Walking the Talk

Yesterday was knit group meeting. We had decided before hand that we were going to destash some yarn (mostly from Mia) and donate a few dollars for Relay for Life. So I had brought some yarn to contribute, and everyone took some home, even me, although I only got two things that were already promised. Later on, as I was talking to Mia, I was talking about everything I want to do, project wise, and how much yarn I have, and how I was never going to knit everything in my stash (not that we have to!) Also, I knew that things are going to slow down around here in terms of the amount of knitting/crafting that gets done since the baby was coming. I said what I really needed to do, thinking about what was in my stash, was to go through and get rid of a lot of the yarn that I wasn’t as excited about.

When I said that, I realized that it would be a weight off my mind if I did, and that I wouldn’t feel as much pressure from my stash to knit faster. I could work on projects that I enjoy instead of feeling obliged to knit because I had the yarn. I really wanted to clean out my yarn stash.

So I got home, dragged everything out of the closet and dumped the bins on the floor. I looked at the massive pile I had growing, and decided I should record how much I had to get rid of. (And take a few pictures to make the blog interesting!)

Davis saw the pile of yarn on the floor, raised his eyebrows, and said, “That’s a lot of yarn.”

I started with the sock yarn.

That is 100+ pairs. I have enough to make 100 pairs of socks, plus two mill ends that could probably make at least 8 more pairs of socks. And as I was looking at all of my sock yarn together, I realized something else.

I bought a lot of the same/similar colors.

  For example.

And what about these, almost the same except for a little blue in the one. And let’s not talk about how much yarn I have that is dark blue with some black/grey/white in it. As I worked, I also thought about the fact that I have small feet, so after I knit these socks, I was going to have a lot of leftover yarn. What was I going to do with that?

I culled 20 pairs worth of socks. I understand that I still have 80 pairs worth left, but I feel better.

As for lace-weight, I have about 15 different colors of lace yarn, and could make well over 15 projects with the stuff, depending on what I made. As far as yardage goes, I have 15,107 yards of lace yarn! When the heck am I going to knit all of that? I didn’t get rid of much though, because I like what I have. I won’t be getting much more anytime soon, and hopefully my draw to lace gets me knitting some of it soon!

In all, I also had enough for 8 sweaters, 43+ dishcloths, 5 undyed skeins of fingering-weight yarn, 5 small bits for cowls, a mass of remains, and other odds and ends. There were also 5 balls of crochet cotton, one in rainbow, and a bunch of yarn that I got for weaving. (You know, if I get a new loom, a lot of that sock yarn could be woven up!)

Considering that last year I managed to finish 3 pairs of socks, a pair of shorts, a shawl, two scarves, and a handful of smaller miscellaneous projects, I don’t think I should have any problem of running out of yarn to knit anytime soon. So I got rid of yarn.

In addition to the 20 pairs worth of socks, I also culled 2 sweaters, 28 dishcloths, at least 5 hats, and number of other small bits worth of yarn. There are 5 overflowing grocery bags waiting to go out of my house.

I think I walked well.