Yarn Diet 2007
yarn dieting for a new yeardestashing sale results
I sold $200 (including about $20.00 I had to give USPS for the shipping) worth of needles and yarn. I replaced about $75 worth of needles and yarn, but the overall result is MUCH less yarn yarn.
I sold 9 skeins of Brown Sheep Worsted. That’s like a WHOLE BOX! I sold 3 skeins of Kid Silk Haze, some Cherry Tree Hill and another premium sock yarn. I also sold Addi Turbos in Sizes 19 and uh 26 or so.
If I could just sell my box of random Lite Lopi, I would feel much better about packing it all up for when/if I have to move. Most of the Lite Lopi is tan, but some of it is purple, red or grey. I bought it for a swaeter and changed my mind and started making little hats from the Lopi book I own. Come to think of it, I probably should sell the book too. A lot of the yarn would be great for mittens!
I’m getting a refurbished 30GB last generation iPod from Apple.com. The grand total – including an extended warantee and MN state tax will be $250.00. So I raised about 1/2 of it, which seems pretty good to me. And of course, I am working now, even if I have been spending my entire income on work clothes.
I’m working at a call center and the dress code is business casual. I need to own more pants and blouses (as opposed to the t-shirt and jeans I normally don.) And I got new shoes. (Wouldn’t you?)
How is your destashing going? I haven’t heard.
well i’m destashing
Hooray. Having sold some yarn through my flickr account (lookup Stephania116 in flickr and pick out the stash sale set), I’m down several hundred yards. I’ll have to tally it up.
How are you all holding up? I haven’t bought yarn in a week or two and I’m feeling the withdrawl already.
the stasher’s magazine – stash activity
Ever feel overwhelmed by what you have planned for your stash? Do your palms sweat when you start to think of inventorying your stash? Do the partially knit projects give you the heebejeebies? Then you need a stash magazine!
A stash magazine is a binder or folder (it could be digital) that contains pictures of the patterns and projects that you have planned, are knitting, or have bought projects for. The best part is that when you are done, you can put it into a completed projects folder! Read the rest of this entry »
days since last yarn purchase
You may have noticed that I’ve put up a little doodad on my sidebar that indicates the number of days since the beginning of the New Year I’ve gone without ‘buying’ sock yarn. (See the following paragraph for the reason I’ve put buying in single quotation marks.) The best thing is you can reset it to 0 anytime you like.
I bought sock yarn last night. But I’m going to it away on my birthday coming up mid-month or I’ll give away a different skein. I think that entitles me to a net purchase of 0. Anyway, if you want some numbers for your own blog, I’m working on cranking them out. Check them out on flickr. I’d also love it if anyone wants to upload some of their own. Preferably in yarn!
You could post knitted numbers (a fun thing to do in a swatch to tell what needle size you’ve used), rearrange your roving in creative shapes or use digital yarn.
Digital Yarn Numbers
For this project you need a few photos of skeins of yarn that you like.
1. Open your first photo in a painting program you have. I used MSPaint.
2. Use cut, copy and paste tool to create your background out of different shapes of yarn. Then use the eraser tool or the font tool to create your number! This is actually how I created the Yarn Diet 2007 buttons and the header for this page. I used the reflection tools to make a picture out of the skeins.
3. Upload the picture to your favorite storage site.
4. Here is the code that I put in my wordpress text widget, although you could put it anywhere if you use a different type of blog program.
<p align=”center”>Days Since Last Sock Yarn Purchase
<img src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/165/346819707_d4d52d6509.jpg?v=0″ width=”150″>
</p>
If you want double digits without creating a new number, just add another imgsrc line for the second number and set both widths to 75 (i.e. half of the original).
If you upload them to flickr, I recommend tagging them with the tag “yarn numbers.”
Please download the images and upload them to your OWN site if you want to use them. Feel free to change adapt or otherwise mess around with them in a non-commercial manner. (Although, who would want to make money off these! LOL!)
no one signed up
I should point out that no one signed up, but no matter. I’m still going to do activities and may still even have a contest at the end of the month. If you participate in them, it would be great if you sent me comments or post on your blog.
So far, there has been the idea of a weekly confessional in the Greatest Knitter diet and several sock yarn wall art projects.
decorating with yarn – my yarn art
Well, I’ve done mine and you can see it here. It cost me about $12.99 in supplies not including the yarn (push pins, matte board and fancy round paperclips) from Target. For another $2.99 I can get another board up for the Yarn Pirate, Lisa Souza and Pippi’s Knee Socks. Or, I could wait until I’ve actually used some of the present skeins. Ahh, art. I think there’s around $150.00 in sock yarn up there if you realize that each of the Lorna’s Laces represents two skeins. Shhh.
I’ve also got a jar on display so I can grab stuff from there also. I can see Trekking, Shelridge Farms, Yarntini, Sockotta, Regia, Cherry Tree Hill, Lorna’s Laces and Interlacements.
stash activities – yarn as wall art
The first activity is to decorate with your stash. Over my Christmas vacation I managed to visit Loop in Philadelphia. I immediately noticed their beautfiul displays. I had a similar idea in mind for this project, but not nearly as well executed. See that red yarn behind the Christmas tree?
Supplies: Several skeins of unused yarn, A digital camera (borrow one if you have to), A hammer. For the hanging match the appropriate hanging devices to the surface. You could use any of the following to hang the yarn: mug hooks, nails, suction cups, clothespins. Some places to hang the yarn include: an unused wall, a sheet of metal, a window, a laundry line or a cork bulletin board.
Install hooks into an available wall. Hang skeins and enjoy your new wall art. Loop had done this beautifully and showcased several shades of the yarn in any given display in different weights, yarns and textures. It made the shop look beautiful.
You could also get a piece of glass or metal and place several suction cup hooks on it and do the same. I might do it on a window in my office using suction cups or use a bulletin board for my wall.
Relevant articles:
DIY’s How to Hang Pictures
For those of you who don’t have an available wall, I recommend setting up a clothesline and pinning several skeins to it. Then photograph it! Repeat for the desired number of colorways and turn into a screen saver. Then stash your yarn back in your closet.
Relevant article:
Windows XP: Create a personal screensaver using your photos.
I’d love to see your finished projects. Just post a link in the comments section! If there turns out to be a large number of them, I’ll set up a flickr group.
good news
I have less than 3 miles of what I’d call sock yarn. I’m not counting my brown sheep since that’s mainly for colorwork hats and mittens anyway. That’s not counting 1 gift that’s coming and 1 skein that’s coming, but I think it’s still less than 3 miles. That might make it tough for me to enter the Lime N Violet Sock Marathon, which by the way you could do and STILL be doing the Sock Beach Diet.
If you are going to sign up, do so soon.
some planned activities
Regardless of whether anyone officially signs up for the two contests, you are free to yarn diet along in January. Have a button and play.
The first couple of ‘events’ are going involve playing with your stash. I might ask you to inventory it, photograph it or weigh it. I’ll offer some ideas on selling and trading your stash and of course, I’ll be asking you to tell a story about something in your stash. Of course, I’ll be making lists of one skein quick gratification projects and I hope you’ll be sharing back. I also will give you some of my ideas about decorating with your stash! That will be too funny.
I think the more you interact with your stash, the less likely you will be to buy yarn. This is assuming you are already knitting crazed. If you do so and are not yet among the fiber obsessed, interacting with your stash could prove deadly to your wallett.
Yarn Diet 2007 sign ups
Leave me a comment here or send an email to moiraeknitting at gmail dot cahm to sign up for either of the yarn diets. Sign ups are now open and end December 26th. Diets will begin January 1st, 2007 of course!
The rules each have their own page. There will be lots of activities in January to help you stash bust and a few articles about managing and relating to your stuff. Have questions? Send me an email or leave a comment below.
