Tossing The Stash

Warning…more cleaning and organizing!

If you are a follower of The Yarn Harlot, you know that Ms. Stephanie likes to “toss” her stash once a year. She’s not getting rid of anything, just mixing it all around so the old stuff is not constantly stuck on the bottom. I decided I needed a bit of the same thing. Even though my yarn closet had a little bit of organization to it, it had gotten a bit out of hand and I’m not sure what all I have anymore.



These are shots of my closet. It was stuffed. I couldn’t see the floor anymore and to get the folding tables out, I would have to pull out several bags of yarn first. This was really starting to irritate me.

Step 1 is to get everything out of the closet! As usual, my guest bedroom is the staging area for the mess that was to ensue.



I had already taken the sheets off the guest bed to wash. If I had not already done it, it would have been necessary after this. Piles of yarns makes a mess and something in my stash makes me itch a bit. I have no idea what as I touched everything so I’ll have to keep an eye out when I finally get to knitting some of this stuff. Note, both the bed and the fold-out table in the back are covered with yarn.

Some of my yarn is still in the bags they were purchased in but so many of them had the misfortune of just roaming free. If you really need a reason to keep your stash organized and neat, just take a look at the yarn nests that had been created.



The situation was actually worse than it looks in the picture. It took hours to get all of the yarns untangled. And actually that black has not been completely untangled yet. I think I’m going to have to devote some serious movie-watching time to this one. To keep this from happening again, I have separated all of the yarns into separate plastic bags. I have collected a mass of those plastic covers from sheets, pillowcases, curtains, etc. And I am so glad that I have. These things really come in handy. When I was out of those, various sizes of zip bags fit the bill just fine.



Getting it all organized and neatly put back into the closet has made me want to get back to my yarn crafts, but there is one more thing I am determined to do first. More on that later. For now, look at how great my closet looks now. I’m so happy I can actually see the floor and my folding tables can slide out with no yarn shifting at all.



For all you yarn crafters out there, are you a regular stash tosser?