Peace of Mind Organizing

Worth repeating: The joy of an organized yarn stash

26 September 2016

Eight years ago, I organized my yarn into a bank of Elfa drawers. (Incidentally, Elfa is on sale right now for 25 percent off!) Four years ago, I blogged about how wonderful it is to have an organized stash. Today, I am repeating that post because is as true now as it was then. And, of course, it’s also true for fabric, beads or any other kind of craft supplies you might have.

I’m a knitter, and like most knitters, I have quite a bit of yarn. I don’t go out and buy yarn for the sake of buying it. Typically, I purchase yarn for specific projects. But sometimes those projects don’t pan out and I unravel them. And lots of times, I have yarn left over after finishing a project. Multi-color projects, in particular, can lend themselves to a lot of leftover yarn.

But the good news (for me) is that my yarn stash is well organized. As I have mentioned here, back in 2008 I purchased a bank of Elfa drawers to organize my yarn and knitting supplies. Four years later, I’m still thrilled with the system.

Case in point: A friend had a baby recently and I decided to knit the baby a teddy bear. I’ve knitted several teddy bears, out of a plush yarn called Oh My! My friend Lisa knit a different bear recently and I wanted to try out that free pattern. Alas, the yarn called for in the pattern is now discontinued and I wasn’t willing to go to a lot of work to try to track it down.

So yesterday, I wondered whether I had any Oh My! yarn left over from past bears. That teddy bear has a little sweater, so I thought maybe there would be some leftover pink yarn out of which I could knit a tiny scarf for the new bear.

I knew exactly where to look: the drawer marked “novelty yarn.” To my delight, I found 1.5 skeins of teddy-bear brown Oh My! And I also found some colored yarn for the scarf. No trip to the yarn store necessary for me. No money needed to spent. I can start on this pattern as soon as I get home. [2016 addition: That’s a picture of the completed bear at the top of this post.]

My organized yarn stash saved me time and money yesterday. It allowed me easy access to my yarn without any frantic searching. It also helps my stash stay neat and tidy. I love my Elfa drawers!

Tagged with: elfa, knitting, knitting needles, storage, yarn

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