Stop Letting Your Stash Rule Your Life. Rule Your Stash!

Stashbusting. For knitters, it is one of the most controversial words there is.

If you don’t have a stash, feel free to stop reading, unless you’re really curious about the psychology of stashing, and how to talk to people who stash. (Interested in how stash happens? Read this.)

If you have a stash, a pile of yarn tucked away for a rainy day, you know what I’m talking about. There’s probably yarn bought ten years ago for something you intended to make, but never got around to making. And the odd skein of something precious, only you can’t find something you want to make with it.

If you have a stash, no matter how big, you probably have a mental catalog of what’s in it and even the project you were going to make with it. The laceweight baby alpaca that was going to be a shawl, the sweater’s worth of yak yarn you paid cash for while your husband was looking the other way, the skeins of yarn in every shade that were meant to be something amazing but are now just sitting there.

If you have a stash, it probably also has scraps of yarn leftover from other projects. Whether it’s a lot or a little, you never know when you might need it, so it gets added to the stash.

If you have a stash, you probably go to the yarn store just to see what’s new, what sparks your interest today. And you can’t resist walking out with three or four projects’ worth of yarn, even though you only came in for one skein of sock yarn.

If you have a stash, you probably have guilt.

Having a stash means you have to protect it from moths. That takes work, and often it means you don’t feel like you can display it out on the shelves (which is what makes it so appealing in the yarn store in the first place). You feel guilty that your beautiful yarn must be hidden away in a plastic bin at the back of a closet.

Having a stash means guilt when you buy yarn only to discover you already had exactly what you needed.

Having a stash means you might be spending more time shopping for yarn than actually knitting with it. If that’s what brings you joy, that’s one thing, but you’re probably feeling some guilt when you look at that credit card statement at the end of the month.

Having a stash means you want to make so many, many beautiful things, but there will never be enough time. If you’re like me, you probably have some guilt over that.

I’m not here to say that having a stash of yarn (or anything else for that matter) is bad. What’s bad is the meaning we attach to it – consciously or unconsciously – and the fact that when our stashes are too big, we often feel dragged down by them rather than uplifted by them.

But there’s hope.

You just have to say no.

You have to know what to say no to, and what you’re saying yes to. Because “No” makes way for “Yes.”

But before you can say “Yes!” to what you want, you probably need to learn how to say no to all that other stuff.

The magical thing is, when you start to say “No” to the things you never really wanted (or the things you don’t want anymore), there’s a whole lot of space left for “Yes!” 

So when it comes to your stash, you have to face it, head on, and say “No,” say goodbye, let go of the things that pull you down, so the bits of stash that really lift you up can do that.

Here’s how:

• Lay it all out on the floor, KonMarie style. You don’t know how much you have until you can see it all in one place. 
  
• Now is the time to empty out every bit of stash everywhere. All the stash in your closets, your knitting bags, your knitting baskets, wherever you keep it. If you can’t remember where it is, then it’s a “No” the minute you find it, and you have to send it away. Don’t risk it being something special. Find it all and put it in one place now.
  
• You always wanted to roll around in a luscious pile of yarn. Now’s your chance. Do it naked, if you want. I won’t tell.
  
• Make two piles. One yes, one no. 
  
• There are no maybes. If you can’t decide, it’s probably a no. 
  
• Don’t worry about saying no to something you once loved. It once brought you joy. If it no longer brings you joy, then its purpose has already been fulfilled. Send it back out into the world where it can bring someone else joy. 
  

For the No’s:

• Acknowledge that they once gave you joy. Remember the joy they gave you, and celebrate it.
  
• Recognize that they no longer bring you joy. 
  
• Do not worry about trying to bring the joy back. Trying to hold on to joy is like trying to catch the wind. You’ll have it for a time, and then it will go. It will come back, but on its own terms.
  
• Let them go. There are many ways to let go of yarn: Sell on Ebay, Ravelry, your blog, or even in the local classifieds. Donate it to a thrift store, charity knitting group, or the little kids across the street who just discovered crafting.

Toss the shit out. If you know it’s bad, it’s probably bad. There’s no shame in throwing it away.
Even if you can’t let all the “No’s” go all at once, make a plan to phase them out. Immediately, they will stop draining your energy, and you’ll feel like your load has been lightened – mentally and physically.

For the Yes's:

• Catalog it. Be specific. Weight, Yardage, Color, anything you use to make decisions when knitting.
  
• Write down what you intend to make with it. 
  
• Write down what, if anything, you need to get started. Whether it’s a notion, a pattern, or another ball of yarn in a contrasting color, write it down. But don’t buy it (yet).
  
• Make a plan for when you’ll use your yarn. Unless you’re dealing with mohair, it can always be ripped out once or twice or even three times if you make a mistake. No other craft I know is like that. Rejoice that your love of knitting lets you fix your mistakes, no matter how bad, and actually spend time making things with the stash you love so much.
  
• Remember, the goal is not to have no stash. (Unless that’s really your goal.) The goal is to have a stash that brings you joy, a stash that doesn’t weigh you down, a stash that fuels your creativity rather than bring you guilt.
  
• The next time you feel guilt over your stash, start all over from the beginning. It doesn’t hurt to weed things out when they no longer feed your soul.
  

If your overall goal is to make your stash manageable again, you will be well on your way.

The key to keeping a manageable stash is not necessarily to eliminate stash altogether, but to be mindful of what you have and why. If you walk into the yarn store with the thought that you’ll just be throwing or giving the yarn away again in six months, will it really be worth it to spend your money on it now?

More often than not, this inner monologue is what saves me hundreds of dollars on yarn each month:

“I’m working on that shawl right now, and I have all the yarn I need. Then I’m going to finish those socks, and I have all the yarn for that. After that, I’ll knit that top, and I have everything I need for that. I do want to run by the yarn store to pick up some yarn for the shawl I want to make after that, but they’ll probably have it next week. Plus, the time I spend driving to and from the yarn store is time I can spend actually knitting. And if the store runs out, I can always order it online. There’s always more where that came from.”

And if all of that isn’t enough to keep me from the yarn store, then that’s fine.

The moment you say “Yes!” to acting on your desire is the real beginning. You just have to know what that desire is.

And there’s always more where that came from. 

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