When I am moved to sort my yarn-and-such, I had best do it – immediately!  The mood does not come upon me often.  So, yesterday, I sorted.

I confess that I was spurred by the general housecleaning necessitated by that most urgent of all housekeeping clarion calls:  Company is Coming!  And while the growing clutter of yarn, knitting bags, teaching notebooks & boxes, pattern books, magazines & catalogs (current and not so current), and such was wearing on my nerves and even causing comment among the family, well, I just had not got around to it…

Then, yesterday the clarion call sparked “the mood” and I sorted.  In a burst of sanity, I bought 3 large bins (2 Very Large, 1 Just Large).  Later, in the midst of the sort, I cajoled my son Geoff – who was running out to purchase fireworks – into picking up another Very Large for me.  And these worked out nicely. 

One Very Large holds: recently purchased yarn that has some purpose (however vague)

One Very Large holds: projects that are really on hold for now – but will probably get pulled out and worked on about September

One Very Large holds: projects that we are not currently actually working on but might, at any moment, pull out and start knitting on

The Just Large holds: projects for Sonja’s baby

I also set up 2 baskets to hold yarn for current projects (it is too bulky to carry all the yarn for certain pieces in a knitting bag).  And I lined up the bags of current projects that I am actually working on attractively and in an orderly business-like fashion. 

Confessions:

Okay, there are 3 bags with slightly silly crochet projects in them – ones I take out and hook about on from time to time. I set them sort of to the side.

I put all the left-over yarn from projects and other random yarn skeins and balls – some big hurking full ones with their ball bands and everything, some little ping pong ball-sized remnants – into cardboard boxes for “later sorting with Sarah.”

There is also a grocery bag of “random bits” (notes and notions and such) “to be dealt with later.” (note: I did do a certain amount of ruthless “tossing of bits and pieces” in the sorting process, but ended up waffling about some others…)

But with everything sorted and stacked in my studio (and out of the family room!), I feel pretty good.  Sarah is happy too (even though she knows about the yarn boxes for “later sorting” and even though I sent several boxes and bags back to her house to live in her art room).