Organizing...

Today's post is an update on all the organizing I've been doing over the last week.   I made it a goal to get all of my stashed yarn into a large closet.   

I'm used to making do with a hodge podge of cardboard boxes, but after studying the situation I decided that things would not only look nicer if my containers had some uniformity to them, but things might also be more efficient.

So...   I set out to make all of my somewhat organized (if unimpressively  stashed) stash a little more neatly contained.  This is only a small portion that had taken up residence in the corner of my "yarn room":

I considered the various sizes of plastic containers I had easily available to me, and I finally settled on these nifty boxes I was able to buy at Walmart (I figured it would be easy to get more, or easy to return if I bought too many):  

The second day I had to go back and buy more.

I also made use of some containers (mostly cardboard shoe box-size boxes) I already had.  And after several shifts of reorganizing, by mid-week I finally felt like I had something to show for my efforts.  It's still not the prettiest of storage systems, but it's so much more efficient.

This:

Became this:

This: 

Became this:

And this:

Became this:

My apologies for so many dim and uncrisp pictures.  It just wasn't happening today...

Now, I have to admit...  I did not get everything in the closet.  I still have to use these zippered bags to hold quite a bit of worsted weight yarn yet:

It should also be noted that I can't get one box of crocheted threads in the closet.    And clearly, I'm still using a few cardboard boxes for some things. But still...  I'm pretty happy with what I managed to get into the closet - which isn't just yarn, but also my cross stitch/embroidery supplies as well as some other crafty bits on the shelves.

Once the room is painted and I move a bookshelf into the room, I'll be able to make some different decisions about some of what's stored on the shelves of the closet and who knows?  Maybe I'll get my thread in there afterall.   😉

~

When that big job was finished, I then set myself to accomplish another organizing chore I'd been dragging my feet over - my printed out crochet and knit patterns.  I still have way too many, but after sorting through and pitching duplicates and patterns I no longer wanted, I organized what was left into these fun binders:

I'm happy to report that after spending so much on the plastic containers, these cost nothing to put together thanks to a plethora of 3-ring binders we've recently emptied (which were mostly recycled from somewhere else to begin with), and my over abundant paper stash I also have.  I may have to work on paper crafting supplies next...

The icing on the cake about all this organizing is that it's helped me see some projects I want to start working on, and see yarn/color combinations I hadn't noticed before.  There's something about putting your hands on every single thing that makes it more real - yes, Marie Kondo, I was paying some attention when I read about your "magic".   While my yarn has always been organized, this reorganization got my brain geared up and excited to make new projects - which means using more yarn!

Speaking of using yarn...  In between all the organizing, I also managed to start a simple knitted ribbed scarf this week:

What I did here was measure how much I was able to knit in one hour.  Now this is worsted weight yarn and I think my needle is a size 8. In one hour I managed to knit three inches (on a scarf that is about 6 1/2 - 7 inches across.  I honestly have no idea if that is good speed or not, but when I calculated how long it will have taken me to knit this scarf to a length of between 60 - 75 inches, I discovered that this simple scarf will have around 24 hours of knitting invested in it.  😦  

I seriously would have rather not known that.  

But now that I do I will still plug on with it...   Thankful that I can crochet.  Because if I had to depend on knitting alone to use up my stash of yarn, it would take me several lifetimes.

As is, I shouldn't need to buy any more yarn in this lifetime.

To see what other YOPers are up to, visit their blogs in my sidebar.  👉

One more thing...  Starting on November 1st, I plan to unofficially participate in NaBloPoMo again.  I'll post later this week what my personal challenge will be, but I'll say now that I have something fun (for me) up my sleeve.  I'm curious to know if anyone else is considering doing this.  Let me know below if you are!