A Winter’s Garden

A healthy yarn stash is like a garden. If we tend it well, with prudent

weeding and fertilizing, it will feed our creativity indefinitely. –Clara Parkes

Some things a woman just has to do on her own and this weekend was the moment. For weeks I have been half-itching, half-dreading getting all of my yarn out from its various hidey holes and storage places, spreading it across the room and seeing just exactly how much and what I have on hand. Is it as bad as I think? Could I truly open a yarn store with just what I have on hand? Is there yarn which was acquired at some point in time about which I have completely forgotten or do I have a good handle on my inventory? I always love the feeling of wanting to make something and finding just what I need on hand. Could I have that feeling even more often?

With Jim and all the kids away, I decided to find out. Quick before I could lose courage, I raced home Friday after work and like an industrious ant, I began pulling yarn out of drawers, plastic tubs, under the bed storage, plastic bags and before I went to bed, I had this:

The Green Room was almost impassable with yarn strewn from one end to the other. Dakota picked his way through the piles carefully and with some concern. You can see him in the photo to the right watching me to see what in the world was

going on. We went up to bed. I guess we were both wondering what I had gotten us into.

It was a tremendous relief Saturday morning to see that the kitties had not touched a thing in the maelstrom of fiber. Good kitties. You can tell they grew up in a house of strings. They know better.

I started tentatively picking at the piles. I tackled sock yarn first. In just a few minutes I had a gorgeous drawer filled neatly with all of my sock yarn. That was the trick. Just take one thing at a time. Soon I had a drawer devoted to lace weight yarn, a plastic bin just for bulky and semi-bulky and another filled with worsted weight. Two ridiculously large bins featured sweater kits–I will never freeze. Another bin held  odds and ends. Luckily, I had help in the form of my faithful hound. He knew just what to do. When you have a snout this long, you gotta rest. A ball of yarn is just what the doctor ordered.

By the time Jim got home, the green room looked like this:

Not a trace of the disarray. The secret of my long term over-indulgence is safe and only you and I know how bad it really is…psst don’t tell.