Organize Your Knitting Supplies
If your totes of yarn are out of control and disorganized, it is time to tidy before you continue with a single further knitting project. It is easy enough to keep all the stray skeins, needles, and tools in line, especially when doing so will ensure that supplies are easy to find, easier to imagine new projects with and that you can get down to the business of knitting faster.
Steps
- Sort your tubs by yarn type. A good sorting process will be to place your Show an Alpaca, wool, cotton, novelty, etc. yarn types so that you can easily find the right yarn type for the right project. Keep wool, cashmere and alpaca together. Store with cedar balls, cedar and lavender essential oils (not moth balls, they are highly toxic). You don't want moths eating your yarn!
- Sort by project. This is another alternate method. For instance, you can sort by sweaters, scarf or knitted toy, with each set of skeins bagged together before being put in the tub, etc. If you've got the pattern handy, you can put the pattern into the bag with the yarn for that project before putting it in the tote, so you don't forget what you were going to knit with that yarn.
- Place all the stray balls and skeins together.
- Follow the new system. Once your totes are ready, it will be simple to add new yarn in an organized fashion, including the leftovers out of the works-in-progress basket, the treasured skein off your dresser, the yarn still in its mailer under the bed, the yarn store bags out of your car etc. Put all these yarns in their matching tote. If you have a small stash, or are just really ambitious, you can use Excel to make a spreadsheet of all the yarn you have in store for new projects.
- Gather up your pattern books. Put all your loose paper patterns into a clamp-ring notebook, a magazine box or folder. Choose an order that suits you best - by project, what to knit next, by weight, etc. Shuffle other books around on your bookshelf so that all your knitting books can be shelved together. Put your books together on the bookshelf, in a suitable order.Store your notebook(s) of patterns here with your books.
- Organize the knitting needles. Try making a knitting needle roll up. Or, get strong, plastic freezer bags - choose those that are made of thicker plastic and are thus harder to poke holes in. Put all the needles of one size in one bag. Label the bag with a permanent marker. If you have a great many of one size of needle, make two bags - one for circular and one for DPNs. Put all the bags in numerical order (2,3,4, etc.), then use a strong hole puncher to punch through all the bags below the "zipper." Tie a piece of strong yarn through the holes or insert the bags into a notebook (make enough holes for this). The greatest part about this is when you're knitting a project that will utilize several of one size, you will have everything together. A hat, for example, may use circular and DPNs needles. Just take the whole bag with you, and you've got all you need. Put straights into a pretty vase, but to prevent the "where's the second no. 4?!" syndrome, place a rubber band around the tip of pairs to keep them together. Face this end down in the bottom of the vase, so it doesn't show. This will keep the needles all together.
- Arrange the knitting tools. The tools will include the many tape measures, point protectors, stitch markers, and other "stuff." Store them in a commonsense manner. Collect small, zippered accessory bags or strong freezer bags. In each bag, place scissors, a tape measure, some stitch markers and other items as appropriate. Put each bag in a place where you like to knit. For example, you might leave one in your car, one in your nightstand, and one in the table next to the couch. You will never have to hunt and will always have tools at hand. This is easier than simply dumping them all into one bag, this means less to sort through in each individual bag.
- Keep track of your pile of works-in-progress. If you only have four or five, you can keep them in a smaller plastic bin. Your favorite current project might go in a bowl in your nightstand, and it's ready to be knitted, with needles, tools, etc., all placed together and waiting. Enjoy your newly organized knitting!
Tips
- Do make it enjoyable. As you go along, make a mental list of things you didn't know you had, or had forgotten about.
- Don't sit down and leaf through your patterns, fondle your yarn, or start knitting. You will never finish this way. Think how nice it will be to flip through a book without trying to figure out which pile on the floor to put it back into. Being able to find all the yarn for a project... without looking under furniture. You can do it!
- Work a little at a time on this organizing so that you don't make any huge messes and then go to bed.
- If you use the computer a lot and have uncompleted projects, you might want to make a list of them and put it on your computer's desktop to remind you.
- There is no harm asking a friend to help, as long as you are clear that it may turn into a session of swapping, talking, and knitting. That's okay, but it doesn't organize your knitting mess any faster. Instead, it's best to get a friend who is a new knitter or wanting to learn and offer a free lesson and the yarn and needles needed. They'll work hard to "earn" their yarn!
- Be creative at what you're doing and go with it.
- IKEA produces great, inexpensive magazine boxes. Otherwise try stores such as office supplies and variety stores.
- You can also use plastic drawers from Walmart that are very cheap. They are very compact and you can fit a lot in there
Things You'll Need
- Strong plastic freezer or sandwich bags for your needles and knitting bits and pieces
- Folders or notebooks for patterns
- Totes for your yarn
- A basket for your current work-in-progress
- Single hole-puncher
- A few CDs to help the time pass
