Reducing the Stash and Other Exercises in Futility

The new year always gets people excited about resolutions, and striving to be "a better person in 20XX." Fat people go on diets, lazy people join gyms, and fiberholics go on yarn, fiber, or fabric "diets," with the goal to finally finish those UnFinished Objects (usually referred to as "UFOs"), get rid of all that excess [fill in the blank], and even resort to swearing off buying anything new until a certain portion of the stash is gone.

This is an exercise in futility.

Fiberholics are unable to stop buying fiber for any length of time simply because we can't create without the raw materials: fibers. OK, maybe we really don't need the fibers for 8-10 different projects sitting around waiting for us to get to them, but unlike horses and sailboats, fiber doesn't "eat while you sleep." As long as as the fiber is stored properly, it can sit for years--even decades--and still be ready to be used at a future date, when it will only be more expensive. This probably seems like rationalizing an addiction; I'll remind myself of that as I'm busy using up some of the horridly expensive camel hair I got free years ago, and have stashed away to spin into yarn at a later date.

My own fiber stash is relatively small. Only 23 of those 12-gallon "tuff crates" of fiber and yarn, and another 30 full of fabric. This may seem like a lot for the average person, but not for somebody that works with fiber, fabric, and does historical reenacting. That fact was brought home last weekend when a bunch of us moved everything out of a friend's attic in preparation for reroofing the family manse. This was an organized move--as things came down out of the attic, costumes went one place, armor went another, and fabric went into the back parlor. As the boxes came down, they were neatly stacked until each stack was 6 feet tall.

We filled the entire back parlor, a room the size of a small storage facility space.

When we finished, we threw a tarp over the last set of shelves, still full of boxes of fabric and trims, and called it "done." There simply wasn't any room left to move more stuff into the house proper.

My own "stash reduction program" (which I prefer to the word "diet"), is a haphazard affair, as I have so many different things I'm working on at any given time. I have knitting projects for when I'm in knit mode, crochet projects for crochet mode, embroidery projects, and of course the ever-present need to do historical costuming. Add to this the projects for meetings (they don't require the same level of concentration), and I have a sizeable UFO stash. However, they will eventually get done; it just takes time, of which I have precious little.

I'm still managing to crank out a fair amount of stuff, in spite of a much too busy schedule. I finished Charity Scarf #1, a navy and winter white garter stitch scarf for the National WWII Museum's scarf drive. I also started (and have half finished) Charity Scarf #2: an olive and winter white crocheted scarf for the same scarf drive. Picked up the yarn to make Charity Scarves #3 and #4. Cleaned and tuned up my Reeves parlor wheel and started spinning some "mystery wool" (polworth?). Hung new Venetian blinds in the studio. Wound into balls 8 oz. of merino superwash sock wool in beautiful heathery shades of blue that I had purchased as roving and spun in 2001. Not a bad week's work.