I have HOW MUCH YARN?!?

All the New Year knitty resolutions were starting to have an impact and got me thinking - why not be a lttle more organised with my knitting? WIPdown I need, as I've UFOs dating back four years. Lacealong would also be good, as I've a bunch of (a) laceweight yarn and (b) shawls in my queue. Stashdown also good, as I don't have a vast disposable income. I do, however, have a vast stash. So Step 1, check stash. How much do I have?

Holy crap. 46.6km. That's a lot of yarn (and I'm blaming the laceweight!). So what to do?

Well, I decided to make A Plan. A quick and straightforward plan. I would peruse my stash, match it all to patterns, and get cracking. Simple, right? Well, four days later, I've only just completed the planning phase. And with the exception of the mitten tops I just grafted over a coffee, I have managed absolutely NO KNITTING TIME in that period. So far, The Plan does not seem to be working too effectively.

Here's why. Long long ago (okay, up until last August), all my stash lived, and had always lived, in one easily accessible place (a massive wooden trunk in the bedroom, which Himself was not allowed to open, under any circumstances, lest it give him heart failure). Well, then I split from Himself, and had to transport all my stash to my dad's (who was, as you can imagine, delighted! Well, okay, not so much. Though he has since become fascinated by the transformative powers of the blocking process. He'll sit and watch for ages. And check on it to see how it's drying. Aw! Anyhoo, I digress). Much less space. Bulk of stash living in attic. Until last Saturday.

On Saturday, I was in the attic finally putting away the boxes of Christmas decorations. And I thought "sure while I'm up here..." and The Plan was born. The bulk was transported downstairs (kinda fun tossing yarn bags out the attic and watching them bounce down the stairs! Just sayin'.) where further perusal took place. See, I'd selected yarns on the basis of "ooh, pretty!", and not because I necessarily had any clue what I was going to do with them. But I figured I'd have a better chance of actually completeing stuff if I was at least loving the yarn I was working with.

So onto Sunday. By this time, all yarns had been appropriately labelled and packaged, and most were then transferred into a newly-emptied, newly cleaned, rather large drawer under my bed. (It had been filled with my brother's computer crap, but he kindly took that out of the way. I think out of fear that if he left it, I'd start knitting stuff out of the miles of cables he had living there. A fear not entirely unfounded). Then I started matching yarn to patterns, and sorting accordingly (I've a nice handy 5-drawer unit that lives at the end of my bed, too, for the stuff I need immediate access to).

Obviously, this process needed new labels, new folders, new punch-pocket plastic sleeves, and more labels. That took care of Monday. The end result? I have nice neat folders (two, one for WIPs, one for Stuff to Do). Might need to buy more plastic sleeves. And maybe little coloured labels that I can stick on a pattern once it's been DONE. (Yes, I am that easily amused). I know where all the yarn is, and what I'm going to do with most of it.

So in brief (ha! too late for that!) I have ten current WIPs that I will DEFINITELY finish before the end of 2012 (not counting my Socks Scraps Blanket which (a) I haven't started yet, and (b) will never end, as I'll always have sock scraps). I have, give or take, 35 projects on my "to-do" list. And, if all goes to plan, by year's end I'll be 20km down on my stash (and that's actually not including the yarn I'll be using to finish off current WIPs, so I'll be further down again!).

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me! Doable, no? Hey, wrong answer!