Organizing + Knitting = My idea of a good time

16 November 2006

I’m an avid knitter. I’m certainly not an expert knitter, but I knit virtually every day. One thing that every knitter knows is that you can acquire a lot of things with this hobby. There are the knitting needles (straight needles in different lengths and sizes, circular needles in different lengths and sizes, double-pointed needles in different lengths and sizes…you get the idea), the notions, the books, magazines, patterns printed off the internet and, of course, the yarn. Ah, the yarn.

The thing is that you have to be able to find what you need in order to use it. And you need to know what you have. When you’re in your LYS (local yarn shop) and you fall in love with a certain type of yarn, you can’t use it unless you have the right needles. So it’s really helpful to know what needles you have. And to have a portable list. I just made a chart of my circular needles in anticipation of a trip to Knitorious, my favorite LYS. I could make one for my straight needles, but I pretty much have all sizes of straight needles.

As I gathered up my inventory of circular needles, I reorganized them. I moved my good ones (the Addi Turbo and Crystal Palace bamboo circulars) into a binder full of resealable bags that’s sold to fisherman for their flies and worms and so forth. Mine’s called a Finesse binder. I read about the concept here on Knitter’s Review and I just love it. The binder is soft-sided nylon, it’s small, it has handles and it easily accommodates my 20 circular needles. The only downside is the big Bass Pro Shops logo embroidered on its side.

Organizing my stash of yarn is a whole different matter. I’m actually someone who doesn’t usually buy yarn unless I have a project in mind. Otherwise, the yarn weighs down on me. My current project, the Barbara Walker’s Learn-To-Knit Afghan required a lot of yarn up front, which I’m storing in a file box. I have a pretty box from Restoration Hardware (I received a gift in it) that holds other yarn. There are lots of ways to think about organizing your stash—by weight, by color, by fiber, to name a few—and I enjoy thinking about that. But for now I don’t need more than afghan and non-afghan.

I have to mention the wonderful purse organizer I purchased from Kangaroom Storage that I’m using to store works-in-progress, as well as a couple of my bulkier finished projects (a poncho and a shawl). It hangs in a closet and is set up perfectly to hold my WIPs. It makes me so happy to look at it.

I’d actually rather knit than organize my knitting, but part of the joy of being a professional organizer is that I can organize my needles and call it work, whereas I feel guilty knitting during the workday. But apparently I have no qualms shopping during the workday. Now that my needle inventory is complete, I’m off to the yarn store to see about some yummy yarn to make some winter scarves.

Tagged with: circular needles, learn to knit afghan, storage, wips, yarn