The dream: Okay, I am going to clean out the stash today. I am going to organize, sort, make notes so I don’t buy the same thing twice, and dig out all of the things I won’t get to in this lifetime and get rid of them. I am going to finish all the works-in-progress, or at least put the patterns and parts together in an organized fashion if it turns out there are rather a few more of them than I remember. I will condense, I will combine, I will find room in the stash closet where none existed before and this time, this time, I will not fill up the newly created space with random yarn purchases (which are not my fault because as we all know, nature abhors a vacuum and you can’t fight physics). I will once and for all put all of my unassigned hooks in one needle case so that I will have at my fingertips the one that I want when I need it, which will save me tons of money because I won’t have to run to the store for hooks every time I start a new project, and therefore will spend less time succumbing to temptation in the form of wool. And I will do it all today. Amen.
The reality: I decide the first order of business will be to get all the stash in one place. It’s all in the stash closet, right? Oh, except for the underbed storage containers in the guest room. And the pile of wool in the cedar chest. Um, there might be a bag (or six) in the living room—stuff I thought I would start on right away so it wasn’t worth stuffing it into the closet. And the bag in the car that I am trying to pretend I didn’t buy… and if it’s not in the house, it’s not in the stash, right? Oh, and the leftovers from design jobs that I don’t think I can part with yet—at least not until the patterns are published because who knows what might happen during the photo shoots. If I had to remake something, I would need the same dye lot. Since that yarn is stored with the work yarn, it doesn’t really count as stash yarn. However, I should probably put all the yarn together because now every single thing will be organized, so I decide I need that, too. This part might take a little longer than I thought. And maybe I need more space… like perhaps a spare house. Okay, moving on.
I am going to empty out all the containers and sort everything by weight—sock yarns with sock yarns up to bulky with bulky. Darn, I have a whoooooooole lot of sock yarn. Well, does the light worsted go with DK or with worsted weight? Is that organic cotton a bulky or a worsted? What the heck weight is baby yarn, anyway? Where did all this stuff come from? Maybe I should sort by color. I need to lie down, but there isn’t any room because there is a two-foot-deep layer of yarn on the bed. I think I will have a snack instead.
Postsnack, I decide that before I sort anything, I should get rid of all the skeins and partials that I don’t want. If I give some things to the local senior center, they will be very grateful and I will have less bulk to organize. This is a fine idea. So I will now look at every skein of yarn and make a decision as to whether it’s something I really think I will use. While I am at it, I will examine all the WIPS. If I decide not to bother with something, I will rip it out instead of keeping it in its partial state, and if it’s ripped out it’s yarn, not a WIP so should be counted with the yarn. Maybe I should bring out the ball winder so I can rip out more efficiently… hmmmm…
Four and a half hours later, I still haven’t laid hands and eyeballs on every skein and WIP, and it’s getting to be pretty near the time that I need to be finished so I can go pick up the kiddo from school and take her to dance class. Maybe I should start putting stuff away—the pile has to be lower now, right, after all my rigorous pondering? I look over to the garbage bag where I put the yarn to be donated. It isn’t very full—in fact, it only has five sad partial skeins and some baby yarn (because this way I don’t have to decide what weight that is). I should maybe think a little harder about giving more away, but decide I don’t have any more pondering time available to me right now. I put the garbage bag in the back of the car. And stop for a late lunch. And some crocheting—if I get going on some of these WIPs, I would surely make progress in the decluttering department.
Having thoroughly lost track of time, I now run to pick up my daughter, walk the dog, and run to dance class. Then we have to eat, then I have to nag about homework, and then I hear I am supposed to have made two trays of brownies for school tomorrow. So I make some brownies. And the kiddo goes to bed.
Now it’s 10:00 P.M. I am fried and have, conservatively speaking, ten thousand bits of yarn lying around. Sorting be darned, I am going to just shove all this stuff back in the boxes and into the closet and will get it really, really organized tomorrow. Although oddly, the amount of yarn that came out of the boxes doesn’t seem to want to go back into the boxes. I believe that exposure to light and air has made the stash expand.
Just past midnight, I decide that if I have to go through it all again tomorrow anyway, it might be just as easy to dump the remaining skeins onto the floor. In fact, I could sleep under some of them and turn the heat down a bit—yarn makes great insulation—and that would be really energy conscious. So this is what I do. The only problem is the panic attack I have at 3:00 A.M. when I get up to use the bathroom, step on a skein of mohair and scream, thinking I have just crushed the dog. I wake up just enough to realize that since the mohair didn’t bark it wasn’t the dog, and if it was anything else living I really don’t want to know about it right now, so I move on and go back to bed.
In the morning the alarm goes off, and in the stark light of day I see my room—it looks as if a small bomb exploded in the middle of a yarn store managed by someone with eclectic tastes. My daughter wanders in, rubbing her eyes, and demands to know why she has to clean her room if mine gets to look like this. And why is it so cold? I put my head under the pillow, count to ten, and then get moving to face the day.
After I deliver my daughter, ever the critic, to school, I decide I have to deal with the stash explosion, and sooner rather than later. Sorting be darned, I squish and squeeze until every last skein of it that came out of the closet fits back in the closet. Instead of the delight of a job well done, I have sort of a sickly feeling that I just wasted two full days getting nothing done that should have been spent writing or designing or doing some other income-producing work.
I vow never to clean out the stash again. Some things just shouldn’t be messed with.