Green ... ish

I spent the morning stashing some yarn. It's been a while (shakes fist at baby!), and after a few big projects our bookshelf was covered with about 30 partial skeins of every color I have.

Then I realized I didn't know which yarn was which. Is this White the Vanna or the RedHeart? And these two white don't look like the same white. 

And then I came across this ...

How many greens does one person need? And mind you, these were only the greens that sort of looked similar (in my dimly-lit living room) ... there are WAY more on the shelf.

I realized I had to do a better job keeping track. But how to do track a little ball of yarn?

With little scraps of paper of course.

Now my yarn shelf is all pretty.

Reds, Oranges, Yellows, Pinks, and Purples

Greens and Blues

Whites, Browns (which still need a little organizational love), Blacks, and Grays

Odd Sizes, Weights, and Textures

The husband is much happier now.

Yarn Storage . . .

Found these via Craftzine



This is very much my style:



This one is not for yarn, per se, but I love the idea. I also end up with lots of empty dog food cans.

Organizing: Putting Away In Plain Sight, Part 2

Please refer to my earlier post here for clarification on my love of fabric bins -- it is extensive. But moving on . . .

This week, HOW TO use cereal boxes as storage without looking like a preschooler and/or hoarder.

While you have now learned of my love of fabric bins, it may help to remind yourself of my love of yarn. It is also extensive. I LOVE yarn. I would like to clarify that I am not a "yarn snob"; I define "yarn snob" as someone who 1) knows the difference between alpaca, merino, and llama by blind smell-test; 2) cares about the difference; and 3) would never be caught dead in the vicinity of Red Heart Yarn and/or a Michaels store. Now, some yarn snobs are lovely people, I'm sure, and probably got their start on acrylic yarn like the rest of us. I just don't have the time or budget for their kind of stash. That being said, I will tell you of MY love of yarn . . . every color ever! For some reason, I forget that yarn comes in every color imaginable. For example, on a recent trip to Michaels (I do not hide my love of Michaels, and often schedule dates with my girlfriends that center around the newly opened uptown store) I had only two things on my list -- Ninja Turtle Green yarn and Candy Melts. I turned the corner to the yarn aisle, and I swear, I had a tiny little orgasm. Vanna's Choice, my preferred brand, had expanded its section to include not just the basic colors, but now multi-prints, one that may or may not have been the exact shade I wanted in my nursery. Due to my stupid, grown-up budget however, I put down the perfect, orgasmic color, gathered by Ninja Turtle Green ("olive"), and walked away. And died a little inside.

As you can imagine, I have not always been so disciplined, and my stash has grown and grown. According to my Ravelry stash, I have 101 different varieties (102, if you count the new Olive from last weekend). I have gone through a great deal lately, with my Alphabet Blanket project, and I've been careful to only buy new yarn when I need it for a specific project (stay tuned for the reasoning behind "Ninja Turtle Green"). The main reason for this is that I was running out of places to put all this yarn, and promised myself I'd use up a majority before buying more.

When we moved into the new apartment, the yarn ended up in piles in the 2nd bedroom. Now that that bedroom will soon be renamed "the baby's room", the yarn had to to go. Also, in an on-going attempt to make it look like grown-ups live in our apartment, I needed to plan for how to store/display this yarn in an organized fashion. Cue the cereal boxes!!!

. . . the what?

What's the easiest way to get a lot of boxes? Marry someone who eats a lot of cereal (it also helps if the only thing you can keep down/don't mind coming back up during your many many weeks of morning sickness is Chocolate Cheerios). How do you make these boxes look good? A trip to Party City will suffice.

HOW TO:  Turn Cereal Boxes into a Pretty Storage System

1) Start with the thing you want to store and a few month's worth of assorted cereal boxes of various sizes. You'll want a few large (big ol' box of Plain Cheerios) and a few small (not sure if the Chocolate Cheerios only come in smaller boxes, or if I just refused to succumb to the desire to by like 64oz of breakfast chocolate).

Thing I need to store: Yarn

My cereal of choice

2) Gather Materials

• Cereal boxes, flattened
• Various rolls of wrapping paper, perhaps in complementary patterns or colors
• Tape
• Scissors
• Ruler (optional, depending on your degree of anal-ness)

3) Cut cereal boxes into desired shape. You may wish to create Magazine Files, where you would cut the sides diagonally. I just cut each box in half, creating smaller rectangular boxes. Tape up top and bottom flaps to close the boxes on one end.

4) Cover with wrapping paper as you would a present, folding the end of the paper down into the open side of the box.

Tip: If the folded edge of the paper will be showing on your shelf, and you do not have good "invisible" scotch tape, roll the tape the put it on the inside of your folded edge.

You can also use glue or a tape roller, which may seal the edge more completely.

This will keep the edge clean and less present-looking.

5) Repeat with all boxes in various papers. Stuff with stuff. Admire.

Yarn winding . . .

So Chris turns to me one day, very slyly, and says, "Would you use a yarn winder, if you had one?"
"No, not really", I told him.
I felt bad afterwards, when I realized that he was 1) proving his knowledge of the knitting world and had clearly looked at the Webs catalogue that came that week, and 2) trying to lock down a birthday present for me. Bless 'im.

Back-story . . .
Sometimes yarn comes in balls (or "cakes") . . .

sometimes yarn comes in center-pulled skeins . . .

and sometimes it comes in hanks . . .


Personally, I find the hank the most annoying, because you can't just pull the end from it and knit away like a center-pull skein. You have to undo it and ball it.

Really nice yarn often comes in hanks. Sometimes they have a winder in the store, so when you buy it, they will ball it for you.

"Real" knitters will buy their own winders or "swifts" and do it at home.


 . . . I am not that fancy. I end up wrapping the hank around my feet and rolling it myself.
Sometimes I ask Chris to help . . .

This works too:


But I don't buy enough fancy yarn to make a swift a practical purchase.  However . . .

I came across this posting on the Craftzine blog . . .

DIY Yarn Ball Winder


Which led me to . . .

DYI Yarn Swift: desperate measures


But even better . . .

Winding a skein into a centre-pull ball


And, Chris, you are not off the hook for my birthday. Sorry.