Tips & Techniques: February 2005 Archives

A bunch of you have asked how I went about organizing my stash. I don't think I did anything particularly noteworthy, but since you asked, here ya go!

I started by pulling out the bins that I had already started filling with my stash over the summer. They were partially full.

Then, I gathered up yarn I had stored elsewhere throughout the house. Mostly they were in bags or boxes. I stacked them up all around me, keeping them in some sort of order (e.g., sock weight, full sweaters, yarn for felting, cottons and summer-weight yarn all in separate heaps).

Then I created a spreadsheet with columns entitled Name, Yardage (this is per skein yardage), Fiber content, Color (I listed both color number and a descriptive name if it was helpful), Number of balls (I went down to half balls if appropriate), Notes (e.g., gift from so-and-so, bought for Mom's scarf but she didn't like it, etc.), and Total Yardage (this column is calculated based on yardage and number of balls). If I were to do this again I would add another column -- bin number. This way I wouldn't have to hunt around to find the yarn I now know I have!

Here's a copy of the spreadsheet template I used. I've left 4 entries in there so you can see how I used it.

I then started with one of the bins and took all the yarn out. As I gathered the yarn together I input what I had one-by-one and put them on the other side of the room. I didn't put the yarn back in the bins until I had quite a bit of the yarn catalogued. This allowed me to see how to best group the yarn to fit well into the bins.

About halfway through this process I had to go out to Target and buy 4 more bins. Yes, that's double the number I thought I would need. Oh -- my bins are clear and I find it really helpful so I can see what's in them.

After a couple of weeks I decided I wanted to use this to keep a running inventory of my stash as well. So I added columns in the spreadsheet to keep track of each month's usage. The way it works is you type the number of balls you've used into the month name column (e.g., February) and the spreadsheet automatically calculates the new totals. It's been fun to see the numbers going down (albeit slowly). I also anticipate using it when I have a new project in mind to see what I have in my stash that's appropriate.

That's pretty much it. Was this helpful? Feel free to download the spreadsheet and use it to your liking. If you have other suggestions or come up with better ways I'd love to hear about them.