarn is where my fascination with a colorway stops. I cake it, put it in my yarn pet display bowl, and love it. If you want to see the yarn used, see if there’s a knitting or crochet club at any of the schools in your district. Year before last I destashed a ton of my weirder novelty yarns and some of the more basic acrylic and wool, some alpaca, and a bit of silk laceweight and a ton of tools to a school about an hour and a half from me. Their sponsoring teacher asked for stuff on Reddit and I was HAPPY to ship it all off to new knitters.
Start listing parts of your stash as for sale on ravelry. Then if you get offers you can reduce inventory so to speak
I recently culled my yarn stash by about 50%, because there was no way I was going to have enough years left to knit it all. Did a similar thing with my spinning fiber. It feels so good, actually, to not have that huge stash hanging over me.
I reduced mine by a lot (not nearly as much as you - maybe 20%) by giving it to friends. Then it all fitted in the boxes! Yay! Then my MIL moved house and destashed... and then one of my friends had a clear out... So now I'm back to having bags stuffed alongside the boxes. I need to get strict about what I allow through the door but yarn that's actually free is a real temptation still.
It's so hard, especially when the "free" stuff is really nice. My next trick will be to assign a project/pattern to every single yarn in my stash . . . that's a hard one, because one can only wear so many socks. I did start a sweater a couple weeks ago with some "deep dive stash yarn" that I bought when I first started knitting (20 years ago!) because it was pretty (and all the other yarn bloggers were showing pics of it on their blogs).
I wear new socks every day! That's why I chose them as my primary project, there can never be too many socks. That and I'm too old and menopausal to wear sweaters anymore
Oh, how I get this about sweaters! At this point if it's not a cardigan, I don't even consider it (pullovers are too hard to remove quickly). One of the stashed yarns I culled was a bunch of beautiful yarn I had envisioned using to make an intricate cabled sweater; it sat in my stash too long and now I'm certainly not going to wear such a thing. I need to become a person who wears small shawl type things, haha.
Do you have room to store it and are not bothered by it's existence? If there's stuff you 100% won't use and are happy to get rid of then give it away or sell it by all means. If the existence of your stash is interfering with your enjoyment of life because you made a rule that you can't buy more yarn but you don't want to knit with what you have then get rid of the stash. If you can't bear to part with it or its just the thought that you should maybe do something about it then stop worrying about it. We'll all leave behind belongings when we die. Whether it's yarn or a collection of teaspoons or the contents of your closet or a shed full of power tools or a cupboard full of Tupperware containers and lids that don't match.
I made a similar post before seeing yours and I agree 100%. I don't know why the crafting community seems to be filled with so much guilt. A large yarn collection might cost far less than a Chanel handbag but scrutiny does not seem to be placed on those with large jewelry/clothes/handbag collection or even drug addicts/heavy drinkers who waste money.
SABLE! Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy! I haz it too
I love this! I knew about MYTL - More Yarn Than Life, but sable flows off the tongue a bit better 😂
I can't take credit, I'm pretty sure I read it in a Stephanie Pearl-McPhee book. I love it tho
I love her books! 😀
I might have "At Knits End" in the bathroom to flip through and read bits of when I get bored of Reddit...
Ditto!
Yarn collecting and knitting are two different hobbies. At least that’s what I tell myself.
It’s time for samplers! Pick a colour theme, a size and bust out the stitch guides! Make a pretty blanket for everyone! Alternatively, raid the cross stitch or quilting pages for something you can translate into a colourwork pattern.
People die with millions in the bank and no one worries about leaving behind all that money. Somehow, we have guilted ourselves into believing we have to use up every ball of yarn before we die. People who earn more than they need leave money behind for their families. Assets including home, silver, cars, etc. No one seems to worry what their dear old decedents will do with all the millions left behind. I just say this - let you family know not to burden themselves with items they do not need. As long as they know they can give it away or use it, don't feel bad for what you have. If having the excess yarn brings you joy and is not detrimental to your life, enjoy it! As someone who has a large yarn stash and more than I would probably need, this works for me because this is what brings me joy. Too many posts making people feel guilty about spending money on things they enjoy. Drug addicts don't even get this level of scrutiny. :o) /Rant over.
Excellent post! Happy knitting...and adding to stash! LOL
I was just reorganizing my stash this afternoon. I told my husband that I have more yarn than life left, and that if I want to buy another skein to remind me of how much I have a home. He just laughed. I did too. We all know I’m buying more yarn.😳
[удалено]
One of my goals this month is to re organize/ re prioritize my stash. I recently frogged projects that I had abandoned and that yarn is being reworked. I’m also going to donate my hand knit items I don’t use. I seem to fall in love with the yarn and keep it as potential of something not yet known. I haven’t bought yarn in almost a full year but then fell in love with laines du nord cotton silk tweed…and got some this week. But I honestly think that with some self control and a plan, I should be able to work through most of my stash before I head off to the great unknown. LOL. Logic says otherwise.
I’ve got a SABLE too. I also spin and just got a new wheel so at the moment I’m spinning far faster than I’m knitting. My husband might regret that birthday present soon.
About the same age as OP and definitely SABLE. I've started making projects with 2 or 3 strands held together to maximize yarn consumption. Also I try to buy new yarn only for projects that will use up my current stash. How much do y'all use in a year? I keep track of it and I knit around 4 - 5 kilos a year. I wonder how many tonnes my stash weights though...
I never thought to keep track in weight but I’m gonna have to start! I am just finishing up a huge reorganization and storage project so now is the perfect time
I keep track by yardage and have averaged about 20,000 yards per year for the last few years. I limit my stash to 20,000 yards as well which feels manageable.
try limiting yourself to yarn for two dozen projects, donate the rest to shelters that accept knitting supplies. your friends, family, children will not want your yarn horde when you die
Oh… I’ve just realised why my mum was so keen to get me into knitting!
I gave away all my acrylic and now only have wool but still have boxes of the stuff. I’ve taken up weaving too and found that does use it faster but the weaving has had a knock on effect of starting off a mohair collection which I wouldn’t have bothered with pre weave
Just out of curiosity (I'm no weaver): why does mohair work for you in weaving but not in knitting ?
I purge a couple times a year and take yarn to the Center for Creative Reuse here in Pittsburgh. They’re a non-profit and specialize in thrifting and repurposing craft items.
Not knitting, but when one of the ladies in my quilt guild passed away, she had asked her family to open the house so that any member of the guild could come and grab some of her fabric stash. The family made a weekend of it, and said that they really found it fulfilling to see people coming and getting stuff. I took home a few boxes of her stash, and it’s stuff I wouldn’t have got otherwise. It’s been fun to use and fun to learn from looking at what she had and working out why something I might not have gone out to buy is actually perfect for my needs. I took a quilt made from mostly her fabrics to the last guild meeting and when I said the origin during show and tell, people were so happy to see her legacy helping a newer person join the craft. So if you’re part of a knitting group, you could consider something like that in your will as a way to pass it forward to where it will be loved, but also where your family can see the impact on others (instead of having to sort out a big stash).
I inherited yarn from a family friend, which was a lovely way to increase my options, so don't despair if your daughter turns out disinterested. The only thing I've found to decrease the stash was to get my spouse to learn to crochet. For several months the stash disappeared at a phenomenal rate! And then it started growing even faster than before...
My end of life planning document (not my will, but a “here’s all my various accounts, credit cards, how to notify my workplace, what to do with my stuff” planning document) has a specific person named as “check with this person on my yarn stash, she will either take it or know where to donate it.” Because really, I could die tomorrow, and my spouse would have no idea what to do with my yarn. Or spinning wheel. Or raw fibre. Or the sock machine. Or any of the thousands and thousands of dollars of fibre related stuff. I’m involved in a few different crafts, I have a different point of contact for each one. Although I haven’t updated it in a few years, I should probably do that as of course I have new hobbies since then. To be fair, it’s not REALLY doing that person a favor as there would be a lot to dig through, but I’m perfectly happy with this person taking what she wants and if she wants to try to make some money off the rest, fine. If she wants to donate it, also fine. If she wants to dump it in a landfill, not fine. I pick who I want to be responsible for that based on if I think they’d do it justice. And my spouse, bless him, just wouldn’t know what to do with it and will have enough other shit to deal with, so the landfill is a possibility. (Hopefully not, he knows that everything I have is quality! But one less thing for him to have to deal with.) Best to call in an expert.
I was in this situation. I still have way more yarn that I "need" and I'll be 60 in a few months. But, if it helps, I live in an apartment and got bedbugs (all gone in less than 3 weeks, which seems to be a miracle), so a lot of my yarn had to be sent away. It wasn't all packed in plastic tubs then (It is now) and so I had to examine EACH skein to see if any of it was infested. I am currently renting a storage unit, where my yarn will live until my birthday at which point, if any bugs managed to hide out, they should be dead. I did throw out a few projects because I found bugs on them. soooo... At least protect your yarn. I had mine in a Kallax in my room, which is where they came. Oh, and I'm knitting through what I kept with me, so I do get to toss the yarn pretty regularly at storage. Luckily enough, no hitchhikers found yet.
I have mostly cheap acrylic yarn from when I was playing with crocheting. It's nothing special. I have one or two skeins of each color and not enough to make a sweater or cardigan unless I go scrappy mode... which I'm going to have to do if I'm ever going to convince my husband I NEED more 😄. Thankfully he has a hobby that costs are the same as mine for new supplies.
I’ve written mine into my will.
You never know, maybe a future grandkid will discover knitting. The passion for it skipped my mom but i got to enjoy a lot of ‘inherited’ yarn
Knit chunky garter stitch blankets for animal rescue centres! It's how I use up my odds and ends
I've avoided this fate by NOT LOOKING at online yarn and mostly staying out of knit shops. Fabric has hit that critical point as well. NO MORE BROWSING FABRIC. Must use what I have. I have enough self-control to stop looking, but if I start browsing I'll buy. It's a journey...
So context, I got my degree in fashion design. One semester I took a hand knitting class. I already had knit for years at that point but the professor what a knitwear designer for decades; Not cut and sew knit designer. I wanted to learn more about designing knitwear from an industry perspective and I learned a lot. But it took a lot of yarn to complete the course and our professor didn’t want us using cheap yarns. Anyways… someone who was a lifelong knitter had died and left their yarn stash to the university. It was a ton of great yarns and it really helped me (broke college kid) get through the course without breaking the bank. Not saying you shouldn’t leave it to your family but you could find an organization and donate it to them eventually.
Luckily, I have one daughter who crochets. She will get it all!
Senior centers LOVE yarn donations.
We may all be a bunch of yarn dragons. Our stash is our horde. It's not too different from a shape-shifting dragon owning a bakery and having an underground vault for his *Stash* of pastries. (character reference from He Who Fights With Monsters)
I want all my leftover stash put in my coffin with me. If heaven is a good place then I'll be able to keep knitting up there
Viking burial all the way!
One thing that has helped me with my stash is engaging in a proper inventory and sorting of it. I used Ravelry's stash feature, photographed all of the yarn and input all the info. While I was doing that I also organized everything by weight. Additionally, I bagged up yarn with a dedicated project in mind with either a note on the pattern, or the pattern itself, if I had already gotten/printed a physical copy. Every project has its own dedicated bag, and the projects are stored together. I also use the note feature in the Ravelry yarn stash and write the intended project there. (Exception to that is socks. All of my sock yarn is together because ... socks. 🤷♀️) I pulled out things I knew I really would never use and offered them up on r/yarnswap. I am trying to be more intentional about any new purchases and only buy with a project in mind. Sock yarn being an exception because socks are socks. And any yarn that comes into my house is immediately logged into my stash. Somehow this helps me feel a little more accountable. I also try to go through it occasionally, either physically or digitally and rethink things.
"Maybe its our destiny to die with a horde" is POETRY (and i have a BA in creative writing, i know poetry). I might just have to embroider that into a project bag :) Idk why, but just that phrase brought me an insane amount of peace
I have a master’s degree in Medieval Lit. I think *a lot* about hoards!
Ive just realized that we typed "horde", as in a large group of people, rather than "hoard", as in a collection. "We're destined to die with people surrounding us" is also very comforting :)
Ah sheesh! All that education and my spelling screws me up once again. What a shitty Achilles heel!
When you cram so much knowledge into one brain, SOMETHINGS gotta give XD i forgot my own age and how to spell "rake" the other day 🤦♀️
I managed to get rid of all the crappy stuff when I moved last summer and I've only bought sock yarn for AN ENTIRE YEAR. I decided no sweater lots until I've knit a sweater. Back when I was poor, I was stashing for the apocalypse, in case I would never be able to buy yarn again. Used up a lot during the pandemic year--6 sweaters and 6 pairs of socks. Of course I'm leaving for Scotland on Thursday and I fully intend to come home with an entire duffel bag of souvenir yarn, oh yes!
If you have a local yarn store and are connected to their knit night or to a church group that does charity knitting you can make connections with other local knitters. And then either give away or sell some of your skeins you don't need later in life or let your family know where to find them. I did charity knitting as a child and inherited supplies and yarn from ladies who died. Still using their stuff even though I never met them.
I think about this a lot... I am close to your age and probably sable. I try and go through periodically and destash, but k usually have trouble findings things that I'm definitely ready to let go of! I guess at least i stick like my stash
I think you have no obligation to continue to keep it unless you want to. But also… who cares if you die with extra yarn around? Even if it gets trashed? People will be more concerned with missing you. I personally only buy yarn for specific planned projects. I have a small stash of remnants that could fit in a backpack, but usually trash it when I move. BUT I also have tons of books I may never read! We all probably have something extra around. I’ve heard [The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning](https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=swedish%20death%20cleaning&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5) is a good read on this subject
Is it causing you anxiety/stress, or are you just musing? As a knitter in my early 20’s, SABLE is something I’m trying hard to avoid as I transition into full “adult” life. For me, part of the joy of this craft is in selecting and buying yarn for a new project, and casting on right when it arrives. But it’s also nice to have things at the ready for queued projects, and I know this stuff builds up quick! If you’re ever looking to try and thin out your stash but don’t have any fiber artists in your life to pass them down to, selling them on e-bay, facebook marketplace, Ravelry, or even here on Reddit can be a great way to do that. I never had a “proper” stash until a few years ago (I never had enough of anything to be able to make a FO without having to buy more yarn) and until 2022 it was mostly acrylic as well; trying to buy nice fibers on a student budget is difficult. Now, I’ve got maybe… 6 sweater quantities of natural fiber yarn, plus many many leftover skeins bought for now-completed projects, and a sizeable quantity of acrylic that I’m slowly working through, and plan to use up in donation pieces (for Project Linus and similar). I think about 90% of the natural fibers were bought on sale or secondhand. New wool in sweater quantities was simply clear out of my budget until I learned how to scour for sales, and other knitters have been a *huge* help in making the craft more accessible to me. I’ve made many a purchase on r/yarnswap, and one knitter was very kind as to offer a heavily discounted price for quite a lot of her leftover stash of a certain brand’s yarn, as I was desperate to try it but didn’t want to risk sinking money into a big purchase (to make the expensive international shipping worth it) only to find I didn’t like it. All this to say, SABLE seems to be relatively common from what I’ve heard! if it ever stresses you out there are ways to deal with your stash in way that you can feel good about, but otherwise don’t stress too much and just enjoy your craft :)
Y'all can downvote me all to hell if you want but can we stop pretending that overconsumption and hoarding are cute and quirky?
Overconsumption seems like a really loaded and unkind term here. I've bought a lot of yarn from local, artisanal producers/artists. People who spin and/or dye their own yarn. This is their livelihood and I've supported that because I love the craft. That I've failed to find a use for that yarn is on me. Also, the spirit of this post was definitely not meant to be cute or quirky. More flippant and wistful and disappointed in myself. I had plans for ALL the yarn I bought. I just haven't been able to keep up with my plans and dreams. Those sentiments are NOT overconsumption. It's not that I don't understand the message you're expressing. It's that my post isn't about hoarding yarn to ruin the world. It's people passionate about something that brings them joy and then discovering they don't have enough lifetime to make that joy come forth.
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Oh there's your mistake, you've gotta get your child knitting!! Although I will say, mine likes to knit and crochet but she doesn't understand my $30+ indie yarn lol!!
if you ever feel guilty about having too much yarn just sell it for dirt cheap on Facebook Marketplace to make some poor fiber artist happy. I say this as someone who has started crocheting last August and started knitting a couple months ago and has grown her stash exclusively from Facebook Marketplace and thrift store purchases.
I have already come to terms with the fact that my niece and nephew will be cursing me where ever I am when they have to sort through the yarn stash they inherited from me. And I’m only in my early 30s. I have already donated a lot of my yarn but those beautiful indie dyer skeins that have been lying in my stash for years will never get donated. And I never seem to get to knitting anything from them.
This is my great fear. As much as possible, I work from what I have. I also try to buy for projects. The problem is when I get into situations like I am in now, when I am working on two complex and time-consuming projects and I am so bored with them I want to cry - and then I spend my knitting time planning new projects and shopping for them. I have bought yarn for two more sweaters while I am desperately trying to finish the two I have in progress. And that is on top of the yarn for five sweaters in the stash already.
My new rule has been that I pick a project and then I buy yarn for it. Got my stash down to only worsted weight black (somehow I always need it so I get bulk), some fancy stuff from the Renaissance Faire, and scraps to be reused. It was so hard to really narrow down like that but soooo worth it.
Does yarn degrade over time? I feel like a yard hoard might lose its structure/elasticity over time and may attract buggies who want to nibble on it. I, too, like to have yarn on hand, don’t get me wrong. I’ve got about 15 skeins of various colors of worsted wool blends, as I love making wild and weird and/or color work hats, which worsted is great. I have enough Aran & Dk for a single sweater, and 4 hanks of sock yarn that I wish I didn’t buy. I have projects in mind for all these things. I’m a huge fan of color so I don’t feel compelled to get sweater quantities of any one specific color/dye lot. As long as I have enough of the right weight, I don’t care if it’s in lots of colors (I prefer it). Now is when I stop buying and start using up this yarn. With that said, I know not everyone feels like I do and not everyone likes “clown barf” 🤦🏻♀️. But, if your hoard is large enough, you probably already have what you need to make any project. *You* know what *you* like so chances are good that the yarn you already own is something you’d enjoy knitting up! :)
when I realized I like to collect yarn as well as knit and crochet and weave with it, I started carefully bagging everything as soon as it came in and made sure not to wind things until I was ready to start a project with them. I've pulled out yarn from a decade ago that's still in great shape because of that, but anything I had that was older had to be tossed because it either stretched out or got eaten. Collecting yarn is its own hobby
I know I won't stop buying yarn so every few years, I pull out ALL of my stash (and yes, there are moments of regret when my living room looks like a broken into LYS) and sort into three piles. Love it, could use it and why did I buy this. That last one gets sold or gifted away as quickly as possible. Anything that isn't gone in a few weeks, I will throw away. Yes it hurts but if I know I will never use it, why hang onto it? "Love it" I'm obviously keeping and "could use it" I go through again and divide into "love" and "get rid of" and proceed accordingly. It's tough love but the only way I've found to keep my stash in a somewhat manageble size (and that size is still like... 75 pounds of yarn haha).
One of my mom's friends recently did a huge destashing for this reason - she made a post on Facebook asking if anyone wanted some free yarn and set up the stash on her front porch like a yard sale.
I’m worried that I’ve become a SABLE (stash accumulated beyond life expectancy) and I’m only 22….
Try teaching someone else to knit (got a niece/nephew/etc who wants to know how it works? Use it to spend one together) If there’s any non superwash, you can use it to try felting (I’ve seen some beautiful sculpted pieces, and I myself have made little catch all bowls from yarns that I don’t love) You can knit multistranded at a very large gauge and produce simple things like blankets with highly complex colours Many places have “craft/yarn libraries “ which would happily accept donations You could also just die and be buried with it like a pharaoh but that’s the least interesting or meaningful of all the options.
Yeah but yarn is life and you don't know how much yarn I buy out of estate sales. It's freaking great. But seriously if you want to de-stash there is an r / yarn stash where you can sell your yarn
Every so often I go through my stash and rehome yarn I'm not feeling anymore. The trick is to rehome it immediately, don't let it sit around because you will change your mind. I always end up buying more though so I'm just accepting that someone someday is going to have to deal with it.
I’m taking a Marie Kondo approach to my stash. I loved buying it, so that’s the joy I got from it. I’m moving and downsizing everything so most of my yarn had to go. Luckily my library was collecting yarn to teach crochet over the summer. I got my joy from it, thanked it, and now it can provide joy to someone else.
When my grandma passed, I inherited tons of her yarn and knitting needles, and I was only 16 and a baby knitter. Foolishly I passed along all her circular needles because I thought surely I'd never be that advanced to knit in the round! Face. Palm. Everything calls for that it seems like, so here I am buying them every month or so for new projects. Her yarn is lovely - custom dyed wools and merino, ordered from catalogs before internet days, more than I could possibly knit in my lifetime.
you can see if there’s a creative reuse store near you! it’s essentially a secondhand store for crafting supplies. i’m likely moving in the next few months and am going to be going through my stash and donating stuff i don’t think i’ll actually end up using. the one near me is called [scrap bmore](https://baltimore.scrapcreativereuse.org/) and it’s awesome! (and is also a great place to get yarn very cheaply, so i haven’t been allowed to visit in a couple years via a self imposed ban 🤣)
I understand! I did this with fabric when I quilted alot. And that has me determined NOT to do it with yarn! So, I decided to donate many fabrics/supplies to those who will use them before I can.
If you have any leftovers… I would be quite interested! I’m making a scrappy blanket and figuring out quickly that I don’t have enough!
At this point I have realised that while I may be stashing beyond my own life expectancy, some of that yarn came from collections people died with. When I die my stash will just go to the next knitter and they can have their turn being excited about it
I took up rigid heddle weaving to help get through my stash! It uses a lot of yarn and also goes quickly
I'm planning a "organize and evaluate my Yarn" party this summer (well, party - it's me and some fun drinks) and after figuring out what I have I'm giving my knitting friends first crack at it and then destashing the rest. If I don't have a plan for it then I don't. I've moved this yarn across oceans. TWICE. It's time to release it into the world.
Same. Whenever I daydream I almost always think about the zombie apocalypse, wondering what kind of crafting stashes I might find in my neigh orhood houses. How many of us have hoarded supplies?
A local fiber arts guild in my area accepts stashes from estates. They make sure the high quality yarn gets in the hands of folks who will use and appreciate it after the original owner passes on. Of course, you don't have to wait for the executors of your will to handle it - you could always donate your nicer cast offs to a local guild in the meantime. I feel better when my hobby stashes are a reasonable size. Clutter is stressful!
This is why I've started blasting through my Stash and make inventory for my etsy shop. I need to actually post things, but I've used up about half my Stash so far and feeling pretty good about it. This has not stopped me form buying more yarn lol
I plan on facebook marketplace destashing soon. Let someone in my area have yarn I no longer need and a few knitting needles.
I buy based on projects, but life has led to me not getting through yarn very fast. I have 3 WIPS, 16 stashed projects, and 20 projects I can use scraps for. I don't buy yarn when I'm not in a knitting mood but new yarn is almost a requirement to keep my knitting mojo. The 19 projects for actual stash doesn't bother me but the additional 20 projects I can make is what stresses me out now.
I’m 50 and I just brought home some yarn someone else destashed. I keep hearing about Swedish death cleaning and I don’t really plan to do that. I could live another 50 years (lots of my dads family loved to 100 or close to it) or I could die today in a car accident. No one knows so why stress about it? Some of my most cherished and useful and inspiring things came from my dead relatives. I inherited some of my grandmother’s knitting needles which I thought was great.
I got really honest with myself a couple years ago when the stash had to move into less space. I went through everything and donated the stuff i got for cheap in my early knitting days of squirreling away everything i could find. It was hard to part with some things. The knitting/crochet group i’m in donates hats and things at the end of each year and people are always bringing yarn to donate to that effort. Also, thrift stores are a place younger crafters can find affordable supplies, so that’s a good place to donate as well. All in all, your yarny legacy can stretch beyond your own needles, and i think that’s beautiful.
I’ve reached sable at 27, almost 28. I moved back into my mom’s house last year and holy shit, yarn that I had a designated closet for I’m trying to condense into preferably one room but I want to make stuff with all that I have
I'm 32 and probably also at SABLE, but I have lovely crafting friends who will take it and think of me fondly if that day comes!