Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Destashing

I'm pretty attached to my stash. I don't like to get rid of my knitting-related stuff. I love my yarn. I love my needles. I really love my books. But, it's time to do a bit of destashing. Not of yarn, but needles. This is what my stash of needles looks like:

Before I delve into my destash process, let's look at my totally awesome organizer. Yes, I made it myself. I love it. I love the little mushroom print fabric and the twill-tape size label down the center. I love the perfectly-sized pocket at the bottom for a needle gauge. I love the way it hangs in my project cabinet, just waiting for me to cast on something new!


Okay, back to the actual needles. Do I really need that many needles. Um....probably not. I've been knitting for more than 14 years, and one just accumulates needles.

Last weekend, I pulled out all of my metal needles. Addi Turbo, Inox Express, Susan Bates Silvalume and HiyaHiya all came out.

That's a lot of needles. Why the metal needles? Don't get me wrong! I love metal needles. Addi Turbos are slick and fast and wonderful. But, a couple of years ago, we learned that I'm extremely allergic to nickel. My allergist told me he'd never seen anyone react as strongly to it as I had. So, what's a girl to do? I ignored him. Completely. I continued knitting with nickel-plated needles for more than a year. After all, my hands weren't reacting to them. And there's no way skin reactions on other parts of my body could possibly be related to the nickel, right?

Wrong.

Several months ago, I discovered the wonderful Knitter's Pride Symphonie Dreamz circular needles. And the angels sang. I wanted to use these fabulous things for every project I started, so I bought more needles. After a while of not using metal needles, I realized some of my other skin issues were clearing up. If you are a dermatologist or an allergist, you probably aren't surprised by this at all. But I was shocked. How could something that I'm holding in my hands cause a reaction on my shins? I don't know what kind of magic or witchcraft this is, but I'm fully convinced.

So, all of my metal needles got bagged and tagged and ready to sell at the River Knits Customer Garage Sale (which was on May 25)! Now my needle collection looks like this:


Sad, isn't it? Well, not too sad. What you don't see are the two sets of Knitter's Pride Interchangeable circulars that are in their own little case and go with me everywhere.I spent most of Memorial Day sewing, and ended up with this little beauty to hold my interchangeable needles:


Plenty of space for both the full set and the "special" 16" set plus 4 pockets for 4 different cable lengths.


See the zipper pocket in the flap? Perfect for all the little bits and pieces--stoppers, tags, and keys. Love it!

I also spent some time this weekend organizing my yarn a bit. The last great airing of the stash was in November, and I've certainly made some acquisitions since then. So, I updated my inventory with new things and deleted anything I knew was used and gone. I didn't do a full stash airing, just added things that hadn't yet been incorporated. Mileage update: 105 miles of yarn. Tonight, I'm teaching a class on stash organization and stash busting. I think I'm definitely qualified.



1 comment:

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