Stash

Every crafty person has one. Some people apparently have small, manageable stashes. I am not one of those people.

I live in a two bedroom apartment. Since it's only me and my honey living here, this is plenty of space even though I'm doing most of my work from home. The only things we struggle with in terms of storage are books (mostly his, though I do have my fair share) and yarn (all mine!). For us it is really important not to have too much stuff because of our living situation. We tend to move around a lot and change countries and continents regularly. So, if I were more in touch with reality I would have a significantly smaller stash.

Some people would say that I collect yarn. Sometimes, on days when I'm feeling a little down about my knitting, I might be inclined to agree with them. But most of the time I don't like to think of it as a collection. If I think of my yarn as a collection I might be inclined to say that it's enough as it is. This would be a terribly bad thing. I cannot think of my yarn as something that can be allowed to continue to exist unaltered for all of eternity. Think of the consequences! Acquiring yarn would be justified as adding to my collection but production of useful things with said yarn would slow. And the yarn would engulf me. Or possibly I would have to move out. Honey is very tolerant but even I can see how death by yarn suffocation could be a little grating.

Now, the terrifying idea that my stash might become a collection has occurred to me before. At the beginning of last year I decided that I should stop buying yarn because my stash was risking becoming an unusable collection due to it's unwieldy size. This was a complete and total failure. My stash grew exponentially. I had forbidden myself to buy more yarn and so all yarn that wasn't in my stash became infinitely more appealing. Whenever I felt down I wanted to buy more yarn! And since I was living away from my honey in a country where I knew almost no one, doing a job I didn't like, I felt down a lot more than I usually do. It really was a recipe for disaster.

I needed a change in how I viewed my stash or drowning in it would become a very real option. Not to mention that buying that much yarn really wasn't good for the budget.

Instead of justifying my stash as a collection I choose to see it as inspiration. I try to view all of my yarn as a potential project and a potential pattern. This can go two ways: it can either be very motivational or a little bit overwhelming. There are so many options and so many choices for any project I might choose to undertake. On the flip side there are so many projects to be done which is a little scary. I'm pretty sure that I have enough yarn to keep me knitting for the next three or four years. This thought is at once terrifying and reassuring.

The end result of all of this is that I've recognised the potential in the yarn that is already in my stash. And though I'm still buying yarn, the quantity has decreased substantially because every time I am forced to consider the time I have to invest in a project with that yarn in addition to monetary and space considerations.

And without further ado, I give you the stash:

It's stored in two Ikea Billy shelves that were fitted with glass doors to keep out dust. There is also another box hiding out in the storage room but I didn't feel like hauling it out for exposition.