By Holly Kennedy of Sterilite Corporation
The rainy days of April are some of my favorite days of the year. It’s perfect weather to curl up with my knitting projects and a good audiobook without feeling like I should be outside doing yard work.
As an avid knitter, twice a year or so, I like to go through my yarn stash. It's good for the yarn and it's good for me to see what I have. I take this opportunity to get rid of skeins of yarn I know I won't use and to make sure the skeins I love are well protected.
Inspect
Let’s face it, wool is moth food. We all like to believe that there’s no way moths can get into our yarn stash, but the truth is, it happens. So when sorting through your yarn, inspect each and every skein for signs of pests. If you find a suspicious skein, don’t put the rest of your stash at risk – get rid of it!
Purge
Every knitter knows that sometimes you wind up with more yarn than you need for a project, or, if you’re like me, you buy yarn thinking you’ll find a use for it someday. This leads to an abundance of unloved yarn taking up your precious space. So when organizing your stash, get real and let go of the yarn you’re not going to use. Ravelry and eBay are good places to sell your unloved skeins and recoup some of the money you spent. Or if you’d rather donate the yarn, town libraries will often take yarn for their knitting groups to use for charity knitting projects.
Protect
Now that you’re sure all of your yarn is pest-free and you’ve pared down your stash, it’s time to protect the skeins you want to keep. I love to use gasket boxes for my yarn.
They hold a good number of skeins, plus they keep out dust and moisture. Find a system that works for you – whether you sort by yarn weight, by manufacturer or by color – and keep up with it. And for added protection, try tossing in a lavender or cedar sachet. Moths hate these smells and they won’t harm your yarn.
So now that you’ve seen my stash, I challenge you to get organized and share photos of your yarn stash on Sterilite’s Facebook page!
Happy knitting!
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