The Yarn Destash Resolution: 3 Month Report

Right at the start of this year I cleaned out my yarn stash and made myself face a brutal truth: there is a lot of yarn in there. Maybe more than I can use in my lifetime. Maybe I should start to make a conscious effort to decrease the size of my stash…

Yarn stash.
Behold the yarn stash. 

Thus a New Year’s resolution was born: get at least 50 skeins of yarn out of the stash!! I made some basic rules, started a spreadsheet to track my progress, cast on some projects and got into action.

After 3 months I am happy to report that I have made some significant progress. Really, I’ve done a pretty good job of cleaning  yarn out of the bins above. I’ve actually emptied two bins!!

Details of the mitt.
I’ve made two pairs of mitts, these fabulous mitts above for a Knitworthy niece and a pair of thrummed mitts. Okay, these projects really were fussy and slowed me down. They were a lot of time and work, but will be prized possessions for years to come. Total skeins used: 2
Cowl on wooden bear.
In the gloomy days of winter I whipped out two different cowls, a Clinkerbell cowl and this Dissent Cowl. Total skeins used: 3
Finished sweater on the Mother of Cats.
The big workhorses in stash depletion were two sweaters that took time to knit, but really ate up the yarn mileage. This Sturgill sweater and the Daelyn were both knit from the top down and were fast knitting once I hit the stockinette-in-the-round portions of the sweaters. Total skeins used: 12

Have you been keeping count? The above projects used up a whopping 17 skeins of yarn and there were some other small projects that used up 4 more skeins over the last three months; 2 shawls and a pair of socks.

Did you do the math? So far this year I have knitted my way through 21 skeins of yarn!! I am well on the pace to finish off 50 skeins before the end of the year.

Through all of this knitting my trusty feline sidekick (and taskmaster) has been at my side and on my knitting, kneading the fabric into shape (with his now cut off claws!) and chomping on my yarn.

Cat sleeping in shawl.
Seriously. Every project I knit has pictures of him as close as he can get to the action. This is a shot of him on my Color Study shawl. 
Cat and toy mouse.
So of course I made a little mouse using yarn from the Daelyn sweater.

So there it is. Three months. 21 skeins of yarn used up. Things are going well and I’m feeling pretty good about getting at least 50 skeins cleared from the stash.

It was with this cocky and self-assured “I-am-a-knitting-machine”  attitude that I went to the Interweave Yarn Fest last week and hit the marketplace with my BKB Deb. Oops. You might say that I fell off the “buy no yarn” wagon.

But that is another post.

Author: Midnight Knitter

I weave, knit and read in Aurora, Colorado where my garden lives. I have 2 sons, a knitting daughter-in-law, a grandson and two exceptionally spoiled kittens. In 2014 I was diagnosed with a serious rare autoimmune disease called systemic sclerosis along with Sjogren's Disease and fibromyalgia.

17 thoughts on “The Yarn Destash Resolution: 3 Month Report”

  2. You have been busy. What fun to be working through your stash. I admire your skill and your ability to whip out such lovely pieces. And of course your kitty always makes me smile.

    Reply

    1. Have set a goal for myself really keeps me going and I’m so happy that those sweaters fit. Once I find a designer whose pattern fits me I tend to stick to them like glue!! MacKenzie is quite a character; it is a lot of fun to give him a voice through the blog.

      Reply

      1. Goals do keep us going, don’t they? I’m glad it’s working for you. MacKenzie looks like a charmer. We currently have three cats, Tessa who is almost two, Mouse, once belonged to a neighbor but lives with us now is 8 or 9, and our senior Lindy is almost 17. They delight us every day.

  3. You’re doing fabulous! I was doing well until I was gifted another 35+ skeins! I can’t wait to hear what you’ve bought!

    Reply

    1. You hit the motherlode with your gift yarn! How fun, but it does load up the stash some. I mentioned that I was trying to use up 50 skeins of yarn from the stash to a shop owner last week and she told me to just sell some of my yarn on Ravelry. It seemed like cheating, and besides, I love each and every one of my yarns. I don’t think I could just sell them away… the point is to use them!! Thank heavens there are lots of fade, marl, and colorwork options out there right now that helps me come up with creative ways to use yarn!

      Reply

      1. I know exactly how you feel! I’ve been told to sell mine too but feel like I should use it! I did however find a few skeins of older cheap yarn in the bottom of a basket that I wouldn’t mind just donating:)
        I never say no to yarn as you don’t know what treasures you’ll get!

  7. Did you buy less skeins than you’ve knit? Using the first three months of the year as a guide, you could easily knit 60+ skeins this year. That’s well over the 50 you want to knit. You’ll do fine:)
    The projects are all gorgeous! I bet whatever you knit with your new yarn will be amazing!

    Reply

    1. I did buy fewer skeins, and some of them are needed to combine with stash yarns to knit a couple more Caitlin Hunter sweaters. If I use the new ones they won’t actually add to the stash. But I was also a little bad…

      I am so happy with the sweaters. It is fun focusing on the stash, but hard to ignore amazing yarns and colors arriving at my favorite LYS.

      Reply

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