Stash Diving

I used to have a pretty large stash for someone who didn’t do a whole ton of knitting. Two big plastic bins of the stuff, taking up room in my office closet, staring at me. I was pretty good about going into the stash when I was inspired to make something, but was horrible at not saying no to a new yarn that I really wanted. I’d take about any excuse I could think of – this color/fiber content/dyer always sells out, worsted/fingering/sport weight has a million uses, I should learn how to knit with laceweight, this would be great for trying out colorwork, etc.

Now my life is a whole lot busier (and I no longer live walking distance from my LYS). Sure, I still have the room for the stash in those bins, but I don’t have nearly the same amount of time to knit or even to acquire stash. (I’ve never been one to buy yarn online, though I have occasionally when I couldn’t find the exact weird yarn I wanted at my LYS.) I am down to one bin of yarn waiting to be knit that’s not already tied to a specific WIP. That’s it – just one.

I haven’t updated my Ravelry stash in forever and I had some time (and nervous energy) on my hands, so I went to the task of getting everything recorded, photographed, and organized a few days ago. (This also forced me to vacuum my office for the first time in an embarrassingly long time. My excuse is I rarely sit in there for any length of time, it’s just where all of my craft supplies live.)

Let’s see what I found lying around that bin and, you know, the rest of my tiny office. It totals to the surprising amount of 10, 805 yards. And, don’t forget, these is all stuff that’s not part of a WIP. I also have ton of additional yardage in WIPs.

Lace Weight

I don’t own lace weight because I use it that often, but out of a feeling that real shawl knitters use lace weight and I want to be one of them.

2 balls of Anchor Freccia which is actually even more tiny than laceweight – picked this up in Spain last summer

1 hank of Chopped Tomatoes Wanderlust which is 500 m of tiny, tiny silk I won via a blog contest

2 balls of Debbie Bliss Rialto Lace in black and 1 in bright pink

Fingering Weight

Love fingering weight. I use it for socks and shawls and, when I’m really crazy, I consider using it to make a sweater. (My one attempt at this was a horrible failure. I literally tossed the yarn I used for it.)

800 grams of random scraps or other smaller skeins – all kept and collected to make one of those sock yarn blankets. So far, I’ve only made about a dozen squares.

1 skein of Neighborhood Fiber Co Studio Sock in Cleveland Park

1 skein of Neighborhood Fiber Co Capital Luxury Sock in Cooper Circle

Sport Weight

I tend to buy this on accident, thinking it’s Fingering. I’m not a big fan. Hence the massive amount I currently own. Heh.

1 skein of Ms Babs Yummy 3-Ply in Algae (that’s the green one in the last photo)

DK Weight

DK is great because it’s not as heavy as Worsted so not as warm and not as bulky. And it’s close enough to Worsted that you don’t notice it’s thinner when you’re knitting it. (Or maybe that’s just me.)

1 skein of Berroco Vinatage DK in color 2194, a teal-y blue

Worsted Weight

Bought for sweaters and hats and all that. Versitile but I have a love/hate relationship with it because of it’s bulk.

4 skeins of Berroco Vintage in color 5103, a dark chocolate brown (leftover from my February Pullover)

4 skeins of Berroco Vintage in color 5154, a deep red (leftover from a different sweater I still haven’t finished)

600 g of – yes – Vanna’s Choice acrylic in tan and lt blue/green/purple/orange (bought for a baby blanket for Squirms that I only worked on for a few weeks then quit)

85 g of Knit Picks Chroma in whatever the color with all the blues is called (leftover from a hat I made for Squirms while we were in Shenandoah)

1 ball of Knit Picks Chroma in the blue/purple/pink colorway

1 skein of Araucania Nature Wool in color 18 , in shades of dark blue

80 g of Berroco Remix left from Squirm’s Halloween hat

217 g of Berroco Weekend in purple

Bulky and Other Heavy Weights

I buy this stuff when it’s the middle of winter and my hands are frozen. I convince myself I will use it to make myself a hat or gloves or something. Then I start to knit with it and remember why I hate it – it’s so, well, bulky! The needles you have to use are gigantic and unwieldy.

164 g of Berroco Weekend Bulky in a dark coral – not sure what I got it for but it’s leftover

80 g of Eco Wool leftover from Squirm’s Halloween sweater

218 g of Eco Wool leftover from who knows what in deep teal

2 skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in color 116, light magenta