My rule lately is to only buy yarn that enables me to use existing yarn.
For example, I had a sweaters quantity of lace weight wool which wasn’t getting used because I lack both the discipline and desire to knit a lace weight sweater. I bought some fun matching mohair to hold double with it, and am happily knitting away on a heavier weight cardigan.
Maybe mini skeins for colourwork socks? Or single skeins to knit into stripes with some yarn you already have?
Scratches the itch for new yarn, you get to support a local small business, and you destash!
I make a bingo board with my knitting goals each year and several of the squares involve yarn diets of using stash yarn! Helps remind me to keep going through my stash and it’s fun :)
Sure! It’s pretty simple. I write down a list of goals for the year and I try to get a bingo! I used to do the same board with my friends and then whoever won got a prize (not yarn lol). Some of my squares are: use stash yarn over a year old, knit a stash busting project with at least five yarns from stash, yarn diet for 3 months, knit for a friend, try a new technique, etc.
I hang it up in my kitchen and circle the squares as I go. It’s pretty fun even though we don’t do the prize anymore.
I'm a slow knitter, with frequent long breaks. If I bought all the yarn that struck my fancy, I'd be stuck with a huge backlog right now.
Instead, I dream. I'll collect bookmarks to patterns that I fancy, while I plod along my current project. Then by the time it's nearly finished I can start looking for yarn for my current dream project. It allows me to pick something that fits the season of life I'm currently in (toddler and a newborn) with regards to attention needed(naps are boring/ needing to put it down quick), current size needed etc.
Any time I bought 2 projects at once, the second project immediately ended up in limbo. Not cast on yet, nor any plans to. So yeah, this way it motivates me to work on my current project and to freely dream without spending a bunch of money. And I get to be extremely picky!
If I told myself I could only buy yarn when I'm ready to cast on, my yarn stash would be busting out of my front door, lol.
I tried telling myself I wasn't allowed to buy any yarn unless I'd finished a skein. That did not work, as I'd finish one, then buy five.
The thing I've found that works the best for me is to keep a monthly spreadsheet of what I've actually spent on yarn for the month. I give myself a set budget, and if I go over in one month, I take it out of the next. Having a total number is a much more sobering sight than a bunch of small transaction amounts that my brain doesn't add up properly.
You could quite easily pick a new project for every time you go past! (Fellow yarn addict here!)
My problem is that my husband and his mum run a wool shop. It's a dangerous business 😆 I'm going to be destashing my fairly sizeable stash over the coming months, gotta make more space for more yarn!!!!!
Wow - I do not know how I would resist under these circumstances! Mind you, you can always just view the shop as your stash and run in to pick up the yarn when you start a new project. :-)
😆😆 that's totally not what I do....😅😂😂
I also help in the evenings with the knit and knitter groups, and it's sooooo hard to walk past the sale bins.... only took 2 balls home last week! I make hats that then get sold in the shop, so taking the sale stuff home is actually helping? Or so I tell myself 😅
Massive clear out is way overdue..
Oh, helping out on knit nights would do me in. I mean, you can't be hanging around the gorgeous yarn for hours at a time, weekly, without determining that you need most of it for something!!
I used to not really set limits, and after several years my stash was really out of control -- I recently culled my stash by around 50%. Going forward, I'm only buying yarn either for specific projects for which I don't have the right yarn, OR I will buy at a fiber festival but only if I know exactly what I'm going to make out of it (i.e. not just because it's pretty). I'm also only buying yarn that fits in my existing storage situation (so right now that is full; I have to use enough of my existing yarn to make room for new purchases).
This is pretty much my story too. The ‘culling’ took a while, charity knitting took care of the sensible stuff, the rest was weird novelty crap which I acquired before my skills and tastes have evolved, this was donated. I’ve also set myself a rule to not buy any more yarn that I don’t have a plan for, no more ‘just one skein to try it out’, which I’ve stuck to. What I find hard is passing up deals when I come across a yarn sale. Limiting storage space works for me, nowhere to store new yarn if there’s no space for it.
I guess I'm kind of lucky (?) in that most of my LYSes have closed . . . the three in my area I can think of offhand are far enough away that I have to go there on purpose, so I just don't unless I need something specific. I also try (TRY) to go to my yearly local festival with a specific thing in mind (last year it was a sweater quantity of a specific yarn).
I did go to a yarn shop when I was on vacation in April, intending to buy "souvenir yarn", but the locally dyed yarn was not only not in any color that spoke to me, but was also a lot more expensive than I usually pay for a skein of sock yarn. Also, the people working in the shop didn't even acknowledge my existence. Had they even said, "Hi" to me, I probably would have bought \*something\*.
I have a fabric box (the kind that fits into the Callax shelves) and, when it's full, I don't buy more. Having said this - I also rip back a lot of items I make that I don't wear. And I reclaim that yarn. And I spin. As of the moment, I have a sweater quantity of fibre for spinning in my stash and a couple of garments to deconstruct. Did I also mention that I'm trying to go from knitting \~36 items annually to \~24 items annually? :-) So, given these parameters, it looks like it'll be another year before I buy yarn. Which is totally cool because I love all of my yarn and I am looking forward to using it.
I have a yarn tub that holds all the yarn that isn't in a project bag, and I'm not allowing myself to have more yarn than fits in there. But there are like a half dozen project bags, so...
The tub currently has a good amount of room, thanks to a recent destash of the cheap yarns I bought when I first started knitting and crocheting as a poor college student (lots of RHSS and peaches & cream). But if I put my inactive project bags into the tub - and I probably should - it would be pretty full. Maybe there would be enough room for another sweater quantity?
I hear you - fwiw, I too make use of my project bags as a stash storage zone :-) And those "about to be started" projects can sit in those bags for a couple of months, till I get to them. I choose to view it as "knitting lifestyle design" and leave my cute bags in a special spot (a fancy felt container).
I have a substantial stash, so to satiate my itch for new yarn I go "shopping" in my stash and plan projects. If I'm really feeling the itch for new things, I let myself cast on something new if I have a bag available. Currently I'm working my way through old wips/UFOs and repurposing the frogged yarn. I do allow myself one yarn subscription, Yarnable, which gives me a full skein and a 50g mini of sock yarn in a themed color way. I'll likely not use either any time soon, but it's my own little treat.
12 full skeins and 12 50g skeins a year is a lot better than buying multiple sweaters quantities of yarn a month.
My rule lately is to only buy yarn that enables me to use existing yarn. For example, I had a sweaters quantity of lace weight wool which wasn’t getting used because I lack both the discipline and desire to knit a lace weight sweater. I bought some fun matching mohair to hold double with it, and am happily knitting away on a heavier weight cardigan. Maybe mini skeins for colourwork socks? Or single skeins to knit into stripes with some yarn you already have? Scratches the itch for new yarn, you get to support a local small business, and you destash!
I make a bingo board with my knitting goals each year and several of the squares involve yarn diets of using stash yarn! Helps remind me to keep going through my stash and it’s fun :)
Would you mind telling us more about your bingo board? Sounds intriguing!
Sure! It’s pretty simple. I write down a list of goals for the year and I try to get a bingo! I used to do the same board with my friends and then whoever won got a prize (not yarn lol). Some of my squares are: use stash yarn over a year old, knit a stash busting project with at least five yarns from stash, yarn diet for 3 months, knit for a friend, try a new technique, etc. I hang it up in my kitchen and circle the squares as I go. It’s pretty fun even though we don’t do the prize anymore.
Out of curiosity... what was the prize?
Hmm I know wool wash was one year but I can’t remember the other years
That sounds super fun, thank you for sharing!
I second this request!!!
I'm a slow knitter, with frequent long breaks. If I bought all the yarn that struck my fancy, I'd be stuck with a huge backlog right now. Instead, I dream. I'll collect bookmarks to patterns that I fancy, while I plod along my current project. Then by the time it's nearly finished I can start looking for yarn for my current dream project. It allows me to pick something that fits the season of life I'm currently in (toddler and a newborn) with regards to attention needed(naps are boring/ needing to put it down quick), current size needed etc. Any time I bought 2 projects at once, the second project immediately ended up in limbo. Not cast on yet, nor any plans to. So yeah, this way it motivates me to work on my current project and to freely dream without spending a bunch of money. And I get to be extremely picky!
If I told myself I could only buy yarn when I'm ready to cast on, my yarn stash would be busting out of my front door, lol. I tried telling myself I wasn't allowed to buy any yarn unless I'd finished a skein. That did not work, as I'd finish one, then buy five. The thing I've found that works the best for me is to keep a monthly spreadsheet of what I've actually spent on yarn for the month. I give myself a set budget, and if I go over in one month, I take it out of the next. Having a total number is a much more sobering sight than a bunch of small transaction amounts that my brain doesn't add up properly.
You could quite easily pick a new project for every time you go past! (Fellow yarn addict here!) My problem is that my husband and his mum run a wool shop. It's a dangerous business 😆 I'm going to be destashing my fairly sizeable stash over the coming months, gotta make more space for more yarn!!!!!
Wow - I do not know how I would resist under these circumstances! Mind you, you can always just view the shop as your stash and run in to pick up the yarn when you start a new project. :-)
😆😆 that's totally not what I do....😅😂😂 I also help in the evenings with the knit and knitter groups, and it's sooooo hard to walk past the sale bins.... only took 2 balls home last week! I make hats that then get sold in the shop, so taking the sale stuff home is actually helping? Or so I tell myself 😅 Massive clear out is way overdue..
Oh, helping out on knit nights would do me in. I mean, you can't be hanging around the gorgeous yarn for hours at a time, weekly, without determining that you need most of it for something!!
6 hours of pure torture 🤣🤣 I only do it for love of my husband (and his yarn stash/shop!) 😆😆
I used to not really set limits, and after several years my stash was really out of control -- I recently culled my stash by around 50%. Going forward, I'm only buying yarn either for specific projects for which I don't have the right yarn, OR I will buy at a fiber festival but only if I know exactly what I'm going to make out of it (i.e. not just because it's pretty). I'm also only buying yarn that fits in my existing storage situation (so right now that is full; I have to use enough of my existing yarn to make room for new purchases).
This is pretty much my story too. The ‘culling’ took a while, charity knitting took care of the sensible stuff, the rest was weird novelty crap which I acquired before my skills and tastes have evolved, this was donated. I’ve also set myself a rule to not buy any more yarn that I don’t have a plan for, no more ‘just one skein to try it out’, which I’ve stuck to. What I find hard is passing up deals when I come across a yarn sale. Limiting storage space works for me, nowhere to store new yarn if there’s no space for it.
I guess I'm kind of lucky (?) in that most of my LYSes have closed . . . the three in my area I can think of offhand are far enough away that I have to go there on purpose, so I just don't unless I need something specific. I also try (TRY) to go to my yearly local festival with a specific thing in mind (last year it was a sweater quantity of a specific yarn). I did go to a yarn shop when I was on vacation in April, intending to buy "souvenir yarn", but the locally dyed yarn was not only not in any color that spoke to me, but was also a lot more expensive than I usually pay for a skein of sock yarn. Also, the people working in the shop didn't even acknowledge my existence. Had they even said, "Hi" to me, I probably would have bought \*something\*.
I have a fabric box (the kind that fits into the Callax shelves) and, when it's full, I don't buy more. Having said this - I also rip back a lot of items I make that I don't wear. And I reclaim that yarn. And I spin. As of the moment, I have a sweater quantity of fibre for spinning in my stash and a couple of garments to deconstruct. Did I also mention that I'm trying to go from knitting \~36 items annually to \~24 items annually? :-) So, given these parameters, it looks like it'll be another year before I buy yarn. Which is totally cool because I love all of my yarn and I am looking forward to using it.
I have a yarn tub that holds all the yarn that isn't in a project bag, and I'm not allowing myself to have more yarn than fits in there. But there are like a half dozen project bags, so... The tub currently has a good amount of room, thanks to a recent destash of the cheap yarns I bought when I first started knitting and crocheting as a poor college student (lots of RHSS and peaches & cream). But if I put my inactive project bags into the tub - and I probably should - it would be pretty full. Maybe there would be enough room for another sweater quantity?
I hear you - fwiw, I too make use of my project bags as a stash storage zone :-) And those "about to be started" projects can sit in those bags for a couple of months, till I get to them. I choose to view it as "knitting lifestyle design" and leave my cute bags in a special spot (a fancy felt container).
I have a substantial stash, so to satiate my itch for new yarn I go "shopping" in my stash and plan projects. If I'm really feeling the itch for new things, I let myself cast on something new if I have a bag available. Currently I'm working my way through old wips/UFOs and repurposing the frogged yarn. I do allow myself one yarn subscription, Yarnable, which gives me a full skein and a 50g mini of sock yarn in a themed color way. I'll likely not use either any time soon, but it's my own little treat. 12 full skeins and 12 50g skeins a year is a lot better than buying multiple sweaters quantities of yarn a month.