Some reflections on what’s been going on, and tiny tricks to getting yarn stash organisation and knitting schedules done!
REFLECTIONS
It has been a while. Work happened, vacations happened, sickness happened, exhaustion happened, healing happened. Life happened.
LOSS
Lost a friend, and still feeling big emotions about it. Suma, I miss you – the person that you were, the bonding that we had, the long conversations we held. Each time I see the yarns I got from you, I am going to feel happiness and pride to have known a soul like yours. To learn more about what a precious soul she was, this is where she talked about herself – ABOUT US – Thehappyhandsstore.com. Below are photos of products I knitted for my loved ones, with yarns bought from her – Malabrigo (one of my favourite brands) and Rosarios4. I am forever grateful to her for bringing these yarns to me.
WINTER DROP 2023
On the other hand, I just finished Winter Drop 2022 and am feeling a different set of emotions about that. I am happy to see my products being used by so many people, yet there is a pinch of worry when I don’t see all products sold out. It’s hard to gauge what really sells when I present my products online. I think it’s time for me to display my products at local flea markets, in addition to virtual drops. Market reaction is the best way at this point to see what people want, since social media can only help to an extent.
This puts me in a quandary. I’ve always been someone who works behind the scenes and the screen, and I haven’t been interested in sharing my personal self with the world. Hindsight is 20/20, and I’m hoping to become a little more confident about putting myself out there and extroverting the introvert me. The goal is to be balanced. I think this would work in three ways:
- By not isolating myself and becoming a recluse, which almost always leads to me getting depressed. I should try working outside of home once a week.
- By not empathizing with everyone, which almost always leads to me getting anxious about their situation. I should set some serious boundaries with people who tend to overshare.
- By recognizing who my niche audience is, because not doing this makes me go running around like a headless chicken to people who may not appreciate slow fashion. I should find my tribe.
Now that’s a resolution for 2024.
ORGANISATION
Too much non-knitting work for the launch of the drop made me very eager to start knitting again. I had some ideas for next year’s drop, but my mind was fairly scattered. I wanted to make this and that, and also that, and also this. To make things even more chaotic, I wanted to make things from all those patterns I had bought or collected and archived. And of course, though I am methodical, I had given up on organising my yarn stash – so now I didn’t even know what and how much of it I had.
So, this time, I thought its best to have a sit down with all my yarns and notions out in the open, match them to the patterns and make some fabulous things.
A WAY TO ORGANISE YARN STASH
THE PROBLEM
Now, you must remember, that sitting down with yarns to document and match them is a tedious job. Not only does it take some technical information to be input, but there is a huge emotional aspect to it. There are some yarns that:
- I love and never want to knit with them because they look and feel so gorgeous, OR
- I bought from abroad and haven’t found the perfect project that would justify its purchase, since I may not go back, OR
- are perfect for the project, but I don’t have enough meterage, OR
- I used up most of, and want to buy more, but the manufacturer stopped making them, OR
- I see and wonder – ‘what was even I thinking of when I bought them, these are terrible!’, OR
- I bought because someone wanted me to make something, but the deal didn’t go through, which is probably the worst situation anyone can face.
A SOLUTION
In general, data entry is boring. But not doing it is disastrous. Each yarn that I had needed to be checked for bugs, weighed, analyzed for fiber content, and listed. The last few times I used Excel to do this, but this time, I decided to enter all this stuff in a book. How and why this matters, you ask? Because it is super-duper easy to cut and stick a bit of the yarn into a book, so I can see what I have, instead of guesstimating what it could be, given that I sometimes have the memory of a goldfish.
So this is how I went about it –
- Classified the yarn as per the fibre content,
- Sub classified the yarns within a fibre type by the brand,
- Noted down the weight and meterage of an unopened skein,
- Sub sub classified the yarns within the brand by the colours,
- Noted down the individual weights and meterage of what I have, and
- Cut up a bit of yarn from the skein and stuck it next to the whole list.
It looks rustic, and certainly does not have the uniformity associated with an Excel file. But that works with me, because now I can erase and add whenever measurements change. I don’t feel the pressure of having to mess around with an uber neat, printed document.
YARN STASH ORGANISATION
Now that this was done, the big question is ‘how do I go about actually organising the stash?’ Obviously, I headed over to Pinterest to figure this one out. But the fact remains that I live in a dusty city, and all those lovely ideas from squeaky clean would just never work out. I have to keep them yarns wrapped up and in closed boxes. And so, I used the Numero Uno rule in organisation – use clear boxes for everything. Out came the Muji and Ikea clear boxes (Samla here FTW), in went the yarns as per their classifications. And along with the yarns, fabric, buttons, zippers, labels, cards, hardware, unfinished projects … they all went into their transparent homes. The next step, which I will get to, is to label them for better identification.
A WAY TO CHOOSE THE APPROPRIATE PATTERNS
Next step – decide what I want to make for Drop2024. I went through all the patterns, found what really excites me, and listed down about 20 of them. Some are projects that I would want for myself, some are of course for kids, some are projects that I failed at and now my ego is pushing me to retry, and some are projects that a BFF suggested would sell.
Then I looked at my nifty little list of yarns and tried to match them to the patterns. Each pattern requires a certain type of yarn, with a certain meterage and weight, and specific tools. If everything matched, then it’s a match made in heaven. If not, I just swiped left or arranged for a certain situationship.
Eventually it came down to this final list of 12 doable projects.
HOW TO SCHEDULE THE FINAL DEADLINE
That’s not the end of it, though. I’ve learned that having a strict deadline is the best way to maintain the pace. I chose a date in 2024 by which time I think I can finish the lucky 12. I broke that deadline down into mini milestones, keeping in mind that there would be some gaps: weekends, blogging days, school vacations, family visits, mental health days, sick leaves, laziness days, K-drama binge days, wrist and shoulder pain days, PTMs and school functions, social gatherings, coffee mornings, etc., etc. I’m hoping to get done by mid-2024, fingers crossed.
All of this planning took me about three days, I think. My house was obviously a mess, since I was spring cleaning as well. But at the end of three days, I felt more organized, and I think my house looks and feels lighter. I feel calmer knowing what my final date is, what I have to make, and by when I have to make each one. And the best thing is that I know I have all the raw materials I need to make what I want to make. A fear of the unknown has always made me anxious, but I’m trying to recognize and address my triggers. All of these efforts towards reflections and yarn stash organisation are tiny steps towards that. Life may change drastically, but as long as I come back to my plan, I think I’ll be okay.
I’m probably showing you all what’s coming up in 2024, but I’ve never been much of a gatekeeper. If this helps you in any way, I’d be happy. If you think you have a better way and would like to share, I’d be even happier to learn something new. See you in the comments!