Your Stash Is Just A Click Away! (Adding Your Yarn To Your Ravelry Account)

Thanks to my hard work yesterday, my yarn stash is finally organized and labeled by yarn weight! (See yesterday's blog post for photos on how I did this.) 

Last night I decided to take on another organizing project: Putting My Stash Into Ravelry.  If you are on Ravelry and like me, have not used this feature before, you must!

To get started, login to your Ravelry Account and Go To "My Notebook" at the top of the page. Select "Stash" from the drop down menu on the left side of the screen.

The top photo shows the stop down menu. You'll see lots of other choices there too. One of these days I will write a blog post on navigating Ravelry to talk about these, but today's focus is on the Stash button.

The bottom photo shows my stash on Ravelry. There's not much there as I just started adding stuff. You can see I have a photo of each yarn as well as the yarn's name and company (If I actually still had the tag and could identify it). Since I lose these a lot, my new resolution is to immediately enter the information and photo of any new yarn I buy right into Ravelry to prevent this. 

Notice right above the photos are some buttons you can click on. First is "Add Stash." This is the one you click on when you want to add yarn to your stash. Once you click on it, a screen comes up where you enter in all of the information about the yarn. Once it is added, be sure to click "Save Stash" at the bottom of the screen. After you are done, you will not see a photo, but you can click on the blank space for one and upload one from your computer quickly. Once uploaded, the photo is saved automatically.

Another cool button is the third one at the top called "Filter Your Stash." Clicking this allows you to sort your stash by weight, yarn fiber, and several other options. This is nice if you have a great deal of yarn in your stash and need to locate something quickly.

So why should you stash your yarn on Ravelry? First, it comes in handy if you are sitting at home and want to cast on a new project.  For example, let's say I want to cast on a new pair of socks and know I have a ton of sock yarn. Rather than physically going through my stash, I can quickly search my stash online while looking at patterns and see what yarn I have on hand. Since I add in which drawer where I have mine stored (Sock-Solid), I can quickly pull out what I need.

The other time having your stash online comes in handy is if you are someplace like Stitches or your Local Yarn Store and are looking at a pattern. If you know the weight of yarn required for a pattern, you can quickly search your stash on Ravelry using your smart phone (assuming you have one). Maybe it is a pattern requiring a few colors of sock yarn and you want to see what you have on hand at home (This helps avoid duplicate purchases too). You can even add in the dye lot of the yarn to your stash notes so if you do run out to your LYS to buy another skein for a project, you can make sure to grab the same dye lot, assuming you purchased the first skein there. 

Another cool feature is you can note whether the yarn in your stash is available for sale/trade. So maybe it is not something you want to knit with, but another user might really want it. If they search for a yarn, they can see who has it stashed and if it is for sale. This is especially helpful if a color way has been discontinued and someone really needs it. 

So there's my tutorial on stashing your yarn on Ravelry. If you don't have an account, use the link above to sign up for free. It is an amazing site with thousands of free patterns plus lots of discussion forums, knit a long a groups, and more!  

Organizing Your Yarn Stash Or What Do I Do With All This Yarn???

Like many knitters I have a ton of yarn. Early on in my knitting days I would take any yarn people would give me, regardless of what it was, and I would routinely hit up sales at local big box stores (Michaels, Joann's) to pick up yarn, needles, notions, etc.

Once I was knitting for awhile, I got to be a bit of a yarn snob. I'll admit it. I love good yarn and I would buy what I loved with no plan of what to knit with it or what was already in my stash. As a result, this is what I had. This is just a small amount of the yarn I pulled out today while organizing. First, I divided it into piles: cotton, sock yarn, worsted weight, and bulky weight.

 I honestly had no idea how much yarn I owned or what I owned. Really, this picture just shows a tiny bit of the yarn I pulled, not to mention the unfinished projects, yarn left over from projects, needles, needle cases, needle gauges, notions, and patterns. Oh, and the piles of sock yarn minis for the sock yarn blanket I will start someday.

Once I started sorting, I quickly decided I had to divide both my sock yarn and my worsted weight yarn into solid and variegated. Yes, I had that much! I have not gone through it all yet other than to sort it. That's a project for another day. I belong to a yarn hoarders destash group on Facebook and plan to sell what I am not using.

Here is my drawer of needles that I need to sort and organize. I am really bad about returning needles to a case after fishing a project, so that's a project for one evening this week. I have a great case for circulars and another for DPNs from Erin Lane Bags (Erin Lane Bags). If you have not seen her bags, they are fabulous! She has bags to meet every knitters' needs. I plan to do a feature on her in a future blog as she just launched a revised website.  I do have to figure out a plan for my straight needles. I'm thinking there is probably an Erin Lane case for that!

Anyway, back to my stash organizing. I had the containers already, two three drawer clear plastic organizers and a five drawer one plus a three drawer colored one my kids no longer used. I just needed to organize what I had to fit into the space available and label what I had so I could find it easier. I decided to put each type of yarn into its own drawer or drawers depending on what I had. For labels, I had these very cool stick on clear labels (No idea where I got them years ago to use in my classroom). The best thing is they are clear pockets so you can write something on a strip of paper and change the paper at any time.

The good news is all of my yarn is organized and labeled! Yay! I have several skinny drawers in the five drawer organizer that I am not sure yet what I will use for, but I will figure it out soon.

The clear drawers on the left hold all of may yarn by weight as do two larger drawers on the right. The skinny ones on top are empty for now as I figure out what to do with them. The box on the top of the right organizer is what holds my "sock orphans" (leftover yarn from projects). I only labeled the ones on the left as the ones on the right top hold scrapbooking stuff that I don't use but still have) and the three drawer one on the bottom has patterns to organize, needles to organize, and unfinished projects.  The basket on top of the left organizer has my knitting bag (empty for now) and the leftover labels, some Post It Notes, and notebooks.  The stuff on top of the scrapbooking bin is scrapbooking stuff I need to organize and probably sell as I do not scrapbook and never have except for one book.

So there you have it, my nice, organized stash. The bad thing about doing this is 1) I realize how much yarn I have so I probably should not buy any for awhile and 2) I really, really need to figure out what I am keeping and selling so I can sell the unwanted yarn and organize my stash on Ravelry. 

I would love for my readers to share how they organize their yarn.  If you have not organized yours, hopefully this post gives you a bit of inspiration. This project took me about two hours. Of course it is just organized. I still have to go through it, but now that it is organized, that project is not so daunting. 

A Little Outdoor Knitting

I wrote before about seizing little moments to squeeze in some knitting time. This morning is one of those times. I dropped my 12 year old off for a week at Boy Scout camp and came home to a 5 year old who wanted to play outside (Husband is still asleep-must be nice to sleep in! 👿) 

I am currently enjoying mid 70 degrees weather on a beautiful sunny morning in Chicago, working on my Hitchiker Shawl a bit while my son plays. The only thing missing is a cup of coffee from Starbucks to sip while I knit. 

Here is my in-progress shawl...

Finding Time To Knit

This has always, always been a dilemma of mine. I do not have a lot of knitting time. During the school year I work as a full time substitute teacher. I am trying to get back into teaching full time after having my second son 5 years ago. With two kids ages 12 and 5 in a variety of activities plus a husband who has a pretty time-consuming job, I don't have a lot of time to knit.

Now that it is summer, my time is a bit more open. The oldest is in a variety of camps and the oldest is in preschool camp two days a week for 5 hours, but I am trying to use the time to catch up on projects around the house, such as weeding wardrobes, removing clutter from our town home, and dealing with my overgrown garden, not to mention the regular things like cleaning my house doing piles of laundry (hence the wardrobe weeding I am doing), getting to the gym on a regular basis, cooking dinner, and the list goes on and on.

With my limited time, this is what I am trying to do to get more knitting time.

1) Knit when my youngest son is occupied and entertaining himself or is watching his bedtime show (Assuming I am not dealing with dishes or straightening up the house which I often do). Even if I get 10-15 minutes in, it's still knitting time.

2) Take along knitting whenever I can. So if we go on a longer car ride someplace and my husband is driving, I will take along a brainless knitting project (Like Hitchiker which is currently on my needles).

3) Once the kids are in bed, sit down and knit for a bit if I can. This only works if my younger one is cooperative in going to bed at a decent hour. Lately this one has been hard, but I try.

4) Schedule regular knit nights with friends. I try once every two weeks to meet friends outside of the house at a local Starbucks for the sole purpose of knitting. It's good for me to get away from the kids for a bit and it means lots of uninterrupted knitting time for me.

I do have to admit I do get a bit of envy here of my single friends who have tons of knitting time. It's hard when I hear about their multiple evenings out to knit with friends each week or the afternoon they spent knitting when I was chauffeuring two kids to activities, making dinner for the family, and cleaning my house. I sometimes wish I could trade places for a bit just to get the extra knitting time. I love my kids and husband, but sometimes I just want lots and lots of uninterrupted knitting time. Until that happens, I am grabbing little moments when I can and trying to turn this unfinished projects into finished ones.

Pondering Entering The World of Podcasting

So I have this idea to start a podcast. I know nothing about podcasts except that I enjoy listening to them. I have been doing a bit of research on how I can start podcasting using my Macbook Pro. I have found that I can record a podcast on Garage Band, an app that is already on my computer (Yay!) and upload it right to iTunes. Right now I am researching USB microphones trying to find a decent one for cheap to get me started. I think I found one called The Blue Snowflake that is around $50 so I am checking reviews and also going to check in with my cousin Steven who owns a few comic book stores and does a podcast called Caffeinated Comics (http://caffeinatedcomics.blogspot.com). Now I have not listened to it, but he is an experienced podcaster, plus a pretty cool cousin so I'm sure he will give me some good advice. If you are a comic book fan, check out his podcast and see what you think, and if you live in IL, he has shops in Lagrange and Woodridge called Chimera's Comics you can visit.

Anyway, back to my podcast idea. I thought it would be really cool to chat about different topics, such as organizing your yarn stash, knitting for charity, navigating Ravelry, and so on. I am still working on a list of topics. I would like to commit to recording a podcast once a week for 15-30 minutes in addition to blogging at least once a week. I am on summer break (I am a substitute teacher trying to get back into full time teaching) so I have the time right now to get these projects off the ground.

So my readers… Do you have any topics you would love to hear me talk about on a podcast? I want it to be enjoyable and entertaining to other knitters so please leave me your suggestions in the comments.

Casting On A New Project: Hitchiker

Let me begin this post by saying I have knit this pattern three times. I made two shorter ones with a hank of sock yarn each that I gifted to my son's teachers last year. I always wanted to make a longer one requiring almost 600 yards of sock yarn, which I did not have in my stash. So last week, I was in Kenosha, WI visiting my in laws and decided to take a trip to my local yarn shop there Fiddlehead Yarns (http://fiddleheadyarns.com). If you ever find yourself in the Kenosha area (right over the IL.WI border), you must visit this fantastic little yarn shop. Anyways, usually I just go in, browse, and buy something that strikes my fancy. This time I went in with the mission of finishing sock yarn to knit Hitchiker ( http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hitchhiker). Now this is a paid pattern, but it is worth it. There are free knockoffs out there, but they are nowhere as nice as this. I am knitting mine with an eyelet row in the sixth row. I have over 800 yards of gorgeous Malabrigo Sock, which is a kettle dyed merino wool. The color way I am using is Tiziano Red. The photo does not do this yarn justice, plus Malabrigo is so soft! I actually visited this shop hoping to get either some Malabrigo or Madelintosh sock yarn, which this shop carries. Sadly the Tosh color ways available were not speaking to me, but the girl working did tip me off that they are expecting a shipment in a few weeks. Yes, I will be making another trip out. So after some time, I decided on the Malabrigo and could not be happier with out this is turning out. Stay tuned for updates as I make something for myself for a change.

Every photo I have tried to take of this makes the yarn look purple, but it is not. It is a deep, rich red. 

A Pretty Teacher Gift

I really love gifting teachers with very nice gifts and I always try to give something special, especially if they are an amazing teacher. My oldest son had such a teacher for 6th grade this year. She is in her 20s, single, lives in the city, and is super fashionable so I wanted to make her something very nice considering what a wonderful job she did working with my son this year. I decided to knit her The Gallatin Scarf (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/gallatin-scarf), which I had knit before so I knew the pattern well. Plus, it is an easy enough knit that I was able to finish this in about two weeks with my limited knitting time. I like it because it is pretty much a brainless knit, lots of repetition in the lace pattern and then bands of reverse stockinette. I did most of this while watching my beloved Chicago Blackhawks play for their 3rd Stanley Cup in 6 years. I cannot remember the yarn I used, but I bought it at my fabulous local knitting shop Elgin Knit Works (http://elginknitworks.com) in Elgin, IL. The shop owner Betsy is so knowledgeable and helpful. I ended up choosing this gorgeous silk-merino blend in a turquoise blue. Unfortunately I misplaced the label so I don't remember who it is by. The finished project is pictured below. The teacher loved it! It's the perfect little scarf to slip over her shoulders on a chilly night in the city. Even though it is knit with a worsted weight yarn, it is nice and airy due to the lacework and the drape is fabulous. I want to make one for myself soon.