OMG! Too much yarn!

[MLLORF]

Ladies, ladies, you are all doing the right thing by creating a big yarn stash.

 

Unfortuately at a young age my mother was unable to return to work, my father was already on disability due to health reasons. Boy did she have a stash!!! She knitted for many years on that stash. When she passed away a couple years ago she still had 15 -20 computer paper boxes full. Most of these boxes were the same colors not odd dye lots, etc. Plus large boxes of odd skeins. My father sold alot of it. I took odds and ends and unfinished items since no one else in the family had a use for it. And truth be told I definatly did not have room for it. However, I'm sure my stash would of loved the company.

 

You could think of this as mother looking after father, making sure he had a small income for a bit. So if hubby complains, and mine doesn't, tell him this little story, and that you really are only stashing yarn for his benefit.

[dazy]

Not only are we saving money, we are being prepared! What if there was a yarn shortage? Our spouses would go crazy as we started to unravel things just to have something to crochet. Our pets would run in terror as we wondered how they would look shaved...The wto biggest crimes on the street would be knitandrun and the crochetgetaway; similar situations where someone walked behind a stranger and after a seemingly accidental bump started working directly from a thread they had loosened, unraveling the victims clothing as they worked it into a new item.

 

Addiction? Nah, not me! I can stop any time I want to...

 

:rofl this should be crochet asyllum, not crochetville. :rofl

[kazily]

Lucy, that is a very important reason for stashing yarn. You just never know! What if there is a big storm & you are snowed in for a while? What if your income drops suddenly due to loss of job, illness etc. & you can no longer buy yarn? What if you are bedridden for an extended time due to pregnancy, illness or injury & can't shop? For wool crocheters...what if a disasterous sheep disease hits in a few years & there is no more wool?!!! Or what if you have a very bad disaster happen like what happened in LA & MISS? No stores open...no power...

your clothes were soaked wet but your stash was ok in those plastic tubs? You can crochet some things to keep you warm & dry!

 

There are MANY advantages to having yarn stash to last you for a while. AND plenty of things that could happen...where you would pat yourself on the back for stashing lots of yarn for later. And if you shop frugally like using coupons & sales...it doesn't have to cost a fortune to do.

 

Even that thrift store box of yarn that you have no idea what to make with...could one day come in handy! If for no other reason than one day your children will find it...after you're gone...& pick up a hook to carry on.

[dazy]

What if you are bedridden for an extended time due to pregnancy.

 

if i was ever bedridden due to pregnancy, there better be some wisemen closeby. hubby has had surgery (ya know?)

[CLLinda]

actually, we're saving money by buying lots of yarn. if there's ever a yarn shortage(and we could cause one. ) and the prices go out of sight, we'll already have enough to last us until the crisis passes. see, we're doing our spouses a favor and saving them money in the long run.

recently, i bought 5 skeins of novelty yarn at a sale at michaels. it was regularly $35 and i got it all for $12. now see, if i hadn't bought that yarn, i wouldn't have saved $23. hubby shakes his head at my twisted 'logic'.

 

You are so right. If there ever is a yarn shortage, what the heck would us crocheters do? Housework? No Way! And we would be very crabby to live with. So we have to find bargains when we can. Our stashes may run over, but sales only happen every so often, so we have to stock up. It's in our Special "Crocheter's Manual" on page 104--Buy yarn when on sale. It's in the rule book, so it must be true!!

 

 

Linda

 

P.S. Crocheters Manual was made up, but it would be nice if we did come with one so that DH's wouldn't be so astounded at our purchases.

[Sabra]

What if you are bedridden for an extended time due to pregnancy

 

A lady I know online actually taught herself how to crochet from StitchGuide and made her younger son a couple of nice afghans while she was on bed rest while pregnant with him. A stash is wise.

 

My husband doesn't mind. He knows a happy wifey makes for a calm(er) household. I think he got sold on it back when I was making our middle daughter clothes as a newborn because nothing in the stores (that we could afford, anyway) would fit her! It's a money-saving measure. Seriously. I can buy a skein of Simply Soft for under $3 (under $2 on the Mainland) and make either toddler a brand new skirt!

[earthwhisper]

This thread...er I mean yarn...is cracking me up! Stashing yarn is a survival thing then. Do you think we are genetically coded to stash? (yes, I am taking Microbiology right now...ha ha...)

[Kiki]

You are so right. If there ever is a yarn shortage, what the heck would us crocheters do? Housework? No Way! And we would be very crabby to live with. So we have to find bargains when we can. Our stashes may run over, but sales only happen every so often, so we have to stock up. It's in our Special "Crocheter's Manual" on page 104--Buy yarn when on sale. It's in the rule book, so it must be true!!

 

 

Linda

 

P.S. Crocheters Manual was made up, but it would be nice if we did come with one so that DH's wouldn't be so astounded at our purchases.

 

I truly think a Crocheter's Manual is a necessary piece of literature!!

[goldi316]

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH YARN! Just not enough time to get to the projects that are thought of when the yarn is purchased. This yarn is just waiting, patiently for loving hands to come for it and make a wonderful project.

 

This is my problem! I just recently realized that in order to reduce the stash I have, I just may have to live forever! Of course, that would suit my daughter just fine. She doesn't realize, however, that she is the sole heir-apparent to this huge stash! Last time she was here, she followed me unbidden into my bedroom when I went to retrieve something and I got a shocked "MOM!" when she saw the piles of yarn on the other half of my bed, lol! Yes, I sleep with it too.

 

Too bad there is such things as housework, kid's sports, driving, and other things that take away our time that could be used to crochet. If I could just crochet all day for a solid month, my stash would definately be a lot less. But then again, yarn just seems to jump in my shopping cart and I have to take it home. :lol

 

My only restrictions at the moment are time and money - but in the case of the former, I lose more time sitting at this computer that could be time spent crocheting (I've tried but just can't master doing both at once).

 

DH's just never understand how yarn can jump.

 

Maybe if you draw a relationship to how those power tools seem to hop skip and jump too, they'll get it? Or whatever interest rocks their world...

 

As the aforementioned "bed partner" illustrates, I have no such problem to deal with, . But if I did...

[Kimberly]

I keep buying yarn, but I don't seem to be finishing any projects I am not sure where I am managing to hide it all since I don't have any closets / cupboards, the area under my bed is inhabited solely by dust bunnies and my totes were already stuffed full.....I guess I am getting better at cramming more into the totes!

[Stacey]

What if your income drops

This is a very good point. Right now our income is about a third of what it was several years ago before hubby was laid off from his job. (There are almost no jobs left in the field he was trained in, and we started our own business but we're still struggling financially.)

 

And I'm *still* using yarn that I stashed away when I first started crocheting and buying yarn. Which isn't to say I never buy yarn, but I have to be really careful with money. That stash has gotten me by for quite a while during times when I couldn't afford to buy any yarn.

 

So if you can afford it, why not stockpile some yarn? You might be very grateful that you did later on!

[renegade]

This thread (no pun intended, hehe) is cracking me up! I'm glad to know that I'm not alone in stockpiling yarn. I live in a small apartment and plan to move to a larger place this summer. I guess that means I can get even more yarn!

 

I have gotten better about organizing my yarn - I bought some large plastic bins. They stack well, and are see thru, so I can see what I have. 2 months ago, I did make myself promise I couldn't buy any more yarn until I had finished all of my UFOs from about a year ago. I temporarily abandoned 5 projects to give my hands some time to heal from a nasty bout of carpal tunnel.

 

I'm happy to say I finished all of them but one, which I'll finish this weekend, although in two cases, I had to frog substantial parts because of stitch size. In one case, I pulled the entire thing out and started over. So, what did I do this past weekend? I hit Hobby Lobby - I told myself it was to buy one skein of yarn to use as a CC for the edging on the afghan I'm finishing, but I think we all know what happened: enough yarn for two more projects, even though I have a new one I had already started.

 

I couldn't help myself: the colors were so pretty!

 

Oh, I'm the same way about books - I've decided I need to read books that I've had for years and never read...

 

Renee

[chickpea67]

*L* I didn't think it was possible to ever have too much yarn!

[wolfjoy]

Ladies, ladies, you are all doing the right thing by creating a big yarn stash.

 

Unfortuately at a young age my mother was unable to return to work, my father was already on disability due to health reasons. Boy did she have a stash!!! She knitted for many years on that stash. When she passed away a couple years ago she still had 15 -20 computer paper boxes full. Most of these boxes were the same colors not odd dye lots, etc. Plus large boxes of odd skeins. My father sold alot of it. I took odds and ends and unfinished items since no one else in the family had a use for it. And truth be told I definatly did not have room for it. However, I'm sure my stash would of loved the company.

 

You could think of this as mother looking after father, making sure he had a small income for a bit. So if hubby complains, and mine doesn't, tell him this little story, and that you really are only stashing yarn for his benefit.

 

Lucy!

I think I'll tell THAT one to my 13 y/o daughter... Not sure she'll (pretty sure she WON'T) believe me, but it SOUNDS good! That and I TRY to convince her that with the insulating properties of yarn, I could save us alot on the power bill over the years!

 

:leaf~Joy~:leaf

[margrue]

I too have an extra bedroom full of yarn, but darned if I didn't buy more just last week when my local yarn store had a spring clearance ( but it was such a bargain!). One thing I do is periodically weed out some of my least favorite yarn and give it to a group or individual who uses it for charity. Then I feel good about sharing with the less fortunate, and I also just happen to have made room for more yarn!

[ranieannie]

Anybody else watch Clean Sweep, the cable show about decluttering one's home? The organizer (a male BTW, who probably isn't a "Crochet Dude" ) says he frequently encounters people who "horde" books and people who "horde" yarn.

 

I'm guilty on both fronts. Only I think of it as a planning ahead, and having books and yarn on hand, not hoarding. I'm trying to crochet down some of my stash, and recycle already-read books, but still...lots of tubs of yarn, and shelves full of books.

[Aggie May]

Did you know that if you get rid of STUFF you are not using, it makes more room for more good STUFF to come into your life?

 

If you hide what you have, it does not make it go away so you need to sort and discard, then go look for new STUFF.

 

Can I send my excess STUFF to you?

 

You send your STUFF to someone else, they pass their STUFF on........then we will get a whirl-wind of STUFF floating around the world and we will all be happy.

Have fun.

 

Colleen:hug

[mwedzi]

Not only are we saving money, we are being prepared! What if there was a yarn shortage? Our spouses would go crazy as we started to unravel things just to have something to crochet. Our pets would run in terror as we wondered how they would look shaved...The wto biggest crimes on the street would be knitandrun and the crochetgetaway; similar situations where someone walked behind a stranger and after a seemingly accidental bump started working directly from a thread they had loosened, unraveling the victims clothing as they worked it into a new item.

 

 

Oh my goodness, you all are crazy.

 

Every hobby is like this, it's craziness. I was into african violets before this and still have lots. I swear I read a thread just like this on the African violet forum not too long ago. Now my yarn stash is starting to compete with my African violets a bit, but mostly they are in separate spaces, plants on a stand and windowsill, yarn in bags and boxes. But I'll know I've really lost it when I start moving plants aside and showcasing skeins of yarn on my light stand.

 

Thank goodness I'm a poor grad student, because it has (1) kept me down to only 1 light stand for the plants, (2) kept me down to yarn only for a mere 4 or 5 projects, and (3) allowed me to keep up my poverty diet, which has resulted in the recent loss of 5 pounds. Now I can fit into my clothes of 2 summers ago! And, I will look so fabulous in my newly crocheted outfits.

 

What do you mean I should use the yarn money for food?! Food for the soul, baby, food for the soul.

[PBLKNP]

My stash builds up because I buy yarn for a project, and then end up with the leftovers. Either that, or I see some yarn in a store and just HAVE to get a skein to try it out...it turns out to be a turkey (like Lion Brand Midnight Mohair), but I can't bear to throw it away. So, the stash builds. If it were all the same type of yarn, it would be easier to just make a "scrap" afghan or something, but it's all different types of yarn. I may take the suggestion of making squares for "Warm Up America"...

[clocke]

PBLKNP, that is a great idea, of making squares for the "Warm Up America" project. Now I have a reason to buy more yarn. ...As if I really needed another!

 

Mwedzi, I love it: yarn as food for the soul!! That is SO true!

[kazily]

I have a decent stash ( & always adding to it) but it's managable in a 3 shelf wooden cabinet with cabinet doors below where I store several WIP's or FO's. The 2nd shelf alone is holding about 60 winded cakes so it holds a lot of yarn! I don't have too much yarn....but I like to keep a good stash ready to "hunt" in when I want to make something lol! Yesterday I added3 more "friends" to keep them company hehe (1 skein of aurora to try out & some cottontots).