2KCBWDAY3 Day Three: 30th March. Tidy mind, tidy stitches

How do I keep my yarn wrangling organised? 
This morning's blog subject is a very rude awakening to my phsyche.  My mind has always thought I was quite organized.  Why I even have quite a few of my friends believing that, but in the hard light of reality it is not so.  I talk and think a  lot about getting and being organized but have never gotten it all done at one time.
I have a few good organizational tricks to share with you today that are working out great for me.  Although I have to admit that even my organized chaos works for me because I can put my hands on what I am looking for in a minimum of 5 - 30 minutes (well most of the time).

First let me show you some of the chaos and get this mess behind us, so to speak.

My giant bag of yarn stored in one of the

"vacuum out the air bags".  Not too pretty, huh.

My stash of crochet thread in my favorite basket. 

Not quite as bad as the above mess.

Now let me share a couple of my good ideas with you.

                          

These are a couple of my "Grandma Bags"

I call them that because I can stick my

 grands pictures in the outside pockets and show them off.

The bags hold my projects and patterns and all the gadgets I need whether I am sitting by my chair working or have to grab it and take it with me.  I have several because I usually have several projects working at one time.  If I don't have it in one of the "grandma bags" then the project is usually considered a UFO and shoved into a WallyWorld bag and stuffed to the back of the cupboard.

 

This is my gadget bag, which to me is very organized and helpful.

It is just a large zippered bag made very sturdy.  I found it in the school section of WallyWorld and have used it for my gadgets ever since.  It is big enough to hold lots of goodies as you can see but small enough to fit into my "grandma bags", you ought to give it a try if you don't already have something that works for you.

Next I want to share my favorite organizational accomplishment with you.  For years I struggled with my circular needles.  The first time I use a pair I was in love and I hardly ever use anything else now.  But that meant I was collecting all the different sizes and yikes, they were flopping all over the place.  I saw in the catalogs that there were some really nice EXPENSIVE systems for keeping them but at the time that wasn't an option for me.  So I rummaged around until I came up with this.

A three ringed notebook with plastic page protectors w/top flaps (this keeps the needles from sliding out). 

I put a label on each page telling what size, length and how many of each should be in that sleeve.  I suggest you use a large, at least 3" notebook for this so you have plenty of growing room.  It is a very inexpensive way to keep them organized. If you take one out you can slip an index card in saying what project it is with and maybe even the date taken out.

I have done the same thing with my finished project pages that I use while knitting a project.  With the coming of the computer/scanner/printer age I have opted to scan a pattern, put it into a page protector sleeve, and carry that instead of using the original pattern. 

I can then feel free to mark any changes that I make on the copy and when I look back a couple of years later I can see just how I made that sweater and why it is so different looking than the original pattern.  You can also put the yarn label in the sleeve with any extra buttons and the gauge swatch.

This gives you a great final record of a project and also lets you learn from your mistakes if you felt you had made any. 

Although I have not been with Raverly for very long I can really see the benifits of the organization that they have brought to us "yarneys"  I think it has motivated me to get my Workbasket Magazines indexed and also in the near future figure out how to organize my yarn stash.

My DPNs and my Straight needles are at the moment residing with my partially indexed Workbaskets (a major WIP).

I hope this little bit of info has helped your organiztional skills, even if it infulenced you to find a better way than my way, lol.

I would love to hear your opinions so please leave a comment below or just click the like/dislike button.

Thanks for reading

>^..^<