#yarn stash busting

[bustingmyyarnstash]

The yarn stash busting has officially started! This baby is the first project I've finished so far:

The yarn was hard to work with because it's so fluffy you can barely see the stitches. It was purely intuitive thanks to years of crocheting. I wanted to make a fruity cow, for example, this one was supposed to have a little orange 🍊 sewed into its chest, but the cows turned out to be too small for that. Then I thought about making little fruit-shaped bags to go with cows, but when I made one for this cutie in the photo, it didn't look as good as I'd imagined. So that is the final version, and they'll be rainbow cows with a few exceptions, like blue+yellow one and I have a multicolored fluffy yarn.

The pattern I used is by TheStitchStudioCA on Etsy. Everything was written nicely and was easy to follow, but I changed the way the head is supposed to be made. Firstly, I didn't like the placement of the colorful spots, they were way too low, so I moved them around a bit. Secondly, I increased the number of rows because the head I made was weirdly flat even after I stuffed it. Other than that, the pattern was amazing, I'll totally use it again for future rainbow cows.

[i-love-books-because-reasons]

15 FREE STASH BUSTING Crochet Projects To Help REDUCE YOUR Yarn Collection ❤

[sergle]

I think I'm going to make a temperature blanket this year

[steveharrington]

what can i make with dark blue yarn ❓

[dowawitch]

Trying to use up my yarn stash by making bags to replace wrapping paper and I finally finished the first one.

[cedigcrafts]

I've got a lot of sockweight, DK, and chunky yarns - but this is super chunky, and I have no idea what to make with it - anyone got any suggestions??

I'm working on sorting through my yarn stash so I can make a start on using it up rather than just having a lot of boxes around the house with random balls of yarn in.

Next year, I am on a strict yarn diet - unless I'm buying yarn for a commission, I am not going to buy any more yarn until my stash fits into one box.

[papascelus]

Made these six fat chickens today to finish off an off-white skein of yarn. Now I just gotta make lil babies for them 🥰🥰

Tomorrow I’m gonna try making a few swatches to perfect a grucifix in mosaic crochet form. I REALLY wanted to finish off a few skeins today to break into my yarn stash some more, so with that goal done, I’m gonna get going on a crap ton of Ghost stuff 🤘😈

(Also I have about 20 of these chunky ladies now.)

[gawain-the-tax-evader]

Hahaha guess who got tempted into spinning their own yarn today? The craft repertoire grows

[turkeydinner-jpeg]

WIP!!!! PLEASE SHES NOT DONE

i found this rainbow star blanket pattern on etsy, completely fell in love with it. and i rarely use patterns, let alone pay for them, but this one i just needed to. ive seen people make these big star blankets before and theyre gorgeous..... so i decided to use some of my less desirable yarn to make this pattern.

i love the shape though, so im totally going to go back and make this in yarn i genuinely like! this is just leftovers that i dont have a better use for. depending on how big she gets, she might end up being a picnic blanket, since this is made out of heavier acrylic. also the lighting is atrocious i promise the finished thing will be so much better please

but i absolutely love the texture so far, this would make a great baby blanket!! highly recommend this pattern, its fairly easy and the pattern is super well written. right now its on sale for about $5, get into it if youre liking this kind of thing!! (also @lithyena since you were asking about it earlier lol)

[bustingmyyarnstash]

Alize Baby Best 90% acrylic 10% bamboo

Colors 141 (royal blue) and 216 (yellow)

This yarn I buy specifically for heart-shaped keychains I crochet for volunteers. You can learn about it more here!

[mau-creates]

Another small project. Stash buster to use up some of my leftover blanket yarn. Still have a bit of the pink and green, but didn’t want the bed to get too big for the windowsill :)

No pattern, just made a rectangle with lemon peel stitch (alternate SC and DC, then DC into SC and SC into DC), then folded in half and HDC around :)) chips already likes it, Jum is skeptical.

[runixa]

Did another stash busting project.

She's pretty fun.

I think her name is Elle.

But I'm not totally sure.

The pattern is Finn the fish by stuff and fluff. Which incidentally is an amazing crochet /yarn shoppe name

[hexabeast]

Tumblr help. I inherited a bunch of yarn a few years back and I am still sitting here with it going "what do I make with you". Anyone out there got any neato frito stash buster ideas I could do with these bad boys?

Wearables/clothes are a no go. Most of this is acrylic yarn and doesn't feel good against skin. Biggest culprits I want to use are the blues and greens and I'm trying to avoid traditional granny square/blanket options. But if you got one you absolutely love then maybe yeet it my way?

[skfiberartz]

My first granny square bucket hat!! Crocheted with red heart super saver yarn that I’ve had in my stash for at least 2 years.

Credit to my lamp for being my model and for providing the lighting 👏👏😂

[skeinspider]

Happy 2023! Hope you all had a good holiday break.

One of my goals this year is to use up as much of my stash as possible before buying anymore yarn.

First up was this chunky yarn which has been sitting around gathering dust for far too long. I thought it would do nicely for the crochet challenge I had in mind....

.....trying to crochet amigurumi entirely by hand!

If you're interested in how that went, there's a full video about my hand crocheting adventure here and if you want the goldfish pattern that's here.

[garaksapprentice]

Operation Stash-Down

This post was originally published on my blog: https://garaksapprentice.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-stash-down.html

***

Last month, I spent a week thoroughly cleaning and reorganising my workroom so that I could actually get to all the shelves, and not have my back to the door. I even made space to fit a skinny bookshelf (I can finally have all my books out where I can reach them. It's been more than seven years since that last happened).

Last week, I watched one of my favourite YouTubers issue their now-annual "January is for working on The Pile" challenge. I considered my Piles (what a phrase) and decided this was an excellent use for the rest of January. I went through the mending pile, adding and subtracting as necessary, and updated the running list I keep of the things in there (it's the only way to stop things from disappearing into the aether). I tidied up the cabbage patch, taking the opportunity to go through a few boxes that were stored outside the workroom and sort their contents into piles.

Yesterday, I looked around my workroom (it had once again gone from clean and tidy with actual floor space, to One Big Trip Hazard within half a day), and decided that I have too much bloody stuff.

This was almost completely clear twelve hours ago. L-R, T-B: for coleslaw (green), cabbage once deconstructed (yellow), actual recycling (blue), and rag rug bits (red).

More specifically, I have too many supplies. Despite spending the last two years cleaning and decluttering and KonMari-ing and making a concerted effort to start with what I have before I go shopping for new stuff, I still have overflow.

There's an entire garage shelf in what is technically the spare bedroom (in reality it's my partner's room - they have their own place, but I have air conditioning and they don't) full of knitting yarn, embroidery supplies, and fleeces. There's more fleeces and some sewing notions on top of a bookshelf, and a couple more boxes of knitting yarn on a different bookshelf. To top it all off, there's a whopping monster of a raw wool fleece in the back room.

And, to be clear, this is all stuff left after multiple decluttering rounds. This is all stuff that I absolutely fucking love and have no desire whatsoever to part with. I just... haven't got around to using it yet.

Me when I go through my stash nowadays.

Even though I buy 95+% of my supplies second-hand (between the guild and the plethora of local op shops, I'm remarkably spoiled), I'm still not using things as fast as I'm capable of buying them. Saving things from landfill to repurpose later only works if I actually use the things I'm saving. (Yes, I still need this reminder. Frequently.)

Thus were the seeds from which Operation Stash-down was born.

The Goal

I want to fit all my fibre supplies in my workroom. Every. Single. Thing.

That means all the:

knitting yarn

fabric (stash AND scraps)

embroidery supplies

sewing notions

fleece

weaving, sewing, and spinning tools

leatherworking tools and supplies

whatever other random fibre-related gubbins I pick up along the way

The only exception is for things that need a more controlled climate than my workroom. It's on the western side of the house, with a window in said western wall, and it regularly gets above 30ºC in there during summer. So if I end up with any dyes or other heat-sensitive chemicals, I'll have to find a cooler spot for them.

The Plan

Donating, giving away, and selling things are all options. But that hasn't made a much of a dent the last six times I went through The Stash, so I'm not counting on it doing much this time, either. No, the thing I need to concentrate on right now is using the stash.

So instead of my current "shop the stash then go buy what I need when I don't have it in there", my standard needs to shift to "ONLY use stash things, and if they won't work with what I've planned, change the plan".

How does this translate to actual, practical projects for the year?

Longer warps, and more of them on the floor loom. Lately I've been defaulting to inkle bands, because they're 1) fun, 2) fast, and 3) easy to do in all sorts of cool colour combinations. But they don't use a lot of material - I could weave nothing but narrow wares for the rest of my life and still have yarn left over. And I want to start weaving clothing yardage anyway, so this is a good kick in the pants to actually do it.

Stop putting off those patchwork projects. I have a couple of big ideas I've been procrastinating on for a few years now. Sure, they'll probably take multiple years each to finish, and I'm not sure if I even have enough scrap for one of them (a crazy patchwork coat from all the wrap scrap I've been holding onto), but I won't know unless I actually take the time to start working on them.

Scour more fleece. Out of all the spinning stash, the raw fleeces take up by far the most room. Prepping them to spin might not reduce their volume by much, but actually being able to spin them sure will. (Unfortunately, this strategy will require equipment purchasing. My hand cards aren't fine enough to use with some of the fleeces I have.)

Obviously just doing any project at all will help reduce stash levels, too. Some of the things on my list will make a bigger impact than others, though, and I'm going to try to focus on doing those first. (After I've started to reduce the current WIPs, of course. My 2024 goals are still in effect.)

If all goes to plan, I'll update every few months with progress. Maybe even before and after pictures.

***

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