Friday, January 05, 2007

Before and After

That crazy New Year organization bug grabbed me on Wednesday, our last day of vacation, and forced me to clean out the study closet. The study closet is where the yarn lives.


Before the great reorganization of '07 the yarn lived in these large rubbermaid bins. Nothing against the rubbermaid, but I bought the cheaper non-clear bins, and damn if you can't see through those. Every time I wanted to find yarn for a project (unless it was sock yarn which lived in it's own bin - the one about to explode top right), I had to open every.freaking.bin. This, of course, led me to rarely dig in the bins. However, not knowing what you have, and where it is, is a bit counter-intuitive when you're trying to knit from the stash. A quick trip to big lots (one of my favorite stores - right up there with dollar tree), led to fourteen clear bins, some salvaged bins from other areas of the house, and an extra set of shelves from the garage, resulted in this:


Ahhh. I will still have to look a bit for each specific project's yarn, but pulling clear bins off the shelf is so much nicer than digging through six enormous tubs o' yarn. And I was wise enough to sort things - all the dishcloth cotton is together, all the lace, the sock yarn is in the two larger bottom bins, most cottons are together, etc.


I found this particularly humorous - how many plastic storage bins are specific to yarn storage?


Now for the fun part: CONTEST! Partly because this is my 450th post (wow!), and partly because the anal part of me really wants to share this dorky information, we're having a contest.

I'll admit that I did this prior to the great reorganization, (perhaps avoiding some Christmas knitting?) but it seems particularly fitting now. I spreadsheeted the yarn. And it is, um, a wee bit scary.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to guess how many balls of yarn live in my stash. Partial balls of less than 1/2 their original size will not be counted in the total.
Contest closes next Sunday, January 14, at 10 pm CST and the winner will be announced on Monday, January 15.

Have a very knitty weekend! I'll be back tomorrow with our first KAL update!

52 comments:

  1. I want to join the contest. I just have to choose a number? Hmmmm... I want to say 517 but I often guess low so I will say 617. Your closet looks wonderful. Nice job.

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  2. Anonymous6:25 PM

    Wow, that's a tough one. I'm going to guess 554. :)

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  3. Anonymous7:02 PM

    I'll guess 139.

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  4. Anonymous7:02 PM

    I will say first wow!Thats a major improvement.Then I will guess 736 balls of yarn.Things are bigger in Texas even our yarn stash!

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  5. Anonymous7:55 PM

    I LOVE before and after cleanup shots. Yours is particularly impressive, I must say!

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  6. Doesn't that feel good? It makes me want to get back down to fixing up my stash. But it seems to get messy the minute I think it's cleaned up.

    Hmmm - I'll guess 150 balls of yarn in the stash. I don't even want to think about how much is in mine! :(

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  7. Anonymous10:04 PM

    I'm impressed -- I'm not a cleaner. I'm guessing a conservative 114 balls of yarn.

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  8. My guess is, um, 371.

    :)

    Stash on!

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  9. Anonymous10:31 PM

    Let's say 483. :)

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  10. 822. Some of them are deceptive and hidden.

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  11. Anonymous7:17 AM

    How's about 284?
    (I'm notoriously bad at estimating numbers of things...but what the heck?)

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  12. Wow!!! Can you come clean my closet too? My guess is 158!

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  13. 376! That's right, three hunnert sevendy sixx!

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  14. Anonymous8:26 AM

    228?

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  15. Anonymous1:40 PM

    Wow, that is quite the clean up job. I will guess that you have 186 skeins.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog.

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  16. My oh my, what a beautiful closet! Of course, the yarn aides in this beauty, even if it was one of the main reasons the mess was made in the first place. I will estimate a total of 347 skeins of yarn.

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  17. Great clean up job! I will guess 403 balls in your stash.

    Amanda :)

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  18. I'm going to guess 258 balls of yarn!
    Also, I wanted to let you know for the Not a Gift KAL I'm knitting a pair of socks and a sweater for myself! Reading your Knittyboard post made me realize I haven't posted about them yet!
    Thanks,

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  19. 450th post?
    450 balls of yarn, then.

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  20. I'll guess approx. 375

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  21. Anonymous7:53 AM

    545 balls of yarn

    Your stash area looks great!

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  22. Anonymous12:33 PM

    I love a good reorganization story!!! It looks wonderful!

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  23. Anonymous2:35 PM

    Wow! Impressive organization! I'm guessing 239 balls of yarn.

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  24. Anonymous1:53 AM

    ok, I'll guess you have 310 ish balls of yarn...

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  25. I guess 428.3 balls.

    Michelle in Perth, Oz

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  26. Anonymous4:58 AM

    450?
    I need you to organize my whole house!

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  27. 189..??

    Cause if you have 450 balls of yarn JUST in your house I am COMING OVER!

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  28. Anonymous6:35 AM

    458...

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  29. Anonymous6:48 AM

    i guess 225

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  30. I'll guess 728. Those sock yarn bins look pretty big.

    I have a spreadsheet too, but I conveniently ignore the number telling me any sort of totals. =]

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  31. Holy yarnville! That looks like a lot of yarn -- maybe 353 skeins? I'm impressed by all the organization. I keep my yarn in those darn non-see through Rubbermaid bins. Happy knitting, and happy new year.

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  32. Hmmmm.... I'm guessing 463 balls of yarn!

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  33. I'm guessing 392 because 400 sounds like alot:)

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  34. I am going to guess 472.

    The truly dorky import their excel spreadsheets into CraftMemo so they can access it anywhere :)

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  35. Anonymous2:15 PM

    hmm...238?

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  36. Anonymous2:26 PM

    Hi Jenn! I tried to comment earlier...no luck! Anyhow, found you via Chris at Stumbling over chaos. I'm going to go with odd coincidences and guess that you have the same number of balls of yarn in your stash as you have posts on your blog, so that's 450.

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  37. Anonymous2:30 PM

    I'll go with 383, since it's nice and round.

    I'm impressed, though. I'm not sure I want to know how many skeins I have... Knowing might make me feel obliged to stop buying, and that would be sad.

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  38. Mucho, mucho yarn. 817 skeins/balls.

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  39. I got to throw in a guess as well! Nice stash flash by the way!
    I'm going to say 313 skeins.

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  40. 437 ??

    WTG on the reorganization. I inventoried my yarn at the end of the year too. :)

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  41. Oh my. I would NEVER count that. But maybe 378?

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  42. Anonymous12:49 PM

    613. Balls of yarn are squishy.

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  43. Anonymous10:26 PM

    The organizing looks really good.

    I'm going to say 284 balls of yum.

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  44. Anonymous9:40 AM

    Hm. 1001. I feel like a contestant on the Price is Right.

    I want to kiss Bob Barker some day...

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