We Have a Plan

Ladies, gentlemen, knitters: With the assistance of my loyal readers, I have concocted a plan for meeting my goal of reducing my stash by 10% in 2007. And since I have a four-day weekend ahead of me, I intend to blog every day of this weekend about my plan and my progress thereunto.

Hey, come back here! I promise to show pretty pictures and not be too boring, OK?

First: The fearless Stariel has bravely volunteered to assist, by relieving me of my entire collection of fun fur and even - gasp! - eyelash yarn, as seen above, for use in her on-going fun fur log cabin throw.

This gets rid of a grand total of 173 yards. I believe that is about 0.0016 percent of the known yardage in my stash. But, hey, it's a start! Plus, she quite admirably volunteered to take dk- to worsted-weight yarn for use in her charity knitting. So, she's going to get a selection of such yarns from my collection of random balls and leftovers. If I were Stariel, I'd expect a box, oh, about Monday. So: three huzzahs for the brightest star in the knitting firmament, Stariel!

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let us review the situation, shall we? First, we have my stash - yarn I have in quantities sufficient for a real project. Twelve skeins of this for a sweater, three of that for a scarf, a big ball for a shawl, that sort of thing. In my last post, I stated that I have over 109,000 yards of such stuff. In reality, I need to check into that number a little more closely and remove such ringers as the 3600 yards of carpet warp, which is really only for weaving, not knitting, so it isn't fair to count it. Whatever the true yardage turns out to be, here's my sub-goal for stash yarn:

Sub-Goal #1: By the end of 2007, reduce the yardage of my stash yarn by 10%, by knitting it up, giving it away, or otherwise disposing of it in a manner befitting its dignity. No hiding it in the compost pile, for example, even though I'm sure it would rot nicely, eventually.

OK, everybody clear on the concept? Let's move on to the next category: works in progress. By this I mean those projects which were cast on, but not yet finished, as of November 11, 2006, which is when I inventoried. As of that date, I had 16 works-in-progress. I'll go into these in greater detail later this weekend, but for now, let me just state my sub-goal for the WIPs:

Sub-Goal #2: By the end of 2007, complete six of the 16 WIPs present and accounted for on 11/11/06.

Why six? Because it's about one-third of the 16 WIPs, and I figure; a) I really ought to get some of these done, since they have been hanging around for up to five years; and b) there will be yarn left over from each of these projects, presumably, and that yarn needs to be dealt with, somehow. So, one-third of the WIPs it is. Wish me luck...

Next: the random yarn. These are the leftovers of projects past, plus the occasional ball or ninety that I bought back in my Kaffe Fassett days, plus the leftovers from other peoples' projects, plus stuff I have no idea why it's there. There are about 250 quarts of random commercial yarn, if I can trust the labels on the plastic storage containers. Thus...

Sub-Goal #3: By the end of 2007, reduce the quartage of my random yarn by 10%, in any suitable way. (No composting.)

Now, this task I have further broken down into small tasks that I can envision completing. My pile of random balls and leftovers can be broken down into several sections:

The Fun Fur/Eyelash Component: See Stariel, above.

The Not-Wool. No, I'm not talking about acrylic, I'm talking about a half-ball of cotton and the little bit of mohair and the nylon ribbon yarn and the lovely silk/viscose blend - that sort of thing. I separated all of this away from the wool or mostly-wool, and I intend to knit myself (or possibly, some unsuspecting recipient circa Christmas, 2007) two feather-and-fan throws. A giant blue/green/purple one, for the bottom of my bed, and a mostly-red one, for the sofa. I am proud to report I have cast on for the blue throw and wisely decided it will have longish fringe, to boot, as that will use up even more yarn. The photos above show a small sample of yarn for each throw. With luck and perseverance, these two throws will use up quite a bit of yarn.

The Skinny: I have a good bit...hold on, I'll check the quantity... I have about 20 quarts of quite thin yarn, laceweight, fingering, that sort of weight. Since I've had such pleasant experiences plying my handspun singles with skinny commercial yarn, I'll keep these 20 quarts of skinny yarn aside, for plying. If I get desperate, I'll start plying them with each other and then using them up.

The Plain Wool: There are maybe 15 or 20 balls or part-balls of solid-colored wool or mostly-wool. These are going to Stariel (unless she objects) for her charity knitting or other amusement. She might get some yarn from the next group, also.

The Heathered or Multi-colored Wools: The majority of my random yarn is nice, basic, worsted-or-so-weight, heathery wool or wool blends. Think Bartlett or Lamb's Pride. For these, I'm resorting to not-knitting. Not crochet, either, but weaving. I'm thinking I will weave these yarns into a rug or two, coincidentally using up the 3600 yards of carpet warp I mentioned above. More details on this when I figure them out.

Enough on the random yarn. What's left? Well, there's my fiber stash. I know I brought back about 12.5 pounds of roving and such from Rhinebeck , but I'm not sure what else there is. I'll inventory the fiber this weekend and then:

Sub-Goal #4: By the end of 2007, spin 10% of the fiber stash into yarn.

I have no illusions that I'll get all the resulting yardage knit into something, but I'll try. That's the best I can do.I figure that if I spin it, at least it's still moving along the cycle of fleece to fiber to yarn to garment.

Speaking of fleeces, I have four. Thus:

Sub-Goal #5: By the end of 2007, get all four fleeces processed into fiber.

I figure that will reduce the weight of the fleeces by well more than 10%. You'll hear more about these fleeces this weekend, as I intend to package these up and send them out Monday.

My goal for the yarn I've already spun? Oh, come on, I don't have that much spun up already - I just started spinning in July!

Well, OK, there's a bag full. I promise to inventory the yardage and add it to the total of stash yarn. You happy now?

One last category - the unknown. There are a number of cones of yarn sitting around, the yardage of which I have not the foggiest. Therefore, I promise to weigh these and:

Sub-Goal #6: By the end of 2007, reduce the weight of coned yarn by 10%, through appropriate processes. (Back to the no-composting rule here.)

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. I think I'll quit now and go knit something mindless.

That pile of needlepoint yarn? We're not going there, gang, just back off and go deal with your own stash. Glass houses and all that. Although, if you're going to throw bricks through my glass house, could you please make them bricks of silk fiber? Pretty please?